Tlaib speaks about Trump budget harm to environment, health

 

By SUE SUCHYTA

Times-Herald Newspapers

DEARBORN – U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-12th District) and other advocates spoke about the impact of the Trump administration’s budget cuts on the environment and health Aug. 18 outside Salina Elementary School.

Tlaib said she introduced the Fix Flooded Basements Act in Congress because the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasn’t covering the mitigation that was needed to prevent the toxic mold that is now present in some area basements that experienced flooding.

Tlaib said FEMA currently covers a new furnace and water heater but doesn’t cover the actual mitigation cleanup.

She said FEMA originally helped coastal communities but now the Midwest is being directly impacted by the climate crisis, and the legislature must help ensure that communities like those in southeast Michigan aren’t left behind.

Tlaib said she chose to speak at Salina School in the city’s South End because every classroom window has a view of corporate polluters.

She said her grandmother lived in this neighborhood, and she didn’t realize as a child that the rotten egg smell in the air was not normal.

Tlaib also said the high rates of asthma in the area are not normal, either.

“These plants around it are spewing toxic chemicals, and I’ve been coming here and teaching the kids, who translate for their parents, that we have a right to breathe clean air,” she said. “I remember that my grandmother never knew there was another option.”

Tlaib said even poor immigrant neighborhoods deserve clean air.

She said as the Trump administration is rolling back bedrock environmental protections it cannot be ignored that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, and it shouldn’t be allowed to get worse.

“This cannot be more destructive to our planet or our public health,” Tlaib said.

She mentioned the smoke from summer wildfires poisoning the air, and predicted that it will become worse.

Tlaib said the attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency workforce are designed to cripple the agency’s ability to hold corporate polluters responsible. She said there are not enough inspectors locally to perform the oversight that is needed.

“We all know the current administration only cares about making their friends and corporate polluters richer while dangerous pollution makes people in our community sicker,” Tlaib said. “(President Donald) Trump’s big budget betrayal is devastating our public health and our environment.”

She said clean energy plans are being eliminated, while key protections that make for healthier communities are being gutted, as well as eliminating federal programs that would drive down energy costs and protect the air and water.

Tlaib said the tax exemptions for fossil fuels makes her angry.

“Some of the richest industries that make our climate crisis worse are now being funded by our federal dollars investing in it,” she said. “Even though we know renewable energy is proven to be cheaper, it allows coal and gas companies to extract on public lands.”

Tlaib said programs that families rely on through the EPA, FEMA, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Health all are all being cut.

She said this is all on top of “devastating” cuts to food assistance programs as well as Medicaid.

“Trump’s big budget betrayal will cut 17 million Americans, our neighbors, off of health care, including 450,000 here in Michigan,” Tlaib said. “It’s even more disgusting and shameful that all this is being done to give billionaires and massive corporations trillions of dollars.”

She said the betrayal is the “largest transfer of wealth in the history of our country.”

 

Tlaib said the 23 percent of families in her district who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is $6 a day, will be cut by 15 percent.

“We know the Trump administration is aggressively gutting agencies that protect our health and our environment, and are rolling back critical climate regulations dealing with toxic air and carbon pollution from plants like the ones here in the Dearborn South End,” she said. “I know all of us will continue to stand up and speak that truth, and we will not stand by while the Trump administration dismantles the EPA’s environmental protections.”

Tlaib said the people deserve clean air and no one should be begging our government to protect us.

“Our health should always come first,” she said. “We will continue to demand that and understand that all of this is a human right, and none of us should have to live with these devastating impacts.”

City Council President Pro Tem Leslie Herrick said that while the city’s industry provides jobs, it also provides the drawbacks of having industry in your neighborhood.

She said the city’s government has looked for ways to hold corporate polluters accountable, including trucks that contribute to fugitive dust.

Herrick said asthma and cancer rates in the South End are among the highest in the nation.

She said it is not something that most people think about unless they are living in the midst of it.

“That is why environmental protection, regulation and funding is critical to the lives right here in Dearborn and beyond, because the air and water doesn’t stay right here,” Herrick said. “It goes into the Detroit River and it goes everywhere in the air, so we have increases asthma rates not just in the South End but across Dearborn, and we have asthma rates higher than the national average.”

Mary-Jacqueline Muli, founder of The Climate Justice Nurse, said she started the initiative to address the issue of climate change.

She said the consequences of the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill are dire for communities like Dearborn and Detroit.

“There is nothing beautiful about the bill that dismantles my ability to care for patients,” Muli said. “Hospital closures are occurring nationwide, driven by cuts to Medicare and Medicaid funding.”

She said the cuts will destabilize the health infrastructure at a time when the most vulnerable population needs support.

Muli said failing infrastructure is allowing water to enter homes, which in turn causes mold infestation, which in turn is a threat to human health, especially for those with respiratory illnesses.

She said government cuts prevent people from receiving the health care they need, and when they finally do seek help, it is often too late.

“How do we expect to build resilient communities when the very institutions designed to protect our health are threatened?” Muli said. “How can a healthy body be resilient in an unhealthy environment?”

She said she urges everyone to lobby for restoration of Medicare and Medicaid benefits that help ensure equity and accessibility.

“Health care is a right to every one of us in the city, the state and in this country, and that we have the resources to tackle the health challenges caused by climate change,” Muli said. “Protection from government is not a privilege of the rich but a right for all of us.”

 

Dr. Lisa Del Buono is the executive director of the Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action, which she said is a statewide coalition of practitioners and public health professionals advocating and educating for climate solutions which she said are also health solutions.

She said she appreciates the work of those who shine a spotlight on the Trump administration’s actions, which will disproportionally impact the Detroit area.

“The damage coming forth from the current administration is both vast and it is wide-reaching,” Del Buono said. “Most of the institutions designed to improve the quality of our lives and protect our health are being systematically defunded and destroyed.”

She said health experts agree that climate change is the greatest human health threat, and that health professionals are seeing its impact every day.

“It is common sense and scientific consensus that dependable and affordable electricity, clean air and water, healthy foods and green space are all critical to protecting human health,” Del Buono said. “Unfortunately, many of the funds that were set forth in the last administration to help us transition to cleaner forms of energy, more resilient farming and electrifying our homes and transportation have been taken away by the big, anything but beautiful budget reconciliation plan.”

She said millions of vulnerable people will lose access to healthcare.

“People with disabilities, low-income children and some seniors will experience a delay in diagnosis and treatment,” Del Buono said. “It will mean that some people won’t be diagnosed with high blood pressure until they come in with a stroke, and some people’s cancers won’t be diagnosed until it has spread too far to cure.”

She said some people with diabetes will ration their medication and end up in an emergency room with life-threatening infections and kidney failure.

“Patients, your loved ones, deserve better,” Del Buono said. “So, as we maneuver through these perilous times, times in which our current administration is systematically dismantling the social safety nets that protect human health and well being, I do take comfort knowing that things will come back together again and that the work that each of you is doing here today will inform how things come back together.”

LeJuan Council, CEO and co-founder of Feed Your Neighborhood Corporation and Detroit Area Disaster Recovery Group, said residents were upset when flooded basements were not included as part of the FEMA disaster relief because it was not considered a “living area.”

She said when she was recently out of town for a week, water got into her basement and allowed black mold to form. She said she is currently living in a motel until the mold remediation can be completed.

Council said the remediation chemicals are almost as strong as the mold.

She said climate change is a reason people become displaced from their homes, and the federal government needs to provide relief through FEMA for those situations, which she said is a bipartisan issue.