Letter
Letter to Congress Regarding Budget Reconciliation, June 26, 2025
June 26, 2025
Dear Senator:
On January 13, we wrote to offer principles we hoped would shape budget reconciliation. On May 20, we wrote to offer a comprehensive analysis of the House version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” In advance of the Senate’s consideration of this package, we write to offer our perspective on how this bill impacts the common good.
Pope Leo XIV recently spoke to legislators on their responsibility to the common good. He said:
This would mean, for example, working to overcome the unacceptable disproportion between the immense wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and the world’s poor (cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum, 15 May 1891, 1). Those who live in extreme conditions cry out to make their voices heard, and often find no ears willing to hear their plea. This imbalance generates situations of persistent injustice, which readily lead to violence and, sooner or later, to the tragedy of war. Sound politics, on the other hand, by promoting the equitable distribution of resources, can offer an effective service to harmony and peace both domestically and internationally.1
We are grateful for provisions that promote the dignity of human life and support parental choice in education. These are commendable provisions that have long been sought by the Church. However, we must also urge you to make drastic changes to the provisions that will harm the poor and vulnerable. This bill raises taxes on the working poor while simultaneously giving large tax cuts to the wealthiest. Because of this, millions of poor families will not be able to afford life-saving healthcare and will struggle to buy food for their children. Some rural hospitals will likely close. Cuts will also result in harming our environment.
Furthermore, the Senate proposal continues to promote an enforcement-only approach to immigration that is unjust and fiscally unsustainable. The bill would erode access to legal processes, including life-saving humanitarian protections, while paving the way for families and children to become the focus of unmitigated enforcement efforts. We implore Congress to rectify these aspects of the bill before moving it forward, and to keep in mind the following principles:
Protect human life and dignity. Fundamental to all of the priorities expressed in this letter is the sacredness of every human life, and the intrinsic dignity of the human person, created male and female, and made in the image and likeness of God. We therefore strongly support ending taxpayer subsidization of major abortion and “gender transition” providers such as Planned Parenthood.
Care for the poor. The Senate bill contains several identical tax provisions as the House bill that, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), will raise taxes on the working poor while giving a large tax cut to the wealthy. According to the CBO, the bottom 10% will lose $1,600, while the top 10% stand to gain, on average, $12,000. The bill cuts Medicaid and SNAP and fails to renew ACA premium tax credits. The CBO found that the House bill, combined with recent ACA marketplace changes, will cause more than 16 million people to lose their health insurance. The Senate bill goes even further. The changes to SNAP will cause millions of people to go hungry. These provisions are unconscionable and unacceptable.
Family formation and strengthening. Families will modestly benefit from “Trump accounts”, a refundable adoption tax credit, paid leave incentives for employers, and childcare support provisions in the bill. However, because refundability remains the same, the small expansion of the Child Tax Credit will only help middle- and high-income families, leaving behind the lowest-income children. The continued elimination of the personal exemption will mean tax incentives will not favor larger families the way they did pre-2018.
Adequate revenue for the sake of the common good and avoiding future cuts to poverty programs. Although the CBO has not yet scored the Senate bill at the time of this writing, the CBO assessed that the House package will result in a nearly $3 trillion deficit over ten years – twice the cost of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which it seeks to extend. The CBO indicated that increased interest rates due to inflation caused by the House bill would outpace revenue gains. Even assuming possible economic benefits, the poor should not be the ones to finance these changes, now or in the future.
Progressivity of the tax code. This bill raises taxes on the working poor while simultaneously providing tax breaks to the highest-income taxpayers. In the JCT’s preliminary analysis of the Senate bill, nearly $1.6 trillion of the deficit is from the continued virtual elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which was designed to prevent high-income earners from avoiding tax liability through excessive use of credits and loopholes, and the raising of estate tax thresholds to $15 million. These benefits will go almost exclusively to the highest income households. Nearly all, if not all, of the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP could be eliminated by simply allowing the AMT and the estate tax to return to 2017 levels. The bill should be improved so that the risks taken fall on those who stand to benefit most rather than on those on the margins of society.
