EPA Region 3 union rep says Trump’s proposed cuts would hurt public health

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

March 21, 2017 | 6:05 PM

Emma Lee / WHYY

Gary Morton, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local which represents EPA workers, joins protesters outside the agency's Center City offices.

The union representing employees with the Environmental Protection Agency says President Trump’s proposed cuts to the agency would risk public health. The administration is proposing to slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent. That would include eliminating more than 3,000 jobs at the agency.

Gary Morton is president of AFGE local 3631, which represents EPA employees working on the ground in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and D.C. Morton says morale took a hit when staff members heard about the proposed cuts.

“It was devastating, it was extremely devastating to morale,” Morton said, speaking outside of EPA Region 3 headquarters in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday. “The proposals as they are will not allow us to protect human health and the environment.”

Morton joined a small protest outside of EPA Region 3 headquarters. He says if the cuts go through, states including Pennsylvania and Delaware will feel the impacts directly, not only because of less money available for local environmental protection, but also, he says, because states often hand over politically sensitive investigations to the EPA.

“Sometimes there’s political connections that get in the way of enforcing the regulations. As union president I’ve seen cases where the state’s have asked the EPA to handle the toughest cases.”

Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says he wants to turn the enforcement of environmental rules over to the states. EPA officials did not respond to a request for comment.