A pedophile has no business running a day care center. A climate denier has no place running the EPA & TAKE ACTION: Last chance to reject Scott Pruitt & Nearly 800 Former EPA Staffers Sign Letter Opposing Scott Pruitt 16FEB17

scott pruitt as head of the EPA /  +U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the same a putting a fox in a hen house or putting a pedophile in charge of a day care center. He has actually sued the EPA over environmental regulations and is a climate change denier, a perfect choice to head the agency in the opinion of the drumpf/trump-pence administration. If you value clean water, clean air, then you need to take the advise of  +Greenpeace USA and +Earthjustice  and contact your senators now and demand they vote against scott pruitt as head of the EPA. If you don't want to call using the toll free number below  (I did call, was connected to Sen Kaine's office), e mail your senators here.
NOTE, I did e mail Senators Kaine and Warner, and posted on their facebook pages. Sen Warner already has his opposition to pruitt's nomination posted, he will vote no. Sen Kaine has not made his position public. From Greenpeace, EarthJustice and +Huffington Post .....

Two of Trump's nominations down in one week! Is Scott Pruitt next? Call 1-877-969-2590 and tell your Senator not to put Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA!

The resistance is working! First public outcry caused Michael Flynn to resign as National Security Director, now fast-food executive Andrew Puzder has withdrawn from consideration as Labor Secretary.

Will climate-denier Scott Pruitt be next? Call your senator TODAY at 877-969-2590 and tell them to vote against Pruitt’s nomination as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

If you’ve never called your senator before, don’t worry. It’s easy! There’s a script and a toll-free number ready for you. It will only take a couple of minutes, but it will make a big difference.

Step 1: Dial 877-969-2590.

Step 2: Before you are connected with your senate office, you will hear a message from me with some brief talking points.

Step 3: After the message ends, you will be transferred to one of your senators' offices. You may be put on hold, but don’t hang up! Your message couldn’t be more important.

In case you want to practice ahead of time, here are the talking points written out:

1. My name is _______ and I’m calling to ask the senator to vote NO on Scott Pruitt’s nomination to head up the EPA. 
2. Scott Pruitt is a known climate-change denier who pushes fracking and other dirty energy sources over clean energy. By nominating Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Donald Trump is putting America’s communities, health, and environment at risk. 

Call 877-969-2590 today to tell your senator to vote NO on Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA. 

As Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt blocked basic protections for clean drinking water and helped the industry hide the connections between fracking and earthquakes.¹ Pruitt has made a career suing the EPA to undo critical environmental protections for our air and water. He’s also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry since 2002, leaving little doubt about whose interests he’ll protect as EPA head — and it’s not people or the environment.² 
If climate change denial is going to be the default position of the Trump White House, then relentless resistance will be the default position of the American people. It is now up to each one of us to fight for each other, and to resist the ways in which Donald Trump and his crony cabinet threaten our communities, climate, and country.

Thousands have already spoken out in resistance — writing messages, showing up at rallies, and going to town halls. Now let’s pick up the phones and make sure we can’t be ignored! Call 877-969-2590 right now. 

In united resistance,

Jill Pape
Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace USA

P.S. The resistance is growing louder by the minute — and it’s working! Add your voice by calling 877-969-2590 to stop the appointment of climate-denier Scott Pruitt.

¹ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/us/scott-pruitt-trump-epa-pick.html² http://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?c-t-eid=6583668&d-cci=36,33&d-ccb=95,98,97#[{1|gro=y

TAKE ACTION: Last chance to reject Scott Pruitt

Last month, nearly one million letters—over 55,000 from Earthjustice activists—urging their senators to vote NO on Scott Pruitt’s nomination as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were personally delivered to the Senate. On February 2, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted to send Pruitt’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote, despite the fact that he stonewalled more than 1,000 critical questions about his views on the environment and potential conflicts of interest. This is unacceptable, and now we need you to speak up again. The full Senate will vote this week on whether or not to confirm Pruitt as the head of the EPA. We need you to flood your senator’s office with calls telling them to vote NO on Scott Pruitt.

