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Washington, D.C.— A proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the House of Representatives would imperil services that the American people depend on to keep them safe warns the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees.

“Reducing EPA’s budget by this magnitude and capping its personnel will have a devastating effect on the services EPA provides to the nation,” National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen M. Kelley wrote in a letter Wednesday to the members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and Environment.

Under the proposed fiscal year 2012 Interior Department/EPA appropriations bill revealed today, the EPA is funded at $7.1 billion, or 18 percent below last year’s level and 20 percent below the president’s request. That amounts to a cut of $1.5 billion. The bill also caps EPA’s personnel at the 2010 level, the lowest since 1992.

“The EPA works on a daily basis to help ensure that all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live and work,” Kelley wrote. “Its laboratories perform essential work assessing environmental conditions and identifying, understanding, and solving current and future environmental problems; integrating the work of scientific partners such as nations, private sector organizations, academia and other agencies; and providing leadership in addressing emerging environmental issues and in advancing the science and technology of risk assessment and risk management.”

Kelley called on House appropriators to oppose these drastic cuts and warned that they would critically harm these services that the American people depend on keep their air and water safe.

NTEU represents more than 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including thousands at the EPA.