Letter
Letter to Congress on Increasing FY2023 Appropriations for Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior, June 21, 2022
June 21, 2022
The Honorable Jeff Merkley
Chairman
Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
531 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Lisa Murkowski
Ranking Member
Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Betty McCollum
Chairwoman
House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
2256 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable David Joyce
Ranking Member
House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
2065 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, Chairwoman McCollum, and Ranking Member Joyce,
As Congress considers the fiscal year 2023 appropriations, we write to ask that special consideration be given to the environment. In his encyclical on ecology, Laudato si’, Pope Francis affirms every government’s “inalienable responsibility to preserve its country’s environment and natural resources” (no. 38). One important way that you can fulfill this responsibility is to provide adequate funding to those federal agencies charged with care for creation.
The President’s Budget for FY 2023 includes requests for $11.9 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and $17.5 billion for the Department of the Interior (DOI). These funding requests represent, respectively, a $600 million and $1.9 billion increase from FY 2022 funding. We urge you to adopt the President’s recommended increase, especially towards the many environmental projects consistent with integral ecology, including lead pipe replacement, investments in water infrastructure, methane emissions reductions, and abandoned mine reclamation and remediation.
The EPA and DOI are instrumental in conserving and caring for our nation’s most precious natural resources, promoting public health, and securing environmental justice. The EPA and the DOI rely on robust funding to administer many important initiatives that reflect the integral ecology called for by Pope Francis in Laudato si’, which recognizes the human and social dimensions of the environmental crisis (Cf. no. 137). Thank you for your commitment to caring for our common home and advancing the common good.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Paul S. Coakley
Archbishop of Oklahoma City
Chair, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development