More than 870,000 messages from the public—including 55,819 letters from Earthjustice activists—are presented as Sen. Carper speaks during a “sunshine” roundtable on Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Witnesses testified, shining a light on what impacts Pruitt may have if confirmed as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

We have never encountered a presidential nominee like Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. His record on vital community protections and environmental standards indicates an open hostility towards the essential purpose and functions of the EPA—the very agency he seeks to lead. Our Congressional leaders must not act as if they have a mandate to destroy critical environmental and public health protections, because nothing could be further from the truth. The Senate must not overlook the fact that the majority of voters value clean air and clean water, and trust the EPA to protect us from Big Oil and polluters. Instead, our senators should protect the health of our communities by rejecting Scott Pruitt’s nomination. Raise your voice with thousands of Earthjustice activists now—call your senator and urge them to vote NO on Scott Pruitt. Sincerely,

Nearly 800 Former EPA Staffers Sign Letter Opposing Scott Pruitt

“Scott Pruitt represents what we environmental lawyers call an ‘imminent and substantial endangerment’ to our health and environment.”

 02/16/2017 12:19 pm ET | Updated 2 hours ago

Hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency officials have signed a letter in protest of Scott Pruitt’s nearing confirmation as EPA Administrator. 

The letter, put together by the nonprofit group Environmental Integrity Project, was signed by 773 former EPA staffers, including scientists, engineers and attorneys. The EIP sent the letter to the Senate, where members could confirm Pruitt as early as Friday, the organization said in a statement. 

“Pruitt, a close ally of the oil and gas industry, has made a career of suing EPA and attacking the idea of federal action to reduce pollution – while simultaneously failing to enforce environmental laws in his own state and shutting down the Environmental Protection Unit in the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office,” the EIP said in the statement.

As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt sued the EPA more than a dozen times. He is a climate change denier whose own LinkedIn page refers to himself as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”

In a January confirmation hearing, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) asked Pruitt if “there is any safe level of lead that can be taken into the human body.”

“Senator, that is something I have not reviewed nor know about,” Pruitt replied. (The answer is no).

Ellen Spitalnik was a former EPA attorney who served both Republican and Democratic administrations from 1980 to 2002. She signed the letter in opposition to President Donald Trump’s pick.

“My life’s work is protecting public health and the environment, so I must speak out against this unqualified extremist,” Spitalnik said in a statement. “Pruitt represents what we environmental lawyers call an ‘imminent and substantial endangerment’ to our health and environment. He threatens the very integrity of EPA and must not be allowed to continue shutting down environmental enforcement, disregarding science and putting private interests above public good.”

In a 2014 New York Times investigation, the publication said that Pruitt blasted the EPA in a letter he wrote to the organization as attorney general. It turned out the letter had first been written by oil and gas industry lobbyists that opposed regulations. Pruitt had copied the letter nearly word for word on his own stationary.

Staff at the EPA told Reuters this week that once Pruitt has been confirmed, Trump has prepared a handful of executive orders meant to reshape the agency.

“It is clear that [Pruitt] will launch an unprecedented attack on basic environmental protections that will result in more pollution and illnesses for the American people,” said one of the letter’s signers, Judith Enck, in the statement. Enck was an EPA Regional Administrator for New York and New Jersey from 2010 until last month.

“He will do permanent damage to the work of the EPA.”

MY E MAIL TO SENATORS KAINE AND WARNER VIA THE LVC WEBSITE....

If Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from dirty energy companies and then acted on their behalf when suing the Environmental Protection Agency, how can we trust him to now lead it? It is like putting a pedophile in charge of a day care center.

If confirmed, Pruitt could block the Clean Water Rule for good and the Clean Power Plan in its tracks. The damage to our environment after 4 years of the EPA being mismanaged and deregulated by scott pruitt will take decades to reverse and repair, and some damage may be permanent.

An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that we need strong action on climate change and we need it now. We urge you to oppose Scott Pruitt and demand an EPA Administrator who is guided by science, respects our environmental laws, and will place protecting public health first.

