NEHA Board Members Meet With Members of Congress for Hill Day
NEHA News ReleaseRelease Date:
March 4, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chana Goussetis, Communication & Marketing Director, National Environmental Health Association
NEHA Board Members Meet With Members of Congress for Hill Day
Denver, CO – On Thursday, March 3 the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) Board of Directors, members, and staff spent the day meeting with congressional representatives to share ideas and concerns related to environmental health and support for the environmental health workforce. As part of the organization’s fifth annual Hill Day, NEHA members met virtually with 37 congressional offices.
“This all-day event allows the NEHA board to advocate for the profession, highlighting the challenges it is facing due to COVID-19, the need for support from the nation’s federal policy makers, and the decimation of trained staff due to funding cuts and overwork,” said Doug Farquhar, NEHA Government Affairs director.
Every person living in the U.S. deserves a strong and effective environmental health workforce to ensure that food is safe to eat, water is safe to drink, and the air is safe to breathe. Public health cannot operate, nor the economy thrive, without the cornerstone of an adequately trained and certified environmental health workforce.
The congressional visits focused on meeting with both Democrat and Republican members of House and Senate Appropriations committees to discuss the environmental health profession, federal funding of environmental health, and the inclusion of environmental health within the PREVENT Pandemics Act.
Discussions included fiscal year 2022 and 2023 funding for the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health, and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, highlighting the importance of federal funding for the environmental health workforce to address environmental health concerns at the state, tribal, local, and territorial levels ranging from food safety and clean water to climate change and environmental justice.
NEHA is the only association that advocates before Congress solely for environmental health and the environmental health profession.
About the National Environmental Health Association
The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) is a professional society with more than 6,000 governmental, private, academic, and uniformed services sector environmental health professionals in the U.S., its territories, and internationally. NEHA is the profession's strongest advocate for excellence in the practice of environmental health as it delivers on its mission to build, sustain, and empower an effective environmental health workforce. This mission is fulfilled in the products and services offered by NEHA to advance the environmental health professional through credentialing, training, education, networking, professional development, and policy involvement opportunities. Learn more about NEHA at www.neha.org.