TAKE ACTION! Don’t Let Polluters Undo Environmental Protections This Holiday Season
This holiday season, leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are planning to hide attacks on vital protections for our air, water, wildlife, and public lands in tax legislation and must-pass spending bills—but the U.S. Senate can stop them! These attacks will mean fewer protections for our lungs, our drinking waters and our children. As we all prepare for the holiday season, the Senate must prepare to stop anti-environmental “riders” from being slipped into these bills.
We know you’re busy this time of year, but we need your help. Please call your U.S. Senators today and tell them to not allow any anti-environmental riders into these must-pass spending and tax bills.
One of the most harmful measures polluters and their friends in Congress are trying to slip through would weaken rules protecting the public from mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants, cement plants and incinerators. If public health limits are delayed it would cause up to 28,350 premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks and nearly 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits.
Polluters are also attempting to dismantle the Clean Water Act, which for 40 years has protected our streams, lakes, and rivers from harmful pollution and toxic dumping. These are waters where we swim and fish, and even waters that we drink, and no one should be allowed to dump their poisons into our waters. Well-paid lobbyists are also trying to block measures that keep endangered species safe from toxic pesticides and to block judicial review of a terribly flawed wolf management plan in Wyoming.
Inserting these riders into spending and tax legislation to undo environmental protections is absolutely contrary to the public interest. It’s not a gift that any American wants, and the Senate must know that we’re watching them. At a time when Congress should be working to complete its long-delayed work to fund the government, it is not acceptable to use this process as an excuse to threaten communities, children’s health, clean air and water, and endangered species.
Thank you,
Marty Hayden |