What Scares Americans the Most?

Every year, the Chapman University Survey of American Fears takes stock of what terrifies Americans most—but this year, they saw something new. For the first time ever, worries about the environment cracked the top 10.

And Americans are worrying with good reason. The Trump Administration has proposed a budget for the EPA that would eliminate or drastically slash the programs that keep us safe.

American businesses rely on a healthy environment to create opportunities and to grow their business. For example, Brownfield grants are cut by 30%. Ohio has 921 sites where pollutants prevent economic development and threaten public health. The grants that help catalyze private sector loans to bring these properties into productive use. Research has shown that restored brownfield properties raise property values as much as a mile around them by 5-15%. In Ohio, $18.4 million was spent from 2012 to 2016 on these grants, improving many cities and towns.

But you can find a way to sleep easier: Reach out to your Senators now, and tell them to stand against any appropriations bill that cuts EPA funding.

The budget cuts would impact issues important to Ohioans and Ohio businesses:

• Pollution of oceans, rivers, and lakes—and pollution of drinking water: The proposed budget eliminates the Nonpoint Source Monitoring Program, which helps identify and mitigate runoff pollution from roads, parking lots and farm fields. The Leaking Underground Storage Tanks grants, which protect water and soil from tanks that leak chemicals, will also disappear. And water pollution control grants and state public water system supervision would be slashed by nearly a third.
• Global warming & climate change:President Trump’s budget would eliminate basically all funding for EPA’s work on climate—including the Clean Power Plan, international climate programs, and eviscerating all climate research.
• Air pollution: President Trump’s budget cuts EPA grants for state and local air quality monitoring by a third. These are the grants that allow your local officials to keep track of whether or not the air you and your loved ones are breathing is safe—and to warn children and the elderly to stay inside when it’s too dangerous to breathe outdoor air.
  So if you’re worried, you have reason to be. But the good news is: you’re not alone. And if all of us stand together, we can fight to ensure these disastrous proposals never become a reality.

Take action today, and make sure your Senators stand against any cuts to our crucial environmental protections.

Call your Senators now and tell them to fully fund the EPA.

Sen. Robert Portman (R)

• Phone: 202-224-3353
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