Incentivize charitable giving and development. The inclusion of a $1000 “above-the-line” charitable deduction in the Senate bill is a very positive step in the right direction. Please continue to find ways to expand participation to help reverse the decline in charitable giving.
Support parental choice in education. We are very grateful for inclusion of permanent scholarship tax credit legislation in budget reconciliation. USCCB’s Committee on Catholic Education has long supported legislation that would provide families in all fifty states access to the education of their choice. We urge some important technical changes (see appendix) to ensure these provisions deliver transformative benefits for children and parents across the country for generations.
Inclusion of immigrant and mixed-status families. As provided, the unprecedented increase in funding for immigration enforcement and detention would disproportionately impact immigrant and mixed-status families with strong ties to American communities. Attempts to offset this funding with punitive fees, including those that prevent children from reunifying with their family, are counterproductive and undermine the integrity of our legal immigration system. As a nation owing much of its past, present, and future prosperity to the enduring contributions of immigrants, we can and must do better to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate these members of our society.
Energy and environment. The nearly $500 billion cut to clean energy incentives and the repeal of environmental programs and energy efficient loans create significant barriers to accessing clean energy, especially for rural, urban poor, and middle-income families. Cuts will also lead to increased pollution that harms children and the unborn, stifles economic opportunity, and decreases resilience against extreme weather. These changes will also discourage clean energy companies from investing in or continuing operations.
In the attached appendix, we provide additional feedback according to these moral considerations. We urge you to remain consistent in protecting human life and dignity by pursuing a better way forward that protects rather than harms poor and vulnerable people. Before advancing this bill, we ask you to think and act with courage and creativity to preserve human dignity and uphold the common good and to change the provisions that undermine these fundamental values.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Borys Gudziak
Archbishop of Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia
Chairman, USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development
Most Reverend Robert E. Barron
Bishop of Winona-Rochester
Chairman, USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
Most Reverend David M. O’Connell, CM, JCD
Bishop of Trenton
Chairman, USCCB Committee on Catholic Education
Most Reverend Kevin C. Rhoades
Bishop of Ft. Wayne-South Bend
Chairman, USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty
Most Reverend Mark J. Seitz
Bishop of El Paso
Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration
Most Reverend Daniel E. Thomas
Bishop of Toledo
Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities
1 Pope Leo XIV, Address to Members of the International Inter-Parliamentary Union (June 21, 2025). https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/june/documents/20250621-giubileo-governanti.html.
Appendix*
Protect Human Life and Dignity
Defunding Major Abortion Providers: Abortion is not healthcare. We strongly support preventing major elective abortion providers from any longer being eligible for taxpayer-funded, federal Medicaid dollars. RETAIN Sec. 71118 (Federal payments to prohibited entities).
Defunding “Gender Transition” Procedures: Every effort should be made to protect people from experimental, life-altering medical interventions, promoted by providers under the deceptive label of “gender-affirming care.” We strongly support prohibiting the federal subsidizing of “gender transition” procedures. RETAIN Sec. 71117 (Prohibiting Federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender transition procedures).
Care for the Poor
Raising Taxes on the Poor While Cutting Taxes for the Wealthiest: The Senate appears to have the same tax structure as the House bill. According to the JCT report on the House bill distribution, in 2027, those making less than $15,000 will experience a nearly 17% increase in taxes, while all other income brackets are decreased. Worse, in 2029, those making less than $15,000 will see a more than 50% increase in taxes, and those making between $15,000 and $30,000 will experience more than a 10% increase, while all others experience cuts, with the highest percentage cut (-10.8%) going to those making $500,000 to $1,000,000. Worse still, in 2031, those making less than $15,000 experience a 72.7% tax increase, and those making between $15,000 and $30,000 see a more than 20% tax increase, while everyone making more than $30,000 experiences a decrease. If one looks at the breakdown in income quintiles, it is even more shocking: in 2031, the bottom 20% of income earners will experience an extraordinary 468.2% tax increase, while all others – including the top 0.1 percentile – will receive a tax cut. It is unjust that the lowest-income Americans face a tax increase while the wealthiest will receive the largest tax cuts. The tax provisions should be fixed to avoid this outcome.
