Legislative Actions

Government Affairs tracks key pieces of federal and state legislation that promote or reflect our policy statements. Listed below are the critical bills introduced in Congress or the states that we are tracking.

Contact Your Legislators

Our members are encouraged to provide their own comments to the proper legislative body to assist in enlightening policymakers about environmental health. Use the tools below to find your legislators.

Take Action

We encourage our members to advocate and lobby for environmental health. Anyone—including people employed by state, local, tribal, or territorial governments—can advocate on public policy. Learn more about the types of action you can take, and what is or is not allowed in our Government Affairs and Advocacy Guide.

Federal Legislation

We advocate for several pieces of legislation each Congress. For the 118th session, we support and urge our members to contact their Congressional members to advocate for the following bills:

  • Protecting Health Care for All Patients Act (H.R. 485): A provision expected to be included in the bill would use the Prevention and Public Health Fund to pay for this bill, totaling $1.19 billion in cuts over FYs 25-29, roughly a 13% cut over that period. The Prevention and Public Health Fund provides critical resources to state, local, tribal and territorial health departments to keep their constituents communities healthy and safe from waterborne, vectorborne, foodborne and many other environmental health threats. Any cuts to the fund would threaten these underfunded public health programs. Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to protect the Prevention and Public Health Fund from legislation that would cut its funding from FY 2025 through FY 2029.
  • FY 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill: Support for the increased funding for critical public health agencies and programs as Congress moves forward with finalizing the FY 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Committee is moving a bill that contains deep cuts to many programs within the CDC, including climate change, and contains numerous new anti-public health policy riders. The Senate Appropriations Committee recently passed a bipartisan version of the appropriations bill that maintains funding for most programs at the agencies and rejects the new anti-public health policy riders contained in the House bill. We support the Senate version of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill.
  • Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies bill (Ag/FDA): The Ag/FDA bill provides a non-defense discretionary total of $25.313 billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee, $532 million (2.1%) below the FY23 enacted level and $3.622 billion (12.5%) below the FY24 President’s Budget Request. The FDA needs at least a 10% increase in FY 24 to cover expanding responsibilities and continue and improve existing initiatives. We encourage the House Appropriations Subcommittee to increase Ag/FDA spending enough to cover expanding responsibilities under the consolidated human foods program.
  • House Appropriations Committee to the EPA: We oppose the 39% budget cuts by the House Appropriations Committee to the EPA. Cuts of such significance will reduce these governments’ ability to provide necessary environmental health services to the public, furthering the number of waterborne, vectorborne and foodborne diseases.
  • Healthy at Home Act (H.R. 5533): Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) bill seeks to provide funds to eliminate mold in HUD-assisted housing.
  • Public Health Infrastructure Saves Live Act (PHISLA): Senator Patty Murray's (D-WA) bill seeks to establish $4.5 billion in dedicated, annual funding for a grant program to build up and maintain the nation’s public health system across the board.
  • Fix Moldy Housing Act (H.R. 1104): Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Jenniffer González-Colón (R-PR) bill authorizes a study and creates voluntary standards on how to best assess and remediate mold, provides funds to establish licensure programs to train proper mold assessment and remediation, and allocates funds for states and tribal governments to safely assess and remove mold from homes and public buildings.

State Legislation

2023

  • State Climate Change Legislation | Summary
  • State Food Safety Legislation | Summary
  • State Food Freedom/MicroEnterprise Kitchens Legislation Webinar | Slides

2022

  • State Climate Change Enacted Legislation | PDF
  • State Drinking Water Enacted Legislation | PDF
  • State Enacted Legislation: Food Safety Legislation | PDF

2021

  • State Enacted Legislation: Cottage Foods, Food Freedom (Updated 03/03/2021) | PDF