Hey Oregon: We're in Trouble

Among other things, new bill threatens the health of America’s children, elderly citizens and other vulnerable populations by blocking the EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act

(SALEM, Ore.) - The House just passed one of the biggest attacks on our environment and health in recent history.

Their proposed funding bill is riddled with amendments that take aim at the environment and our health, and could leave our air polluted with toxic chemicals and carbon dioxide pollution, the Willamette at risk, and our national parks without the money they need to stay open.

We're in trouble. And it's time to call in a little backup.

I'm working to send our staff organizers from Oregon to Washington, D.C., along with nearly 50 other local advocates from across the country, to help stop these anti-environmental measures in the Senate — but to do that I need a little extra support. Can you pitch in $35 or more to help our staff fly to D.C. to stop this disastrous bill?

Senators need to hear from the people in their home states who these rollbacks will hurt ... not just the corporate lobbyists gleefully cheering the cuts to environmental protections.

The bill passed in the House by nearly 40 votes. Here are some of the incredibly damaging pieces of the bill:

• Threatens the health of America’s children, elderly citizens and other vulnerable populations by blocking the EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act and cleaning up coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources of dangerous carbon dioxide pollution.
   
  
• Slashes funding for the EPA by 30 percent — the largest percentage in 30 years.
   
  
• Puts children at risk of learning disabilities, developmental disorders, and lower IQs by blocking the EPA from limiting mercury and other toxic air pollutants from cement kilns.
   
  
• Threatens the health of millions of Americans by stopping the EPA from updating air quality standards for coarse particulate matter (“soot”) pollution, which is linked to heart and lung disease, asthma attacks and premature death.
   
  
• Puts thousands of people living near coal ash pools at risk of toxic disasters like the Tennessee Valley coal ash spill by stopping the EPA from developing or issuing standards that treat coal ash as the hazardous waste that it is.

It sickens me to know that Congress would side with big polluters — giving them a free pass to spew unlimited mercury, lead, arsenic and acid gases into our air. Our families’ health is our number one priority, and it should be Congress’s too.

We need the EPA to be able to do its job so it can protect our health, our environment, and the health of generations to come. Click here to help head down to Capitol Hill to protect our environment and health from these rollbacks.
 
Thanks, as always, for making it all possible.

Submitted by Anna Aurilio
Environment Oregon Federal Legislative Director