You must vote NO on the scott pruitt nomination to head the EPA.

LCV VICTORY FUND: Woah - crazy polls in CO, MN, and NV - we could WIN these 22OKT16

THE LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS has been working educate the electorate in swing states and in all states across the country on the importance of electing a president as well as senators and representatives who will lead the country in dealing with climate change and protecting the agencies and regulations that protect our environment and so protect us. Please consider making a donation to the slate of candidates supported by the +League of Conservation Voters , I have a few times. It isn't how much you donate,  but that you do, because the 2016 elections are so critical for the future of our nation. There is an update on the LCV Dirty Dozen list following the e mail.....

	Are you registered to vote? Yes / No / Don’t Know BREAKING: New polls show the Trump-effect seriously swinging down-ticket races. We have to jump on this — contributions are being triple matched right now — can you help us expand to win even more races?  As Trump’s rift with Republican leaders grows, new races are suddenly in play. Must-Win House Races: Colorado 6th: too close to call Minnesota 2nd: too close to call Nevada 4th: too close to call Donate today and your contribution will be tripled » TRIPLE MATCH » This is huge — in the final weeks of the election, Trump’s rift with Republican leaders is changing down ticket races in ways that no oneexpected. Races where environmental candidates had been trailing climate change deniers for months are suddenly in play. Some sources are saying that control of the House could flip to a pro-environment majority. Our campaign director just laid out a “go big” strategy to expand into must-win congressional races like those in Colorado, Minnesota, and Nevada, but here’s the thing: Tomorrow morning, our campaigns team is meeting to assess projected revenue, and right now we are $30,000 short of this week’s budget goals. If everyone pitched in we’d hit that goal immediately. A group of donors will triple every contribution. Can you let us know if you’re on board before tomorrow?  As donors with ties to big polluters turn away from the presidential race, serious resources are pouring into close Senate and House races for the final weeks of the election. The only way we can fully ramp up in must-win House races like in Colorado, Nevada, and Minnesota — the only way we can go big — is if we hit our $30,000 goal by tomorrow. This is a critical moment, we’ve got to act now to expand the map — we can’t afford to just play it safe. Are you with us? If your answer is “yes” — then we really need your help. A group of donors is tripling every contribution right now — can you let us know if you’re on board before tomorrow? You’re awesome and I want you to know we really couldn’t pull any of this off without folks like you. Sincerely, Kristin Brown Director of Digital Strategy P.S. By the way, the candidates we’re targeting in these must-win House races in CO, MN, and NV have such bad environmental records that we’ve named them to our Dirty Dozen list. So when we say must-win, we really mean it! Please, chip in today.  Paid for by the LCV Victory Fund, www.lcvvictoryfund.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. For 20 years, the Dirty Dozen has targeted candidates— regardless of party affiliation — who consistently side against the environment and are running in races in which LCV has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Last cycle, LCV defeated seven of the 12 Dirty Dozen candidates. In the last presidential year of 2012, LCV defeated 11 of 12. LCV Names Donald Trump to Signature Dirty Dozen List LCV Names Ron Johnson as Debut Member of 2016 Dirty Dozen LCV Names Joe Heck as Debut Member of 2016 Dirty Dozen LCV Names Pat Toomey as Debut Member of 2016 Dirty Dozen LCV Names Rob Portman to Dirty Dozen List and Launches Field Effort in Ohio Senate Race Additional members of the 2016 Dirty Dozen coming soon. Paid for by the League of Conservation Voters, www.lcv.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

New Draft of TPP Leaked - And It's Not Good & Interactive: How companies wield off-the-record influence on Obama’s trade policy 16OKT&28FEB14

A new draft of the tpp / trans pacific partnership has been leaked, and proves (as predicted) the USTR / U.S. Trade Representative is not representing the best interest of the poor, working and middle classes of America or any of the involved nations while negotiating this free trade treaty. It is nothing more than unifying and strengthening existing laws benefiting international corporations at the expense of the human rights and workers rights in all the nations who adopt this treaty. It increases the political power of these corporations as well as their profit margins. Individual nations laws on workers rights and wages, environmental laws, human rights, political freedoms and more will all be superseded by the terms of this treaty. The USTR is not insisting or even promoting American style regulations but is agreeing to and promoting the restrictive and repressive style regulations of the worst of the countries participating in the negotiations like Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei to name a few. Nobody in any of the countries involved with the tpp will realize any benefits from the treaty except international corporations and the megarich. Think nafta was bad for the American economy? Just wait for the tpp to hit if it is approved by the US Senate. From +Daily Kos and the +Washington Post .....

