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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today sharply criticized budget cuts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee to fiscal 2011. The cuts threaten critical services—like food safety inspections and ensuring clean air and water—the public wants and needs.

“These proposed severe cuts, advanced with far too little consideration of their impact, not only would diminish services the American people count on, they jeopardize in serious ways the ability of federal agencies to fulfill their vital missions, and would result in billions of dollars in lost revenue,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

Under the committee’s proposal, funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would decline by $1.3 billion less than the amount set by the administration as the level of resources this key agency requires in this fiscal year, which has more than seven months to run to its end on Sept. 30. The IRS faces fiscal 2011 cuts of $578 million for enforcement efforts, $134 million from taxpayer services and another $251 million from operations support.

Further, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would see a decline of $220 million this fiscal year—despite the addition of increased responsibilities; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding would decline by almost $3 billion this fiscal year; and other key agencies—including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be seriously impacted as well. The proposal calls for a particularly severe cut of $9 billion less than the president’s request in HHS resources for the remainder of fiscal 2011.

While the cuts would be devastating for any agency, they would hit particularly hard at the FDA, SEC and HHS—all of which have had critical new responsibilities placed on them through legislative action, including wide-ranging reform of the nation’s health care and financial regulatory systems. The SEC’s budget for the remainder of this fiscal year would be reduced by $188 million, while that for TSA would be slashed by $104 million and CBP by $15 million.

President Kelley noted these specific impacts, among others: at the FDA, she said, chronic underfunding for years has led to a sharp decline in food safety inspections to only 7,500 in 2009, down dramatically from 35,000 in 1978.

“Further reducing the FDA budget endangers our ability to ensure the American public has food, drugs and medical devices that are safe,” she said.

Meanwhile, the proposed IRS budget would not only diminish taxpayer assistance and impede closing the multi-billion-dollar gap between taxes owed and taxes paid, it would harm efforts aimed at generating the critical revenue needed to reduce our nation’s deficit.

“The proposed IRS budget cuts are the ultimate in duplicity, as they are done in the name of reducing our nation’s debt, but the impact is the opposite as they hinder the agency’s ability to collect the revenue our nation so desperately needs,” Kelley said.

She added that these proposals are rooted in the flawed premise that federal agencies can accomplish existing goals and provide the same level of service with fewer resources.“Common sense tells us this is simply not true, and, in the end, the American people will suffer,” she said. “It is time to be honest about the impact of these cuts.”

The NTEU leader said the union not only will work to oppose the House legislation, but will engage in efforts to increase funding for federal agencies during consideration of this measure. “We will also work with the Senate to highlight the importance of providing federal agencies with sufficient resources, and to ensure that senators are clear on the devastating impact such drastic funding cuts would have on the agencies and their missions.”

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.