As Congress prepared for another day of debate on what some Democrats are calling the worst environmental legislation in U.S. history, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) asked worried U.S. EPA employees to look for hope in the lessons of the civil rights movement.

"I want to thank you for not giving up, for not giving in," Lewis said in the booming preacher's voice that helped make him a civil rights legend. "I want to thank you for not getting lost in a sea of despair. ... I want to thank you for hanging in there when some people in high places ... don't want to compensate you for all your hard work."

As he stepped from behind his podium to walk among the 45 members of EPA's largest union during a breakfast meeting, Lewis urged them to "keep the faith," despite the aspersions that some in Congress have cast on them and their agency.

It was a message repeated by all four House Democrats who addressed the union officials ahead of their lobbying blitz on congressional offices this afternoon.

But in the face of a 2012 appropriations bill that Republicans have crafted to make deep cuts and put a host of new restrictions on the agency, representatives of the American Federation of Government Employees' Council 238 said anxiety levels within EPA are as high as they've ever been.

"Everyone is on edge," said Silvia Saracco, a procurement analyst also works as a union official in EPA's Research Triangle Park facility in North Carolina.

The Interior and Environment spending bill that is being debated in Congress would provide EPA with $7.1 billion for fiscal 2012, about $1.5 billion below this year's spending levels and $1.8 billion less than President Obama requested.

Debate on that bill, which continues this afternoon, has been heated especially regarding the many policy riders that Republican members are hoping to attach to rein in an agency that they say has overstepped its authority on everything from climate change to mining regulation.

"I have never seen so much open hostility, contempt, for environmental protection," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the son of two federal employees. "It's really almost a cultural thing. Their contempt is for their image of granola-eating, sandal-wearing greenies. ... [EPA employees] ought to be scared. I'm scared."

But an even more immediate concern for EPA employees this morning is the ongoing debt debate that has put the government at risk of default for the first time in U.S. history.

Among the provisions that have been floated as part of various debt compromises are an extension of the current pay freeze for civilian federal employees, cuts to federal retirement plans, and drastic reductions in the overall federal workforce. But if a compromise isn't reached that would allow the government's debt ceiling to be raised by next week, the federal government could face the possibility of a partial or complete shutdown.

"There's a lot of stress. It's the uncertainty of not knowing what's going to come," Saracco said. "We have to keep the spirits up, but it's tough because management isn't talking to employees about anything."

EPA officials didn't respond to questions about possible shutdown plans this week.

Environmental issues on back burner?

Saracco said the 2012 budget fight and shutdown fears are only the latest blows to the psyche of EPA employees.

Saracco said EPA employees are worried that environmental concerns have a diminished role in the Obama administration.

The resignation of White House energy and climate czar Carol Browner in January and the shuttering of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in March sent a clear signal to EPA staff that environmental issues were on the wane, Saracco said. She added that Browner, who led EPA under President Bill Clinton, was seen as someone who had the ability to be more of an advocate for EPA issues than current Administrator Lisa Jackson.

With everything that has been going on in recent months, some employees said this morning that it's becoming hard to ignore some of the rumors that have been floating around about the agency.

"I've heard [Jackson] hasn't had any face time with the president since February," said Cathy Ivanoski, a management analyst who works out of EPA's Boston offices.

After 32 years of federal service, Ivanoski said that some of the benefit cuts that are being debated on Capitol Hill have started to make her wonder if she will end her career in the federal government.

One proposal she feels is particularly unfair is a plan that was first advocated by the president's deficit commission and subsequently included in more recent debut reduction plans that would use the highest five years of earnings to calculate civil service pension benefits, rather than the highest three years prescribed under current law.

Some projections have calculated that such a move could save the government upward of $5 billion over the next 10 years. Ivanoski said that if that happens, she will likely leave federal service.

But that's the kind of thinking Lewis was trying to prevent this morning.

"I think as government employees that you can take a great deal of pride in the distance we've come, the progress we've made," Lewis said.

"Be hopeful, be optimistic and leave our country a little better for your children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren and for generations yet unborn. We have a moral obligation to do what is right, what is fair, what is just."