We All Live Downstream

By Clean Water Action Minnesota

Contact your Senators today!

Congress continues to strip out standards that protect our health from hazardous pollution. In the coming days, the U.S. Senate will vote on the Congressional Review Act (S.J. Res. 27) sponsored by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). The Congressional Review Act is an anti-regulatory, rarely-used mechanism for blocking federal agency rules. Senator Paul is using this political tactic to block the Cross State Air Pollution Rule.

Finalized this past July, the Cross State Air Pollution Rule improves air quality for 240 million Americans by cutting power plant smog and soot emissions that cross state lines and contribute to unsafe levels of air pollution. This rule is needed to protect Americans in downwind states from the health and economic costs caused by pollution emitted in other states.

The Cross State Air Pollution Rule will have significant health benefits. It will save up to 34,000 lives by preventing 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 aggravated asthma attacks and hundreds of thousands of cases of other respiratory ailments every year. In 2014, the rule is estimated to result in up to $280 billion in annual health care savings.

Your Senators need to hear from you! Tell them to stand up for clean air and vote NO on the Congressional Review Act!

Please call the Congressional Switchboard, (202) 224-2131 and ask for your Senator

Let's get it "over the hill"39 - will it get to 40?

By Lynn Thorp, National Programs Coordinator

Today is the 39^th anniversary of the landmark Clean Water Act.  Since Clean Water Action was  founded  as the idea became law, it’s a meaningful  date for us.  The idea then was that the long struggle to point to our nation’s water problems and win a national solution was not over when President Nixon signed the bill into law.  In fact, the struggle was just beginning.

With a goal like “zero discharge of pollution” into our nation’s water by the middle 1980’s, we knew it would not be easy!  The Clean Water Act includes numerous programs and many ambitious activities.  Not all of them have been put in place yet.  And every step of the way, those who profit from unfettered ability to pollute and damage our water resources have put their money and power to work to try to limit the Act’s scope or to question the federal government’s role in protecting our water resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Mark Schmerling

By Cord Briggs, National Programs Intern

Do you breathe air? Then I have some good news for you!  On July 28^th the EPA released a suite of new regulations that, for the first time, will control airborne emissions from oil and gas wells, and specifically those drilled using the risky practice of hydro-fracking.  This is truly a win-win-win.  Not only will the public reap the benefit of cleaner air (and water), but greenhouse gas emissions will drop, and the petroleum industry will actually end up making more money!

It works like this, when a natural gas well is first drilled or fracked huge amounts of natural gas along cancerous toxins, fracking fluid, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), water, and the -greenhouse gas methane are released in what is know as “flowback.”   Flowbacks spew these dangerous pollutants into the environment for anywhere from three to ten days. Unsurprisingly, flowbacks are currently unregulated! Read the rest of this entry »

Let's Stop this TRAIN Wreck

By Dan Endreson, Minnesota Program Coordinator

This summer was rough for the environment. The 112^th U.S. House of Representatives has been one the most anti-environment Congress’ in history by passing legislation that will severely impact water and air quality for generations. Congress continues to go after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by attempting to limit its ability to update and enforce the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. In August, Congress took on the Clean Water Act with the “Dirty Water Act” (H.R. 2018) that would prevent the EPA from being able to regulate nutrient pollution in our nation’s waterways and prevent toxic mountaintop coal from polluting our streams. Today, Congress is taking on the Clean Air Act.

As I write this, Congress is taking up what is called the TRAIN Act (Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act, H.R. 2401), the most dangerous attack on air quality standards since the Clean Air Act was signed into law 40 years ago. The bill would block the EPA from enforcing emission standards to limit mercury and other toxic pollution from power plants and standards to curb smog and soot pollution that crosses state lines. Keeping the EPA from enforcing these standards will expose our children, families and communities to toxic air pollutants that cause illnesses and developmental disorders, particularly in small children. Blocking these standards for just one additional year would result in: Read the rest of this entry »

By Lynn Thorp, National Campaigns Coordinator

With health and environmental protections under unprecedented attack, particularly by the leadership of the 112^th Congress, how do we make sure that common sense and long overdue water policy advances don’t get stopped in their tracks?

The Administration’s backtracking on an important regulation for smog pollution it is getting a lot of attention, as it should have.  You can see reactions from some of Clean Water Action’s leadership around the country here.

