Rhea Suh / NRDC Action Fund – 2018-01-13 23:59:00
ACTION ALERT: Tell your Senators:
Stop Trump’s Anti-Environment Budget
Rhea Suh / NRDC Action Fund
(January 11, 2018) — Almost four years ago today, residents of Charleston, West Virginia, noticed a foul odor blanketing their neighborhoods. Inspectors quickly traced it to a nearby chemical plant, where a toxic chemical used for coal processing was leaking into the water supply.
Within hours, more than 300,000 people had no access to clean water. Schools closed. Hospitals evacuated.
And the EPA sprang into action.
The agency established new air monitoring to ensure residents’ safety, and launched a criminal investigation to hold the negligent company accountable. And with pressure from local citizens, they’re developing rules to make similar disasters less likely.
This is the type of vital work that we need the EPA to do every day, — and we need more of it. But President Trump and his EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, along with their anti-environment allies in Congress, want to change all that.
They’re pushing for bone-deep cuts to EPA funding that would make critical environmental cleanups like this nearly impossible in the future.
Show your senators that you’re counting on them to stand up for our environmental protections. Tell your senators to oppose any funding bill that would make cuts to the EPA and attack our environment!
Congress must pass a new spending bill by January 19 to keep the government running — and President Trump and his allies are using this deadline as an excuse to force their extreme anti-environment agenda into law.
They’re attaching hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cuts to the EPA’s budget, forcing the agency to eliminate staff and slash clean water, clean air, toxic cleanup, energy efficiency, and enforcement programs. And this dangerous scheme comes just weeks after they gave away billions to polluting corporations and the nation’s wealthiest in a huge tax cut bill.
These cuts would make future disasters like the one in Charleston more likely — and would make it harder to hold corporate polluters responsible for the damage they cause.
And it’s not just the EPA. Trump and his climate-denying allies have proposed massive cuts to the Interior Department and other key agencies that protect our air, water, wildlife, lands, and health . . . crucial programs that help us better prepare for extreme weather events like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and the recent wildfires and mudslides in California . . . and innovative programs to expand energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, and clean energy jobs.
They’re also trying to tack dozens of anti-environment riders onto this must-pass bill— measures that would undo critical EPA standards, block Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves, and roll back countless other vital environmental laws, even if it means forcing a government shutdown.
We need your help to show every senator — even those with strong environmental voting records — that we’re counting on them to stand strong against this dangerous bill, no matter what.
ACTION: The deadline is January 19, so there’s no time to waste: Please, tell Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala D. Harris to oppose any funding bill that contains anti-environment cuts and riders!
We know that President Trump and his allies in Congress will stop at nothing to get their way — even if it means rolling back decades of environmental progress and threatening the health of the American people. But I also know that dedicated NRDC Action Fund supporters like you will stop at nothing to turn back the Trump administration’s brazen attacks on our environment.
Together, we can stop the worst of their assaults. Please make your voice heard at the Capitol right away. Thank you for everything that you do.
Rhea Suh is President of the NRDC Action Fund
Tell your Senators:
Stop Trump’s Anti-Environment Budget
Congress must pass a spending bill for the fiscal year by January 19 — or risk a government shutdown. But anti-environment legislators, backed by President Trump and his climate-denying allies, are using this deadline to advance their extreme pro-polluter agenda.
They’re weighing down the spending bill with dangerous proposed budget cuts to the EPA and other key agencies, and with unrelated riders that would shred protections for our air, water, climate, and health.
We can stop this sneak attack against the environment, but we need to act quickly. Please tell your senators to oppose anyspending bill that contains anti-environment cuts or riders!
Your message will be sent to:
US Senators
Subject: Oppose anti-environment
cuts and riders in the FY18 budget
(Consider adding your own thoughts — personalized messages are especially effective)
THE LETTER
Dear Senator,
As your constituent, I urge you to oppose any FY18 spending bill that contains anti-environment cuts and riders targeting the EPA, Interior Department, and other agencies and programs that protect clean air and water and our climate.
The most troubling measures include:
* Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cuts to the EPA’s budget, eliminating staff and slashing enforcement, clean water, clean air, toxic cleanup, and energy efficiency programs
* Slashed funding for critical programs at the National Weather Service, NOAA, FEMA, and other agencies that help us better prepare for climate change-charged storms like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria last fall and the recent devastating wildfires and mudslides in California
* Huge cuts to the Interior Department, threatening our national parks and public lands
* Deep cuts to programs to expand energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, and clean energy jobs
* Anti-environment riders that would undo EPA health standards for smog pollution, repeal the Clean Water Rule, block Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves, and roll back countless other bedrock laws that protect our environment and health
These provisions are outrageous, and it’s unacceptable for pro-polluter members of Congress to try to ram them through the legislative process by attaching them to a must-pass spending bill.
Please do everything you can to keep anti-environment cuts and riders out of the final Fiscal Year 2018 budget, and vote against any spending bill that includes them.
A POEM FOR SCOTT PRUITT
By Gar Smith
No surprise here, we all knew it
EPA-pick Scotty Pruitt
is bad news, bears, so let’s review it:
Climate change? “There’s nothing to it.”
The Clean Air Act? “We must undo it.”
Clean Water law? “We can’t renew it.”
Lead in water? “Learn to chew it.”
On wilderness? “I’ll drive right through it.”
Oil and coal? “I’ll get right to it.”
Polar bears? “I won’t rescue it.”
Atomic waste? “I don’t intuit.”
Stewardship? “I shall eschew it.”
Sierra Club? “I plan to sue it.”
Your legacy? “I think I blew it.”
Our planet’s future? “Don’t care! Screw it!”