Medicaid: This bill undertakes the largest Medicaid cut in history. The CBO estimated the House bill would result in 7.8 million people losing Medicaid coverage. While the CBO has not yet released an estimate for the Senate bill, it is clear that it will result in even more people losing coverage. The poor should not lose access to healthcare—a fundamental human right—in a bill that raises their taxes while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Additionally, the following amendments should be considered to remedy this situation: Sec. 71124 imposes even stricter work requirements than the House bill. STRIKE or AMEND Sec. 71124 to exempt all parents of children under 18 from new work requirements and limit the age of work requirements to individuals up to 55 years of age to account for age-related health needs and greater challenges in finding new employment, provide more funding for implementation and public awareness efforts, provide additional state flexibility in implementing work requirements and utilizing hardship waivers, ensure a low paperwork burden for enrollees, and address challenges faced by vulnerable populations such as the lack of stable housing, access to mail, phones, and internet. Most Medicaid recipients already work, and work requirements ignore the realities of low-wage work, caregiving responsibilities, and health limitations. These requirements will not support people looking for work, creating artificial barriers to care through excessive red tape. STRIKE Secs. 71107, 71125, and 71114, which add to the increased burden on enrollees by requiring more frequent eligibility redeterminations, new co-pays for some enrollees, and limits on retroactive coverage. STRIKE or AMEND Secs. 71120 and 71121 to ease the burden on state Medicaid programs, which will be limited in their ability to raise revenue if restrictions on provider taxes and state-directed payments are implemented, forcing cuts to services and enrollment, and harming Medicaid enrollees, health providers, and communities, particularly jeopardizing rural hospitals. STRIKE Sec. 71110, which limits access to healthcare for many lawfully present, taxpaying noncitizens by stripping Medicaid eligibility from those with certain humanitarian protections. STRIKE Secs. 71112, 71111, and 71109, which cut Medicaid matching funds for states for both emergency Medicaid and for providing coverage to certain immigrants with their own funds and ends the requirement for Medicaid coverage while citizenship or immigration status is being verified.
Affordable Care Act Enhanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC): The Senate proposal fails to extend the APTCs, which will result in 4.2 million people losing access to affordable health coverage, according to the CBO’s analysis of a similar provision in the House bill. The Senate proposal also ends subsidized ACA marketplace coverage and Medicare eligibility for many lawfully present, taxpaying noncitizens. It is unacceptable for health policy decisions made this year to cause 16 million people to lose their health insurance with no plan or alternative pathway for them to access healthcare.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): Congress must reject the SNAP provisions in the Senate reconciliation bill that will cause millions of families to go hungry. STRIKE Sec. 10101, which would not allow the Thrifty Food Plan to be updated to reflect the cost of feeding a family, cutting future benefit amounts and leaving families hungry at the end of the month. STRIKE Sec. 10102, which would impose enhanced work requirements that serve only as an additional barrier to accessing adequate nutrition, rather than helping those impacted find and maintain suitable employment. At minimal, further exemptions should be made to these burdensome requirements. While the exemption for parents with children under 10 years of age is welcome, we urge you to AMEND Sec. 10102 to provide more flexibility for caregivers and to continue offering exemptions for people experiencing homelessness, veterans, and youth who are leaving foster care, as in the House bill. STRIKE Sec. 10108 to continue to provide nutrition assistance for lawfully present immigrants, including refugees, asylees, trafficking survivors, and others. STRIKE Sec. 10105 and 10106, which impose alarming state cost-sharing measures—doubling the administrative cost for all states and severe penalties for error rates—that threaten the financial viability of the program in multiple states, ultimately punishing those who will go hungry through no fault of their own. While the Senate penalty for error rates (Sec. 10105) represents a modest improvement over the House proposal, it fails to guarantee necessary nutrition assistance in all states. STRIKE Sec. 10103 and 10104, both of which provide cuts to SNAP’s Standard Utility Allowance, impacting SNAP eligibility and benefit amounts. At the time of this writing, Sec. 10108 has been ruled noncompliant with the Byrd rule and is expected to be removed. We affirm that this section should be struck from the final reconciliation bill.
