Trump’s Attacks on Key Regulatory Protections for Children’s Health, Housing, Access to Meals to Be Featured in Two Days of House Oversight Hearings
While the nation’s attention has been transfixed on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, federal agencies have been advancing a slate of deregulatory actions that would seriously endanger the well-being of our children.
The late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who chaired the U.S. House Oversight Committee, recognized this threat and began planning a series of hearings to spotlight four particularly egregious examples.
This week, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) will carry forward that vision with four oversight hearings – featuring testimony from teachers, nurses, faith leaders, children’s advocates and policy experts – focused on the harmful impacts of these attacks on kids:
- Recalculating the federal poverty line in a way that excludes working families from assistance needed to raise and take care of children (10 a.m. EST, Wed., Feb. 5);
- Decimating crucial civil rights provisions that ensure families and children of color have access to housing (2 p.m. EST, Wed., Feb. 5);
- Denying food assistance to 3.1 million children and families, and cutting off free school lunches and breakfast for another million children (10 a.m. EST, Thurs., Feb. 6); and
- Rolling back mercury air toxics standards needed to protect children’s development and health (2 p.m. EST, Thurs. Feb. 6).
All four hearings will take place in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building and will be livestreamed and live-tweeted (#ProtectKids) by dozens of organizations committed to protecting our nation’s kids.
Children are uniquely vulnerable, especially those living in poverty, and we have a moral obligation to ensure their well-being. No child in the world’s wealthiest nation should go to bed hungry, be deprived of clean air or be denied a safe place to call home.
The administration has defended its actions with a mix of callous indifference and claims about the need to accommodate industry profit margins. But the reality is that Trump is letting corporate lobbyists and ideological extremists write the rules, and families across the country are paying the price.
These deregulatory schemes would move our nation backwards, rob children of the American dream and deprive them of their future as happy, healthy, productive adults.