Bishop Shelton Fabre said funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department would help protect creation, public health, and vulnerable communities.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging lawmakers to prioritize the environment and conservation in the budget reconciliation package being negotiated by Congress.
In a letter to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees, Louisville, Kentucky, Bishop Shelton J. Fabre, chair of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, wrote that conserving the environment is a command from God and necessary for the common good.
“In the Book of Genesis, God commands humanity ‘to cultivate and care for’ the Earth and its resources,” Bishop Fabre wrote, quoting Genesis 2:15.
He listed the environmental priorities of both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV and said one important way to fulfill that mission is with federal funding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI).
Bishop Fabre encouraged the restoration of previous levels of funding after the fiscal 2026 budget decreased EPA funding by $277 million and DOI funding by $211 million. The Trump administrationʼs fiscal 2027 budget proposal called for cutting the EPA’s budget by more than half
