Good morning and happy Tuesday! Today is Tuesday, May 5th, 2026. While you were busy with your week, something significant happened in Washington that could affect the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land you live on. This week, we are diving into the proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency — what they mean, why they matter, and what you can do.

The Environmental Protection Agency, commonly known as the EPA, was established in 1970 under President Nixon. Its mission is simple but enormous: to protect human health and the environment. The EPA sets and enforces limits on air pollutants, regulates toxic chemicals in our water supply, oversees the cleanup of hazardous waste sites, and conducts the environmental research that guides national policy. Without it, there is no federal body standing between industrial polluters and your backyard.

For decades, the EPA has operated as one of the most important scientific agencies in the United States. It is the reason that rivers no longer catch fire, that lead was removed from gasoline, and that acid rain is no longer a defining environmental crisis of our era. The work is quiet, technical, and often invisible — until it disappears.

The Trump administration released a budget proposal in April 2026 that would cut EPA funding in half and eliminate $1 billion in agency grants. This is not the first time such a proposal has been floated. Congress rejected a similar request from the president last year, and the EPA ultimately received around $8.8 billion for FY 2026 — more than double what the administration had originally requested. But the proposed cuts keep coming, and the damage is already accumulating.

Even without Congressional approval of the full cuts, the EPA has already lost more than 4,000 employees in the first year of Trump's second term, reducing its workforce to its lowest level since the 1980s — a 24 percent reduction that was more than double the rate of losses across the entire federal government.

The new budget proposal also goes beyond just the EPA. It includes cuts of $1.6 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and would cancel $15 billion in renewable energy infrastructure funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The proposed cuts are not abstract numbers — they translate into real losses. The proposal would reduce civil enforcement by 30 percent, cut criminal enforcement by 49 percent, decrease compliance monitoring by 35 percent, and eliminate environmental justice enforcement funding entirely. Nearly all categorical grants to states would be eliminated, and water infrastructure funding would be slashed by approximately 90 percent.

To put that into perspective, the federal funding that helps states maintain clean drinking water infrastructure could be nearly gone.

This week's newsletter topic is the weekly news. The EPA budget proposal dropped on April 10th, 2026, and it is the most urgent environmental policy story of the moment.

The EPA was created under which US president?

A. Jimmy Carter

B. Gerald Ford

C. Richard Nixon

D. Ronald Reagan

E. George H.W. Bush

Correct answer at the end of the newsletter!

When federal protections weaken, local and individual action matters more than ever. Here are three things you can do right now:

First, contact your representatives. Call or email your U.S. Senators and House Representative and tell them you oppose cuts to the EPA. It takes five minutes and it counts — Congressional offices track constituent contacts. You can find your representatives at congress.gov.

Second, support environmental organizations that fill the gaps left by federal rollbacks, such as Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), or your local watershed association.

Third, stay informed. Newsletters like this one exist because environmental literacy is the first step toward environmental action. Share this with a friend — it is free, it is Tuesday, and the planet could use the help.

That will do it for this week's edition of The Environmental Edit. The answer was C — Richard Nixon signed the EPA into existence on December 2nd, 1970. A Republican president created the agency that now faces its deepest proposed cuts in history during another republican presidents term- ironic. Make sure to share this with friends and family to help spread environmental advocacy and awareness. Tuesdays for a Greener Tomorrow!