Farm Bill: The bipartisan Farm Bill should not become part of a partisan reconciliation package. Separating out key elements of the Farm Bill will leave others without a path forward. Moreover, the significant increase in commodity supports appears to come at the expense of SNAP benefits. The interests of farmers and hungry families should be aligned, not opposed.
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): A powerful pro-work, pro-family tool in the fight against poverty, the EITC, should be expanded for low-income workers without children to ensure they are not taxed further into poverty. STRIKE Sec. 70613, which creates an additional barrier to accessing the credit by requiring pre-certification before filing a tax return. This burdensome requirement will discourage and block many from accessing the credit.
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC): The bill makes encouraging improvements to LIHTC, such as lowering the Private Activity Bond (PAB) financing threshold from 50% to 25% and providing a permanent 12% LIHTC cap increase. As the largest federal program supporting the development of affordable housing, LIHTC is an essential tool that should be expanded and improved to best serve households with the lowest incomes. AMEND Sec. 70422 to include incentives for more investment in rural and tribal areas, as in the House bill.
Regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI): STRIKE the provision restricting states from regulating AI. Earlier this month, the USCCB wrote to Congressional leadership encouraging a regulatory framework for AI that will serve all of humanity. Earlier this year, the Vatican issued Antiqua et Nova reflecting on AI’s impact on humanity’s future in light of Catholic teaching. Pope Leo XIV has spoken about the challenges presented by AI multiple times since being elected pope in May. Law and policy makers should be able to act, and states should not be restricted or otherwise pressured not to do so.
Family Formation and Strengthening
Child Tax Credit (CTC): Limited resources should go towards ensuring that the poorest children are not excluded from the full credit. AMEND Sec. 70104 to allow more children in the lowest-income families to receive more of the CTC (this could include increased refundability, a faster phase-in, or a per-child phase-in, among other options). The Senate should STRIKE a new provision that would cause millions of U.S.-citizen children living in mixed-status families to lose access to the CTC’s benefits by requiring a parent of an eligible child to file taxes with a Social Security Number rather than an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). STRIKE Sec. 70104(b) (Social Security Number Required).
Personal Exemption: The bill continues the elimination of the personal exemption, which will raise nearly $2 trillion dollars. The Senate’s permanent increase of the standard deduction appears to mean that families with four or fewer children will pay less than they would with the pre-2018 personal deduction and standard deduction; families with more than four children will pay more than pre-2018 levels, and increasingly so with each child. Taxes should be structured to help families who have generously welcomed more children into their homes.
Paid Family Leave: It is positive that the bill creates more substantial incentives for employers to provide paid family leave. Such efforts should be expanded to advance paid family leave that does not unduly burden lower-income organizations or individuals, does not penalize larger families, and does not destabilize existing social service programs (Sec. 70304).
Child Care: The Senate bill makes constructive improvements to the business tax credit for qualified child care expenses provided to employees (Sec. 70401), the Dependent Care Assistance Program (Sec. 70404), and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (Sec. 70405). More efforts that are inclusive of the faith-based sector should be made to improve access to resources for child care, thereby supporting working-parent families and child care workers.
Adoption Tax Credit: Enhancing the adoption tax credit by making up to $5,000 of the credit refundable and indexing it for inflation is a step in the right direction to encourage adoption and support families. The full benefit of the adoption tax credit should be made available to lower-income families, thereby increasing opportunities for children to be adopted (Sec. 70402).
Progressivity of the Tax Code
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and Estate Tax: At more than $1.3 trillion over ten years, the AMT is among the most expensive single policies in the entire package. “Enhancing” the estate tax so that no taxes are paid for an estate worth less than $15 million will cost more than $200 billion over ten years. As presently written, Congress could give back the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and still save billions of dollars if it merely reinstated the AMT, and the estate tax could provide even more flexibility (Secs. 70106 and 70107).
Early Life Wealth Building Accounts: Early life wealth building accounts are crucial tools to increase opportunities for wealth building among historically excluded individuals and help families establish financial security, enabling them to not only survive but also to thrive. The creation of ‘Trump accounts’ and the pilot program to make contributions into these accounts for newborns, are promising developments. Sec. 70204 should be amended to ensure these accounts are inclusive of and targeted at the families who need them most.
Incentivize Charitable Giving, Nonprofit Organizations, and Development
Charitable Tax Deduction-individuals: Researchers at Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame found that following the passage of the TCJA, 23 million households switched to the standard deduction, and charitable giving dropped by $20 billion. Establishing an “above the line” charitable deduction of $1,000 per person is a meaningful improvement (Sec. 70424).
Charitable Tax Deductions-corporations: To the above-mentioned issue, this proposal adds Sec. 70426, introducing a 1-percent floor to corporate charitable deductions. This new limit will adversely impact nonprofits, considering that, according to the Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, the median of total community investment from companies is 0.92% of their pre-tax profit.
ERTC eligibility date changes: nonprofit organizations fought to maintain their employees at times when donations were low, churches were closed, and need increased. Changing the date for ERTC applications to January 31, 2024 (Sec. 70611), punishes entities that complied with the window of application. Losing ERTCs will diminish their invaluable work towards the common good.
Support Parental Choice in Education: We support the inclusion of scholarship tax credit legislation in budget reconciliation and are pleased to see the Senate prioritize historic permanent fifty-state school choice. (Sec. 70411). We strongly urge the final bill to RETAIN permanency and that this section be amended to 1) Restore the “escalator” to allow for annual increases in high-usage years; 2) Remove language excluding children from receiving scholarships just because their relatives were past Scholarship Granting Organization (“SGO”) donors (“the ancestor provision”); and 3) Exclude burdensome new federal mandates on SGOs.
Migration-Related Provisions
Judiciary Title
Funding for Interior Enforcement: The amount of funding included to support interior enforcement operations would be unprecedented and lead to the unjust treatment of families, including long-time residents with strong community ties. AMEND Sec. __152 to prioritize targeted enforcement against those posing legitimate threats to public safety and those with final removal orders and reduce the amount of funding provided accordingly.
Expedited Removal of Unaccompanied Children: Applying expedited removal to unaccompanied children is unacceptable and would be contrary to the protections enshrined in law for this vulnerable population. STRIKE Sec. __151(8).
Fee Impeding Family Reunification: While we appreciate that the Senate’s proposal excludes the $3,500 fee put forward by the House to “reimburse” for the care of an unaccompanied child, a $5,000 bond would still pose an insurmountable obstacle for many sponsors and could actually increase federal expenditures, as more children would be forced to remain in government custody for longer periods. Congress should continue to prioritize family reunification and the best interests of each child, including through post-release services that promote children’s safety and participation in immigration proceedings. STRIKE Sec. __119.
Mandatory Fees for Humanitarian Protections: Access to life-saving protections, including asylum, temporary protected status, humanitarian parole, and special immigrant juvenile status should not hinge entirely on one’s ability to pay an exorbitant fee. STRIKE Secs. __102, __104, __105, __106, and __122 or, at the very least, AMEND these sections to permit fee waivers, consistent with existing law.
Annual Asylum Fee: Those with pending asylum applications have very little control over the timeline for adjudicating their request and should not be subject to an arbitrary fee, especially in addition to what is already proposed to request asylum. STRIKE Sec. __109.
Mandatory Fee for Employment Authorization and Reduced Validity Period: Imposing a mandatory fee for initial and renewal employment authorization requests for asylum seekers, parolees, and temporary protected status holders, without any ability to request a waiver, would make these populations even more susceptible to labor exploitation and increase their reliance on public or charitable assistance. Reducing the validity period of employment authorization to six months would exacerbate these harms, in addition to increasing strain on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. STRIKE Secs. __103, __111, __112, and __113 or, at the very least, AMEND these sections to permit fee waivers and exclude the shortened validity period, consistent with existing law.
Visa Integrity Fee: The imposition of a “visa integrity fee” for all nonimmigrants, including religious workers and agricultural workers, on top of existing fees, would penalize those using legal pathways and create new administrative costs to facilitate reimbursement. STRIKE Sec. __107.
Fees Relating to Legal Immigration Proceedings: Routine requests made in proceedings before an immigration court should not be subject to punitive fees. STRIKE Sec. __115 or, at the very least, AMEND this section to permit fee waivers, consistent with existing law.
