NEHA Government Affairs Activities

The focus this year was on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appropriations, highlighting the importance of federal funding for food safety and other environmental health objectives to the state and local environmental health profession. Environmental Health Workforce Act It appears that the Environmental Health Workforce Act, a longstanding NEHA objective, will possibly be passed this year, with Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan) including language within the House of Representatives appropriations bill requesting a study on the environmental health workforce to be performed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Representative Wittman has shown a keen interest in ensuring that the nation's retail food safety system remains safe, well stocked, and provides a wide variety of foods to consumers in the U.S. NEHA looks forward to working with Representative Wittman on future public health and food safety efforts.

Introduction of the Environmental Health Workforce Act

The Environmental Health Workforce Act (H.R. 2661) was introduced by Representative Brenda Lawrence on Apr 19, 2021. The act would require the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services to develop model standards and guidelines for credentialing environmental health workers, issue a report on best practices and make credentialed environmental health workers eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. As many NEHA members know, the environmental health profession has seen a significant decrease in workforce capacity since 2008. This public health workforce, second in size only to nursing, is facing challenges to maintain sufficient staff to perform environmental health services. Since 2008, 22% of state and local environmental health jobs have been lost. Insufficient staffing has been reported in 64% of state environmental health programs, 60% of local programs, and 67% of tribal programs mainly due to the strain the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the profession. Workers express concern regarding insufficient access to training and the high level of burnout. This trend will be exacerbated with the oncoming retirement of the Baby Boom generation.