Dear Chairs Aderholt and Capito and Ranking Members DeLauro and Baldwin:
The undersigned 54 state and national public health, environmental health and other supporting organizations write to you to express our support for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Environmental Health in the FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. Our organizations urge you to follow the Senate’s lead and work in a bipartisan manner to adequately fund all NCEH programs as you work to develop a final FY 2026 spending bill. NCEH programs are essential to assisting states and local health departments and other organizations in efforts related to asthma prevention, childhood lead poisoning prevention, environmental health tracking, water safety, food safety, air quality, emergency response to natural disasters and climate-related events and understanding the health impacts of radiation exposure.
As Congress moves forward with finalizing the appropriations process for FY 2026, we urge you to provide adequate funding for all NCEH programs. This funding will help ensure the center can work to strengthen and expand its programs to more states and communities, including:
- Improving surveillance of environmental health threats by maintaining the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network to a true nationwide network.
- Preserving childhood lead poisoning prevention activities through CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, which will allow for surveillance to determine the extent of childhood lead poisoning, educate the public and health care providers about lead poisoning and ensure that lead-exposed children received needed follow-up services.
- Preserving the National Biomonitoring Network, to ensure that states can undertake population-based surveillance of chemicals and toxics. Communities are concerned about exposure to chemicals, yet underfunding limits the availability of data about these exposures at the state and local levels.
- Maintaining the National Asthma Control Program that tracks asthma prevalence, promotes asthma prevention and builds capacity in state programs. It is estimated that more than 27 million Americans currently have asthma, including more than 4.8 million children. Asthma can be a fatal disease, but due to the success of this program asthma mortality and morbidity rates have decreased, despite an increase in asthma prevalence.
- Maintaining the Climate and Health Program that helps states, localities and tribes diagnose and prepare for the serious adverse health impacts their residents face from extreme heat, more severe weather, floods, droughts, wildfires, worse allergy seasons and the spread vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease and dengue fever. Communities need support when environmental disasters strike, and this is the only program across the federal government that provides resources for a public health response.
- Supporting CDC and health departments to conduct cancer studies across the nation using CDC’s guidelines. NCEH can support and expand laboratory studies into the human health impacts of exposure to toxic substances and expand our understanding of which exposures may cause or contribute to the development of different cancers in the population.
Investments in environmental health prevention activities reduce illness, disease, injury and death. Relying solely on our health care system to address the health impacts of dangerous problems, including dirty air and water, toxic substances, lead poisoning, and environmental disasters is a costly and ineffective solution. We look forward to working with you as you finalize the FY 2026 appropriations process and again urge you to reject efforts to eliminate or weaken any of the important programs within NCEH.
Please contact Don Hoppert at donald.hoppert@apha.org or 202-777-2514 with any questions regarding our request.
Sincerely,
Allergy & Asthma Network
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Chest Physicians
American College of Medical Toxicology
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Lung Association
American Public Health Association
Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF)
Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine
Association of Public Health Laboratories
Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
Endocrine Society
Entomological Society of America
For Our Health
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative
Health E Strategies
Illinois Public Health Association
Institute for Public Health Innovation
International WELL Building Institute Lehman College
Maine Public Health Association
Minnesota Chapter - American Academy of Pediatrics
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
National Environmental Health Association
National League for Nursing
National Network of Public Health Institutes
Nevada Public Health Association
New Jersey Mosquito Control Association
Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases
Pennsylvania Public Health Association
PGCHD
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Pennsylvania Public Health Institute
Rhode Island Public Health Institute
Roots of Change
Society for Public Health Education
South Dakota Public Health Association
Southern California Public Health Association
Tennessee Public Health Association
Trust for America's Health
University of Notre Dame
University of South Carolina
Utah Public Health Association
Vermont Public Health Association
Washington State Dept of Health
Wisconsin Public Health Association
YWCA Champaign County
cc: Members of the House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittees