Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day, Environmental Protection Agency employees and advocates call for help as the Trump administration rolls back environmental regulations and lays off hundreds of workers.
Earth Day was marked not with celebration but with a sense of urgency and despair for Environmental Protection Agency union members in Chicago as the Trump administration continues to roll back environmental regulations and lay off hundreds of employees.
On Tuesday, more than 50 Midwest EPA union members and environmental advocates, many dressed in black, held tombstone-shaped signs as they chanted, “We want clean air, we want clean water,” in downtown Chicago.
Jennifer Walling, executive director for the Illinois Environmental Council, stood in front of the crowd and accused the White House of choosing to put cost cutting over the health and well-being of Americans.
“If we’re not paying these workers and we’re not paying in dollars, we’re paying with people’s organs, we’re paying with children’s health,” Walling said. “We’re paying with lives.”
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