Indiana's congressional delegation is pushing the White House for clarity on what orders to the EPA would mean for ongoing clean up at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site in East Chicago.
Sen. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Todd Young, and U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Merrillville, on Thursday sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking for details on the reported freeze on grant programs and work assignments at the Environmental Protection Agency, as well a suspension of communications through social media, blog posts and comments to the media.
When news of the orders issued to the EPA broke Tuesday, local officials had little information on what the orders meant for efforts to clean up the contamination in East Chicago's Calumet neighborhood. EPA officials in Chicago declined to comment on the orders' effects.
"We understand the challenges of the transition. However, we maintain significant reservations that a potential suspension on communications, task orders and work assignments could unintentionally prevent EPA employees from continuing to address an ongoing public health and safety crisis in East Chicago, which forced hundreds of Hoosier families from their homes last year," Donnelly, Young and Visclosky wrote to the president.
Trump issued an order to EPA employees that temporarily suspended new business activities, according to the Associated Press, and instituted a media blackout, barring press releases, blog post or social media posts. Trump earlier in the week instituted a federal hiring freeze.
The AP said Trump's order would block the EPA from issuing new task orders or work assignments to contractors and could have a huge impact on its work throughout the country.
"On behalf of Hoosier families, and state and local officials, we write to confirm the veracity of these reports and how these actions may affect residents in our state, particularly in East Chicago, Indiana," the congressmen wrote.
The delegation said that as EPA's cleanup efforts continue and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development works to relocate residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex, the city's residents depend on the dissemination of information from those federal information and timely response to the contamination.
Indiana's delegation has pushed the two federal agencies to move forward swiftly on cleanup and relocation efforts, and Visclosky on Tuesday decried the freezes.
"A blanket hiring freeze in the name of fiscal responsibility is wrong. A government can only perform effectively and efficiently if governmental officials make discrete and discerning decisions based on careful oversight," Visclosky said, in a statement Tuesday."Specific to East Chicago, we are talking about the health of individual Americans who are in need of deliberate and fulsome work.Hiring freezes will not get that work done."