Do The Right Thing, Vote Against Proposed Federal Budget, Environmental Group Says

TOMS RIVER, NJ -- Members of Clean Water Action are urging Congressmen Thomas MacArthur and Rodney Frelinghuysen to vote no on the proposed 2017-2018 federal budget because of the effects it will have on state residents and the environment.

House Republicans have scheduled a vote on Thursday on the budget that will hike taxes on middle and working class New Jerseyans, permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and makes drastic cuts to environmental and clean energy programs, "all to finance tax cuts for the richest one percent of Americans," according to a Clean Water Action release.

MacArthur and Frelinghuysen both supported a house bill last month that was less controversial but still anti-environment. The other members of the New Jersey delegation opposed it.

Clean Water Action has met with all of the members of New Jersey's Congressional representatives, except for MacArthur and Frelinghuysen, group members say.

"With tomorrow's vote looming, MacArthur and Frelinghuysen voting the wrong way before and refusing to even talk to us, we're hand delivering today hundreds, just a small sampling of the personal letters from our members urging their representatives to do right by them,"said Janet Tauro, New Jersey Chairperson of Clean Water Action.

The proposed budget would eliminate federal tax exemptions for local property tax and state income tax deductions and weaken residents' 401ks. The House and Senate have already both voted for, and the President supports, drastic cuts to critical programs, Clean Water Action says.

“This ongoing budgetary slaughter is the worst consequence of the new swamp Trump has created in Washington," said Alyssa Bradley, Clean Water Action's New Jersey Energy Organizer. "We cannot continue to let the future of this country, of the middle class and the environment, be mortgaged by those who have nothing to lose period, but especially for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us."

New Jersey already has more than 100 Superfund sites, more than any other state. Environmental programs that support Barnegat, Delaware and the New York/New Jersey estuaries, environmental justice, lead poisoning, climate health, Jersey Shore beach water quality testing, chemical security, have all been proposed to be eliminated.

"We will protect clean water in the face of attacks from a polluter-friendly administration and Congress," the release states.

For more information about Clean Water Action, click here: http://www.cleanwateraction.org/nj.

Image: Courtesy of Clean Water Action