It’s been a long summer in DC – and not just because of the heat. It seems that there has been nothing but bad news coming out of Washington these days. From the rise of the Dirty Water Caucus to H.R. 2018 (the Temper Tantrum in Writing) to the pointless histrionics over raising the debt limit (something Congress must do), political leadership in D.C. has never appeared more craven or our Government more broken. Read the rest of this entry »
By Andy Fellows, Chesapeake Regional Director
We can save the Bay - by killing HR 2018
Sunday’s report in the Washington Post about the “dead zone” in the Chesapeake Bay is deeply disturbing. This year,nearly a third of the nation’s largest estuary is dead. This situation can be fixed – and a plan exists: Last year the Environmental Protection Agency finalized an aggressive “pollution diet” for Chesapeake Bay. The diet is on track to restore the Bay by 2025.
What is even more disturbing than the 83 mile long “dead zone” stretching from Baltimore to Virginia is that the “pollution diet”, the diet that is working, is under threat. Two powerful groups have targeted EPA’s plan. The American Farm Bureau and the National Association of Homebuilders are seeking a court order to suspend the plan. The pollution diet calls for strong protections from storm water and runoff to be implemented. The Farm Bureau believes that states should decide what protections are strong enough, not the EPA. Read the rest of this entry »
Will Congress reverse 40 years of progress?
“Upstream” solutions which keep pollutants out of commerce and out of the waste stream – before they can enter our water – make the most sense.
One of the best recent examples was last year’s voluntary “ban” on phosphates in automatic dishwasher detergent. Manufacturers announced the ban after rules in several states began to require the change. Consumers, environmental groups and companies whose products were already phosphate free added to the pressure and contributed to this win.
The first state bans on phosphates in laundry detergents were adopted in the 1970s, with more coming on line in the 1980s and 1990s. Industry’s decision to make their automatic dish detergents phosphate-free was the final step in advancing this “upstream” pollution solution first advocated by Clean Water Action in the early 1970s.
Now, Australia is following suit, but not without pressure from the activist community there. Nor would this have happened without the example set first here in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »
The Anti-Environment Congress
Stopping the Department of Agriculture from making preparations to protect citizens from the impacts of Climate Change. Stopping EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers from restoring protections in the Clean Water Act. Ordering the CA Bureau of Reclamation to permanently maintain the San Joaqiun River in it’s current degraded state. Limiting the Department of Homeland Security from considering climate change as it plans, and designs recovery plans, for natural disasters. Curtailing your right to participate in the management of public lands.
Those are a few of the riders and amendments that have been proposed and attached to appropriations bills by this Congress. And that’s only the first four pages. Clean Water Action and our partners are tracking all of the anti-environment proposals that are making their way through Congress. We’ve put together a seventeen page document. The breadth of the assault on the environment by this Congress is staggering. Read the rest of this entry »
Who’s really benefiting?
By Amy Lubilow and Mia Davis
**this text was excerpted with permission from the 2011 paper “Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing For Profit,” originally published by Environmental Justice (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc).
Photo via pinkwashing.org
Pinkwashing: (n) the practice of using the color pink and pink ribbons to indicate a company has joined the search for a breast cancer cure and to invoke breast cancer solidarity, even when the company may be using chemicals linked to cancer.
Pinkwashing is the co-optation of breast cancer symbolism by corporate actors who stand to profit from the use of breast cancer awareness imagery, including pink ribbons or simply the pastel pink which have become synonymous with breast cancer “awareness,” “the search for the cure,” or the “fight against breast cancer” in the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
By Tom Hoffman, West Pennsylvania Director
The City Council debates the diesel bill
Clean Water Action Pittsburgh is celebrating the successful end of a campaign, more than two years in the making, to ensure that investment projects supported by tax dollars return real benefits to our community. Working with a coalition of 13 environmental, faith, labor and community organizations the campaign succeeded in passing a trifecta of bills in Pittsburgh City Council.
The most recent win requires diesel retrofits be installed on construction vehicles on publicly funded developments. This means less harmful emissions from trucks and other vehicles on public projects. Late last year the City Council passed a bill requiring stringent controls on Stormwater runoff. Finally, in January 2010, the Council required that the wages on publicly funded developments not be allowed to undercut existing wage standards. These three bills will keep our water safer, our environment healthier, and make our communities stronger.
During this campaign the coalition not only held together but added several groups to the fight. This campaign showed the power of grassroots, community action. We were thrilled to be a leading part of this vital issue.
Join people across the country on Wednesday, July 20th as we ask our Senators to protect our families from toxic chemicals. It is simply unacceptable that chemicals are allowed on to the market without being tested for safety (it’s true!). Let’s show Congress that we want a change in the system!
Parents, nurses, doctors, college students, and people like you are calling their Senators to ask for common sense limits on toxic chemicals. Join the fun, it only takes two minutes!
What YOU Can Do:
Call your Senators. You can find their numbers here. A friendly staff member will answer the phone, or you’ll be asked to leave a message. Please ask them to co-sponsor the Safe Chemicals Act and let them know what city you live in. Make sure to call BOTH Senators, please.
Read on for a sample message!
Read the rest of this entry »
Our Pennsylvania State Director, Myron Arnowitt, explains what Congress is up to. You can do something about it right now – send a message to your Elected officials and support a stronger Clean Water Act.
By Miram Gordon, Clean Water Action California Director
Photo courtesy Leslie Tamminen
Big news for bag bans! This week the California Supreme Court decided that an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is not needed for the City of Manhattan Beach to ban disposable plastic bags. This is a great step forward and a repudiation of the “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition” (seriously?). The coalition had sued the City of Manhattan Beach to force an EIR to delay implementation and drive up the cost for Manhattan Beach.
Here’s a quick history lesson on the bag ban movement in California. The plastic industry was successful in co-opting legislation in 2006 that proposed attaching fees to disposable plastic grocery bags in CA. With a last minute amendment the industry successfully required grocery stores to collect plastic bags for recycling and also attached a provision that prohibited local governments from placing any fee on plastic bags. The bill passed and became law. The BAN the BAG movement was born. The movement has focused on encouraging local governments to ban plastic and place a fee on paper. The great thing is both tactics work- fees and bans- to reduce disposable bag use. What doesn’t work? Telling grocery stores to recycle bags. That program has been a miserable failure. Read the rest of this entry »
Editor’s note: This post was updated with new links on 7.18.11
So, the U.S. House passed HR 2018 today, the bill its sponsors bragged was the “Rein In EPA” Act. Let’s make sure it doesn’t get any further.
It just became easier to pollute our water
The final tally was 239 voting for this “dirty water” bill and against water and health protection. 184 voting for clean water and against this radical rollback.
Here’s Clean Water Action’s take, direct from the organization’s President, Robert Wendelgass:
“Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972 because they knew that dirty water harms people’s health, undermines strong economies and kills jobs.
This bill is a vote to return to the days of inadequate state and local laws that led to rivers on fire and streams running with untreated sewage.”
House leaders drafted HR 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, in a fit of pique over certain EPA actions taking on the devastation of mountaintop removal coal mining and other pollution problems. Clean Water Action’s Lynn Thorp called the bill “a temper tantrum in writing.” Read the rest of this entry »
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