Thu Oct 16, 2014 at 11:09 PM PDT

New Draft of TPP Leaked - And It's Not Good

by Th0rn

Another draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)’s intellectual property chapter has been leaked, and it has even more alarming provisions than the last draft we know about.
The TPP is a free trade agreement being negotiated in secret among the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Peru, Chile, and Brunei. This latest text draft is from May 2014.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says: "The TPP still contains text on DRM, ISP liability, copyright term lengths, and criminal enforcement measures, and introduces new provisions on trade secrets that have us worried."

Anti-Circumvention Despite an over-abundance of evidence that laws punishing circumvention of DRM do far more harm than good, the USTR continues to press other countries to embrace the U.S.’s failed anti-circumvention policy.... What is worse, it would likely impede countries from adopting laws...that provide a blanket exemption for DRM circumvention for lawful purposes.

Copyright Term Whereas in the previous leak a coalition of countries had proposed that the TPP should allow them to retain full flexibility in determining the optimal length of their copyright term, that proposal has now been excised from the agreement—the only option now on the table is a provision that specifies a minimum term of years. How many years that should be, ranging from life plus 50 to life plus 100 years, remains undecided.

Criminal Treatment of Trade Secrets A new, more detailed provision on trade secrets introduces text that would criminalize the unauthorized, willful access of a trade secret held in a computer system, or the misappropriation or disclosure of a trade secret using a computer system. This text goes far beyond existing trade secrets law, which in the United States and other common law countries is usually a matter for the civil not the criminal courts. No public interest exception, such as for journalism, is provided. In practice, this could obligate countries into enacting a draconian anti-hacking law much like the Criminal Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that was used to prosecute Aaron Swartz.

Liability and Enforcement On ISP liability the text remains quite contested.... This article provides ISPs with a safe harbor against liability for copyright infringements by users....conditioned on ISPs participating in a DMCA-like notice and take-down regime, where allegedly infringing content is removed from the Internet without a court order....
Also still contested are the criminal enforcement provisions. The issue is whether users can be held criminally liable for copyright infringements conducted on a commercial scale, for commercial advantage or financial gain. In the November 2013 text, the text was more highly contested by all 12 TPP countries, but now most of the disagreement lies between the US and Canada. The US seeks a broader definition of a criminal copyright infringement, to even cover acts that are noncommercial, whereas Canada only wants to apply criminal remedies to cases where someone has infringed for commercial purposes. If the US gets its way, then criminal penalties will apply even against users who were not seeking financial gain from sharing or making available copyrighted works, such as fans and archivists.

Public Domain For the first time, the parties have reached agreement to include an article recording their recognition of “the importance of a rich and accessible public domain” and acknowledging “the importance of informational materials, such as publicly accessible databases of registered intellectual property rights that assist in the identification of subject matter that has fallen into the public domain.”

None of these provisions are for the public good (except the nod to the public domain - but words are cheap). They're all designed to benefit a narrow slice of corporate interests at the expense of the broad public. Cancer drugs will be more expensive, older drugs will be kept longer from generic forms, it will be easier to patent the genes in plants for the benefit of huge agricultural corporations, investigative reporting will be chilled by the criminalizing of disclosure of information that has commercial value by virtue of being secret. This is insane.
It's corrupt self-seeking by special interests. And as long as they can keep the public from finding out what's in these new trade deals until it's too late, they're going to get exactly what they want.

