The proposed budget released Tuesday by the Trump administration would cut EPA funding by nearly a third — from $8.2 billion to $5.7 billion. And employees at Boston’s EPA headquarters plan to take to the streets in protest.
"There is really sort of a low morale," said Steve Calder, a Clean Air Act inspector for the EPA and the president of a union representing many of the agency’s 600 employees in Boston. Calder says the cuts would result in a 20 percent reduction in the agency's workforce nationwide.
"There are some people who are close to retirement age, that just say, 'you know, it's time for me to go. I don't want to see what's going to happen to my agency.' They feel it very personally," Calder said.
And Calder said some of those more senior staff people with the most institutional knowledge would likely be the first to take buy-out offers. "So it would really cripple the EPA in many ways by the amount of reductions that are proposed."
Calder said there are about 50 EPA programs that the Trump administration wants to eliminate or decrease funding for, including "quite a few" focusing on climate change. Trump has called climate change "a hoax."
Calder said the cut would have a huge impact on their ability to enforce clean air, water and other environmental regulations. And he said he fears over time, without federal enforcement the "rules of the road" would change for companies.
"It's now a game of what can a company get away with to maybe increase their profits, and it's sort of a slide to the bottom, that other industries feel as though they have to now ignore environmental regulations," Calder said.
Calder said the Trump administration has argued much of the work the EPA does could be done by states. But Calder added that states are already underfunded, and now face an additional cut in the federal funds they receive for such purposes.
"So I don't know how you shift more responsibility to the states and give them less money, and expect them to be effective in their environmental protection," he said.
Federal workers are expected to march from the New England regional EPA office in Post Office Square to Boston Common at noon on Wednesday, where they will hold a rally protesting the cuts.
"People, especially in the federal government, feel sometimes their hands are tied, they can't do anything," Calder said. "But they are also citizens. They do have the right to free speech. And as long as you're not in the federal building, then you can go out and get your message sent out to the general public. And the public needs to know what's going on here."
