Environmental Defense Fund | Today's Workplace

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President Donald Trump ran on a platform of giving a voice to rural voters who felt forgotten by politicians in Washington. But his proposed budget, released on Tuesday, proposes deep cuts to crucial Department of Agriculture programs that many rural residents, and farmers, depend on.

The budget proposes an almost 21 percent cut to the USDA, the third-largest percentage cut proposed for any agency, behind the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department. It would cut crop insurance?—?which pays farmers for losses due to extreme weather, or compensates farmers for loss if prices are higher than guaranteed at the time of harvest?—?by 36 percent, far deeper cuts than were proposed under the Obama administration. And it proposes to “streamline” conservation programs, while eliminating the rural development program aimed at bringing infrastructure, technology, and utilities to rural communities.

“The Budget Proposal guts the USDA by 21 percent and makes further cuts to programs, all of which will leave rural and urban farmers, low-income families, and taxpayers more vulnerable,” Mike Lavender, senior Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an emailed statement.

The proposed budget zeroes out programs like the USDA’s Farm Safety program, which seeks to reduce farm sector injuries by training workers in how to properly use farming equipment. It also eliminates programs like the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s watershed protection projects, which helps both protect sensitive watersheds from environmental degradation, like soil runoff, and helps rural communities respond to natural disasters like floods.

“Agriculture is a risky business, and we absolutely need an adequate safety net for farmers while also providing incentives that will accelerate adoption of conservation practices,” Callie Eideberg, senior policy manager for the Environmental Defense Fund, told ThinkProgress via email. “Eliminating any program that helps farmers increase resiliency and protect natural resources is a shortsighted decision that can have harmful consequences.”

Key research programs aimed at helping farmers adapt to the changing climate?—?like programs that offer grants to farmers interested in experimenting with innovative conservation techniques?—?would also face deep cuts under the proposed budget. More than $33 million would be cut from agricultural research programs like the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), which provides grants for agricultural sciences, and the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program (SARE), which helps farmers fund conservation projects.

“The budget would slash funding for key agricultural research and conservation programs, undermining the ability of farmers to sustain their land and their livelihoods for the future,” Lavender said.

Cuts to USDA research programs would hardly be the first time the Trump administration showed science to be a low priority for the agency. Trump is expected to name Sam Clovis, a conservative talk-show host that denies the scientific consensus on climate change, to be the USDA’s undersecretary of research, education and economics. That would put Clovis in charge of the USDA’s entire scientific mission, including research programs aimed at helping farmers respond to climate change. Current Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue also denies the scientific consensus on climate change, calling climate science “a running joke among the public” in a 2014 op-ed published in the National Review.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Trump budget does not specify what will become of one of the Obama administration’s signature climate-focused programs within the USDA, the regional climate hubs, which connect farmers with on-the-ground information about climate science and adaptation in their region. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney did say on Tuesday, however, that the budget at large was aimed at decreasing the “crazy” climate spending of the Obama administration.

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress.org on May 23, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Natasha Geiling is a reporter at ThinkProgress. Contact her at ngeiling@americanprogress.org.

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Three hundred thousand residents of Charleston, West Virginia are unable to use tap water because a chemical storage facility spilled 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MSHM), a chemical used to “clean” coal, into the Elk River. This tragic incident highlights the need to update the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), including the TSCA’s whistleblower protection provisions.

Incredibly, the EPA and the company that contaminated Charleston’s water supply have very limited data on the health risks posed by MCHM. And the site of the chemical spill has not been inspected since 1991. According to theEnvironmental Defense Fund, TSCA has fundamentally failed to protect the public against harmful chemicals. Due to a nearly impossible burden on the EPA to prove actual harm in order to control a dangerous chemical, the EPA has required testing of approximately 200 of 30,000 chemicals and has succeeded in mandating restrictions on the production or use of only five substances. In addition, TSCA enables chemical companies to conceal safety and health data from the public by designating all submissions to the EPA as confidential business information.

Hopefully, the chemical spill in Charleston will spur Congress to act on pending legislation that would strengthen chemical testing and regulation. But the proposed TSCA reform legislation is missing a critical element – a much-needed update of TSCA’s weak whistleblower protection provision.

TSCA’s whistleblower protection provision ostensibly protects whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting violations relating to violations of TSCA or for assisting or participating in a proceeding to carry out the purposes of TSCA . But the statute of limitations is just 30 days and the burden of proof for the whistleblower is higher than the burden of proof imposed on whistleblowers in most analogous whistleblower protections laws administered by the Department of Labor.

In reforming TSCA, Congress should update TSCA’s whistleblower protection provision to include the following features that have become standard in most of the whistleblower protection laws that Congress has enacted in the past decade:

The causation standard should be contributing factor, i.e., the whistleblower prevails by proving that protected activity was a contributing factor in the unfavorable action. A contributing factor is any factor which, alone or in connection with other factors, tends to affect in any way the outcome of the decision.
Once the whistleblower proves that protected conduct was a contributing factor in the adverse action, the employer can avoid liability only if it proves by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same action in the absence of the employee’s protected conduct.
Extend the statute of limitations to at least 180 days.
Authorize preliminary reinstatement, i.e., the employer would be required to reinstate the whistleblower at the conclusion of an OSHA investigation finding that the employer violated the TSCA whistleblower protection provision.
Offer whistleblowers the option to remove their claims from the Department of Labor to federal court to try their claims before a jury.
Eliminate the “duty speech” loophole to ensure that employees who blow the whistle in the ordinary course of their job duties are protected.

When an independent investigation was performed of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia that killed 29 workers, the investigators found that a culture of fear and intimidation contributed to the explosion. Miners were discouraged from reporting safety violations and miners who disclosed safety issues were fired or ostracized. In order for TSCA reform to be effective, whistleblowers in the chemical industry must be protected against retaliation.

This article was originally printed on Whistleblower Protection Law Blog on January 15, 2014. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Jason Zuckerman is Principal at Zuckerman Law (www.zuckermanlaw.com) and represents whistleblowers nationwide. He is the author of the Whistleblower Protection Law Blog (www.whistleblower-protection-law.com).

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Tag: Environmental Defense Fund

Trump targets USDA with some of the deepest proposed budget cuts

Tragic Environmental Disaster in West Virginia Should Spur TSCA Reform, Including Stronger Whistleblower Protections

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