Clean Air: EPA Administrator Pruitt is working hard to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) that regulates emissions from electric power plants. The CCP accelerates the movement away from fossil fuels to clean energy and is the most important US initiative addressing climate change. The new rules are designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 32 percent by 2030. By 2030 the CPP is expected to achieve $22 billion more in public-health benefits than Pruitt claims will be saved by industry if the CPP is scrapped. Also, the CPP is a powerful driver of the innovation and cost reductions for solar and wind technology. The Clean Power Plan is good for our families’ health, our planet and our economy, The EPA is collecting public comment until April 26 about how and whether to replace the regulations. This is an important way for you to make your views known to the decision makers.
Fire, Trees, Water, Salmon, Butterflies: The federal forest provisions in the Farm Bill, HR 2 undermine bedrock environmental laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This bill would allow federal land management agencies to “self-consult” on whether their actions would harm threatened and endangered species which has been found to be unlawful by the courts. Funding for resource management and forest stewardship will be dependent on logging revenues which only increases pressure to log on federal lands. The legislative proposal also jeopardizes fire-vulnerable communities by deprioritizing hazardous fuels reduction efforts in the Wildland Urban Interface and underfunds wildfire fighting. It weakens protections from the use of toxic pesticides on threatened and endangered species. Your senators need to hear from you.
Native People, Caribou and Polar Bears: The Trump Administration is rushing toward oil and gas drilling while disregarding the biological, cultural and climate impacts on the Arctic in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Gwich’in Nation of Alaskan Natives rely on this area for hunting and fishing. This reckless fossil fuel development also imperils polar bears and whales, and will release more greenhouse gases in order to boost oil industry profits. The Bureau of Land Management has begun an environmental impact analysis of how the proposed oil exploration and the heavy infrastructure required to support it would alter a landscape where plants and animals thrive. Now is the time to speak up for this precious environmental region.
Call To Action
Choose One or More!
- Tell the EPA you support the Clean Power Plan which sets limits on carbon pollution from power plants and encourages the development of clean, renewable energy. Tell them that you accept the science of climate change and that carbon dioxide emissions are a primary cause of global warming and must be regulated. The EPA will accept comment on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan until April 26, 2018. Comments should be identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355. Check out the EPA's how to comment page for information on sending comments either online or via e-mail, fax or by post.
- Call your representatives and strongly urge them to OPPOSE the federal forest provisions in the Farm Bill and any amendments that undermine environmental safeguards on our federal and private forests.
- Submit a formal comment to the Bureau of Land Management here, demanding protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Insist that we stop sacrificing America’s public lands to private industry for development. The BLM will accept comments on drilling until June 19, 2018.