Inadmissible Alien Apprehension Fee: At best, implementation of this fee would be highly impractical to administer, and no accommodations are made for bona fide asylum seekers, victims of crime, unaccompanied children, or other vulnerable populations. STRIKE Sec. __121.
Increasing Capacity of the Immigration Courts: We have long called for the immigration courts to be adequately staffed and appreciate additional resources for this purpose. RETAIN Sec. __154, so far as it relates to hiring additional immigration judges and support staff.
Enticing States to Undertake Federal Immigration Responsibilities: Immigration enforcement is and should remain under the purview of the federal government. Efforts to shift this responsibility to state and local law enforcement, eroding public trust and undermining public safety within communities, should be rejected. STRIKE Sec. __155.
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Title
Family Detention: The indefinite detention of families is costly, unnecessary, and proven to inflict long-term harms, especially on young children. Community-based alternatives to detention should be supported instead. AMEND Sec. __03 to prevent the provision of funding for family detention and reduce the amount of funding provided accordingly.
Border Slush Fund: The provision of $6 billion for no particular purpose is fiscally irresponsible and a wasteful use of public resources. STRIKE Sec. __07.
Border Wall Construction: We reject massive amounts of funding for a costly and ineffective border wall that threatens human life and the environment. These resources should instead be devoted to improving and expanding capacity at legal ports of entry, as well as more targeted enforcement measures that focus on bad actors. STRIKE Sec. __01.
Finance Title
Remittance Tax: We appreciate that the Senate’s proposal would make the remittance tax refundable for everyone with a Social Security Number. However, taxing remittances would have a disproportionate impact on lower-income people who are lawfully present in the United States, have already paid taxes on their earnings, and are supporting their families abroad. American citizens, lawful immigrants, and financial institutions would all be adversely impacted by this cumbersome and punitive tax. STRIKE Sec. 70606.
Armed Services Title
Use of Military Resources for Civil Immigration Enforcement: We strongly reject efforts that blur the lines between legitimate immigration enforcement by specially trained civil officers with that of military action. AMEND Sec. 20011 to prevent the use of Department of Defense personnel and resources for the interdiction and detention of noncitizens in the United States, including the establishment of “national defense areas” for these purposes.
Energy and Environment
This bill eliminates roughly $500 billion in investment for clean energy and environmental stewardship. These investments in our common home should be restored, including:
Clean energy manufacturing tax credits (45Y, 48E, 45X), which support clean energy companies’ operations, job creation (400,000 since 2022), and helps lower overall energy costs. H.R.1 required that all projects begin construction within 60 days and be placed in service by 2028 to receive the credit. The Senate proposal (Secs. 112008, 112009) is a marginal improvement over the House bill by phasing out the credit from time of construction through 2027. The House bill and the Senate bill also terminate credits for wind component parts sold after 2027. In addition to these cuts, burdensome requirements on materials sourcing will significantly limit job creation and lower energy costs. The Senate bill restores the credits for “baseload energy sources” and should do the same for solar and wind. Solar is the fastest growing source of energy on the grid, creating security and reliability.
Household clean energy and energy efficiency (EE) tax incentives (25C, 25D; $109 billion) have made appliances and building upgrades more affordable for low- and middle-income families for two decades, brought down energy costs, and created jobs.
Clean vehicle tax credits (45W, 30D, 30C, 25E), which make new and used electric vehicles and commercial EVs affordable for low- and middle-income families and businesses. This bill also charges owners of hybrid and EVs an annual fee.
EPA programs that reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, especially around schools and ports. These pollutants will harm children and the unborn, particularly in poor communities living near industrial facilities. Further harm will result from rolling back EPA environmental justice grants that support sustainable economic development, human health, and natural disaster resilience in rural and urban low-income communities and states. RESTORE funding for the EPA programs (Section 01-23).
Investment in environmental stewardship is necessary to reduce energy costs for families and faith communities, create jobs and resiliency to extreme weather, improve health in poor communities, and care for our common home. Abdication of these responsibilities is not acceptable.
Please RETAIN inclusion of the Radiation Exposure Reauthorization Compensation Act (RECA). The USCCB supported this bill in the last Congress.