Rep. Lee Condemns Layoffs at CDC NIOSH Facility in Pleasant Hills, Demands Restoration of Worker Safety Funding
**For Immediate Release**
Rep. Lee Condemns Layoffs at CDC NIOSH Facility in Pleasant Hills, Demands Restoration of Worker Safety Funding
WASHINGTON, D.C. –April 1, 2025 — Today, Congresswoman Summer Lee (PA-12) released the following statement in response to layoffs ordered by the Trump administration affecting approximately 200 employees at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) facility in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania:
“These layoffs are a direct attack on workers, on public health, and on the basic right of every person to come home safely to their family after a hard day’s work. I visited this NIOSH facility in Pleasant Hills. I met the workers. I saw firsthand the life-saving research they do to keep Americans safe.
But time and again, we see the same story from the Trump administration: corporate profits are protected, CEOs get their bonuses, and working people get pink slips. But let me be clear — no job, no profit, and no bottom line is worth more than a human life. Worker safety must never be an afterthought. It has to be the first priority. The research done at NIOSH doesn’t just live in a lab — it’s what ensures that the nurse caring for patients, the steelworker on the line, or the factory worker exposed to fine particulates can breathe safely and go home to their families. That is worth fighting for. That is worth funding.
I was proud to be honored with the 2024 ISEA Legislative Leadership Award for my work to expand the Respirator Approval Program, because I believe that investing in worker safety is non-negotiable. And I will continue to fight tooth and nail to protect these workers and reverse these dangerous, shortsighted cuts. When you cut funding to the very people who ensure our PPE is effective and reliable, you’re telling the American people their safety doesn’t matter. You’re telling workers their lives are expendable. And that’s not just irresponsible — it’s wrong.”
Congresswoman Summer Lee serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Since taking office in January 2023, she has delivered historic levels of federal investment totaling over $2.4 Billion brought back to Western PA, including over $580 million for infrastructure, over $110 million for affordable transit, over $500 million to keep clean energy manufacturing at home in Pennsylvania, and over $55 million on clean energy efforts in and around schools to help keep our kids and communities safe. These investments will help improve Western Pennsylvania’s infrastructure and transit, ensure cleaner air and drinking water, lower housing costs, fund research institutions, fuel clean manufacturing, fund STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, boost workforce development, and create thousands of good paying union jobs. Lee and her team have also delivered casework and constituent services to over 3,400 constituents with issues ranging from helping our seniors and disabled community access Medicare and social security to helping folks secure housing and helping families with immigration support and passports.