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Senators urged to reject drastic budget cuts at National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency

The following is an appeal from the American Lung Association
Last week, the House of Representatives passed HR 1, which massively cuts the budgets for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other key agencies that help protect lung health and public health. This bill ignores public health and will have dire consequences for all Americans, especially people with lung diseases, including lung cancer, asthma and emphysema.

U.S. Senators are home in their states this week and it’s crucial they hear from you. They need to get the message loud & clear that when it comes to funding the federal government, tough fiscal choices can be made without jeopardizing public health.

Here’s what the House of Representatives did last week when they passed HR 1:

* They decimated EPA’s ability to protect the public health from life-threatening air pollution through appropriations “riders” and by slashing EPA’s budget by approximately one-third;
* They hamstrung the CDC by reducing its budget by 25 percent, limiting its ability to protect children from tobacco and severely hampering its ability to address diseases like asthma; and
* They cut $1 billion from the NIH, which is working to find cures and treatments for diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema and asthma.
* They blocked implementation of the Affordable Care Act, meaning pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid would no longer be guaranteed help in quitting smoking; seniors will once again face the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole”; and children with asthma would again be denied coverage because of their pre-existing condition.

The Senate is expected to consider this funding bill when they return to Washington next week. They need to hear a strong message from you now that they must protect the public health by restoring funding for these critical agencies and eliminating any rider that would hamper EPA from implementing the Clean Air Act, or delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.