September 13, 2025
Dear Friends,
As one of only a handful of engineers in Congress, I’ve always been committed to advancing science-based policies that help make our country stronger. When you’re sick, you don’t call a politician — you call a doctor. By the same token, policymakers must rely on evidence and subject-matter experts when crafting policies aimed at safeguarding Americans’ health. Over the last several months, the Trump administration has made “making America healthy again” one of its top stated priorities. But their actions — ignoring science, undermining experts, and slashing critical resources — speak louder than their words.
Under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been at the center of the Trump administration’s push to reject science-based solutions. Earlier this week, Kennedy’s so-called “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission released its second report on combating childhood chronic disease — a document that sadly undermines its own stated goals. While the commission correctly concluded that American children are increasingly affected by largely preventable chronic diseases, its report failed to propose adequate solutions for this very real problem. According to one expert, the report “is all promises and has no teeth” — a hollow overview of the health problems facing American children that offers “no regulations or laws to mandate change.”
Among the report’s many deficiencies — including its failure to even mention firearms, the number one killer of children in our country — perhaps the most glaring is its open skepticism of vaccines. Instead of reaffirming the critical role of vaccines in preventing disease among both children and adults, the MAHA Commission promised to create a new federal research program to study “vaccine injuries” — another step in the Trump administration’s anti-vaccine crusade. Secretary Kennedy has been at the forefront of that effort — abandoning longstanding CDC guidance to declare that COVID vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children, hiring a “discredited vaccine skeptic” to study a debunked theory linking vaccines to autism, and falsely claiming last week that there was “no clinical data” to support COVID vaccine recommendations for healthy people. Statements like these don’t help make America healthier, they only serve to undermine trust in lifesaving public health interventions.
But it’s not just the Trump administration’s words that are undercutting efforts to bolster Americans’ health — it’s their actions, too. Last month, the administration fired more than 600 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — including Director Susan Monarez, who was terminated for refusing to “align” with Trump’s radical agenda. Trump and Secretary Kennedy have also proposed eliminating the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as an independent agency, instead burying its programs inside the so-called “Administration for a Healthy America,” or AHA. This move would return us to the time when mental and behavioral health issues were stigmatized and deprioritized, pushing the fight against one of our most serious public health crises back into the shadows.
And this summer, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faced drastic budget cuts, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin released a proposal to overturn the longstanding “endangerment finding” that has allowed three successive administrations to regulate climate pollution. By allowing corporations to pump more toxins into the air we breathe, the Trump administration will only increase the presence of the chronic diseases it claims to be fighting against.
We can’t hope to address our nation’s public health crises if we ignore science and cut essential resources. That’s why we need to invest more in evidence-based solutions that actually make people healthier — like my Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act. This bipartisan legislation would protect the health of our children and our communities by establishing scientific guidelines for indoor air quality and delivering effective tools and resources to help minimize indoor health risks in schools and childcare facilities. More broadly, we also must enact legislation to ensure that government science is free from political interference. That’s the goal of my bipartisan Scientific Integrity Act, a bill that would set clear, enforceable standards to keep public science independent from meddling by political and special interests.
We all support efforts to improve children’s health and prevent chronic disease. But in order to truly protect the health and well-being of American families, we must commit to real, science-based solutions that truly address the problems we face. If we want those solutions to last, we also need to institute powerful safeguards against manipulation and attacks on science and scientists.
And if we can ever hope to come together as a society to build a brighter future for generations to come, we must all firmly reject the unacceptable wave of political violence that is spreading across our nation. We must never forget our collective humanity — and we cannot allow our children to inherit a world in which this senseless carnage is the norm. Going forward, I’ll continue doing everything in my power to heal the wounds that divide us and bring a spirit of unity to our work making America stronger and healthier.
As always, thank you for reading.
Your friend,
DID YOU KNOW?
My office and I are working to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates, announcements, and recommendations from governments and agencies. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:
- $1 million in competitive grant funding is now available through New York State’s Community Forest Conservation Grant Program!
- Community forests help build local ownership of forests, enhance local participation in forest management, and contribute to the State’s goals of conserving 30% of New York’s lands and waters by 2030.
- Municipalities can use this funding to purchase land or conservation easements to create or expand community-owned forests to sustain and protect wildlife habitat, promote clean air and water, preserve biodiversity, and increase access to recreation opportunities and open space.
- For more information about eligibility requirements and how to apply, you can view the Request for Applications (PDF) or view a recorded webinar that also discusses how to use the State Financial System.
- Applications are due by 3:00 PM on Wednesday, September 17th.