Now we have to make sure that we don’t get propelled backwards on clean water protections.  That means telling the story more loudly and to more people, and holding elected officials accountable for their actions. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some of the first reactions from folks on the frontlines here at Clean Water Action when they heard the President’s announcement that pending rules to crack down on health-harming ozone pollution would be shelved indefinitely:

“We were deeply disappointed in the Obama administration’s decision to punt on reducing the amount of ozone we all breathe, day in and day out. This announcement was handed down on a day that marked the eighth ozone action day in southeast Michigan and the seventh in western Michigan this year. We can’t wait until 2013 to get toxic air pollution like ozone under control. ” — Alex Yerkey, Michigan Clean Water Action

“We appreciate the Administration’s concern about the economy and jobs. And this decision is about the economy — how many Americans will lose their lives, have heart attackes, go to emergency rooms, and how many children will have asthma attacks, due to dirty air and high ozone levels in our cities?  Let’s crunch the numbers and calculate the costs to the public’s health, to American lives, and to our economy.” — Gary Wockner, Colorado Clean Water Action

“The Administration’s action to delay a truly protective ozone standard is short-sighted and puts the health of millions of Americans at risk. The only jobs the President’s delay will create are in hospital emergency rooms that will have to threat the estimated 8,500 who will die prematurely because of the delay, and the 45,000 cases of aggravated asthma that will result.” — Bob Wendelgass, Clean Water Action President & CEO

Have you taken the Clean Air Promise yet?

By Bob Wendelgass, President and CEO

We're fighting for our water - won't you join us?

As a child, I grew up near Lake Ontario and New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes region. I can still remember being told we couldn’t swim in Lake Ontario because sewage from nearby plants had made the water unsafe. I remember being saddened when we were told not to eat fish from Lake Ontario because it was too contaminated with toxic chemicals like PCBs. And I was shocked when conditions on nearby Lake Erie deteriorated to the point that it was declared “dead.”

I’ve seen first hand what can happen to our water when polluters are allowed free reign. I’ve also seen what a difference laws like the Clean Water Act have made since then. Now, I can enjoy a quiet early morning or evening rowing on the Schuylkill River here in Philadelphia. That would have been much less pleasant during the 1960s or 70s, when pollution was at its worst. Read the rest of this entry »

Risking arrest to stop the pipeline

And all they got was a mug shot ticket (and an earthquake).

The largest environmental civil disobedience action in a generation is happening right now in front of the White House.  Hundreds of people have been arrested already and hundreds more will be arrested over the next week.  It’s all aimed at getting President Obama to say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.

The proposed pipeline is an extension of an existing line, which currently stops somewhere in Oklahoma.  The new line would allow oil companies to transport tar sands all the way from the destroyed Boreal forests of northern Alberta to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, passing under essential farm land and vital aquifers in the mid-west. This brings us to reason#951 (find some other reasons here and here) why this line should not be built: spills.  The current line has already leaked dozens of times in one year.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Gary Wockner, Colorado Program Director

Protestors outside Rep Gardner's office - by Micah Parkin

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen elected officials act as irresponsibly as the members of the 112th Congress have.  This year we’ve seen everything from attempts to de-fund the EPA to H.R. 2018 to scores of Representatives sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “La, la, la…can’t hear you science – Climate change is a hoax!”  The worst part is that these Representatives aren’t even trying to hide it.  Case in point – we compiled a 17-page report that documents the anti-environment riders attached to one spending bill.

We’re not alone in our astonishment.  This summer Reps Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) analyzed 110 votes in the U.S. House since January 2011.  They came to the conclusion that the U.S. House of Representatives in the 112th Congress — led by Colorado’s 4th Congressional District Congressman Cory Gardner —is the “Most Anti-Environmental Congress in U.S. History”.  Read the rest of this entry »

Moms for a toxic free tomorrow

By Elizabeth Saunders, Massachusetts Legislative Director

“Who says politics has to be dull?” asks Kristi Marsh of Easton, who came with her 3 children to yesterday’s “stroller brigade for safer chemicals” in Boston.  All four Marshes, along with about 30 other moms and kids, donned superhero capes and visited the offices of Senators Brown and Kerry to urge them to be heroes by co-sponsoring the Safe Chemicals Act.

The Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 (S.847), introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ) would increase chemical safety, inform consumers and the marketplace on chemical hazardous and protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women and children. Yesterday’s event was one of 17 around the country.

Enjoy these photos of super-moms and -kids from the day! You can see more pictures on our facebook page.  For more information read our press release about the event. Read the rest of this entry »