Interactive: How companies wield off-the-record influence on Obama’s trade policy

By Christopher Ingraham February 28

As it negotiates U.S. trade policy, including the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the upcoming E.U.-U.S. trade deal, the Obama administration seeks closed-door council from its network of 28 trade advisory committees. These committees are made up of U.S. citizens and ostensibly exist to represent the public’s interests in these negotiations.
But the advisory committees are heavily dominated by corporate interests and their related trade associations. Of the 566 committee members, 306 come from private industry and an additional 174 hail from trade associations. All told they represent 85% of the voices on the trade committees. They attend private meetings with administration officials and get access to documents that the public cannot see.

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Interactive: Explore the make-up of U.S. trade committees »

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In contrast there are only 31 labor representatives on the committees, 16 from NGOs, 25 from government, and 14 from academia, law and other organizations. Most of these non-business interests are concentrated in just a handful of committees. All but five labor representatives, for instance, sit on the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy. Similarly, most government members serve on the Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee.
Fifteen of the remaining committees draw solely on private industry and trade associations. This concentration and segmentation of interests doesn’t exactly facilitate a diversity of viewpoints – labor talks to labor and business talks to business, but they rarely talk to each other.
To address these and other concerns, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman recently proposed changes to the advisory committee structure, including the addition of a new Public Interest Trade Advisory Council. The U.S. International Trade Administration is also encouraging labor unions and NGOs to apply for seats on the industry trade advisory committees.
The AFL-CIO is calling this development “very helpful.” Whether the reforms will satisfy the administration’s critics on Capitol Hill, who have long complained about the lack of transparency in the TPP negotiating process, is a different question.

Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center

DUKE ENERGY, NORTH CAROLINA vs CLEAN WATER 24APR14

FIRST we had the chemical spill in the Kanawha River in West Virginia, then the coal ash spill in the Dan River in North Carolina. The gop / tea-baggers in congress have worked at weakening the regulatory power of the federal EPA and state epa agencies, not only through fighting regulations being adopted but through budget cuts, reducing the staff and so the enforcement power of the agencies. At least these environmental disasters occurred in states where the people have elected gop / tea-baggers to  govern their states and to represent them in congress. One can say, without any joy, these people reaped what they had sown. They have allowed corporate money to buy off their politicians and so allowed their politicians to place the interest of corporations over the interest of the people. duke energy in north carolina is under scrutiny by it's own shareholders, they are demanding the company come clean about it's political contributions and the corrupting influence of corporate political contributions. 

Duke Energy has such a cozy relationship with North Carolina's governor that Duke was able to cause a massive coal ash spill that threatened drinking water. Who knows what other sweetheart arrangements Duke is benefiting from for its political contributions. Tell Duke that you want it to come clean about its use of money to influence politicans and regulators.

America’s biggest utility company, Duke Energy, is responsible for the spilling of 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River in North Carolina. And it gets worse: the spill was totally preventable, but the state’s environmental watchdog didn’t have the resources to catch the problem.
Why? Because Duke has an ultra-cozy relationship with North Carolina’s governor, Pat McCrory, who has been systematically dismantling the state’s once-formidable environmental watchdog’s powers -- to the benefit of Duke Energy. Pat McCrory worked for Duke Energy for 28 years before being elected Governor -- then suddenly when McCrory became Governor, Duke Energy was allowed to flout federal and state law and increase its bottom line.
Federal investigators have begun to ask questions about Duke’s campaign contributions to Gov. McCrory. Buying off political candidates for corporate gain at the expense of everyday people isn’t right.
Duke: come clean about political contributions that allowed special treatment.
Governor McCrory holds the interests of Duke Energy above the good of North Carolina’s everyday people. If Duke is able to make large campaign contributions to a political candidate and then receive special treatment, it doesn’t just affect North Carolina. It has long-reaching impacts on the environment and the way companies do business in the United States.
Even Duke's own shareholders want to know how Duke is spending their money. The largest proxy advisor -- a firm to help shareholders vote on issues in the company -- demands Duke come clean about its dirty spending on politics and lobbying, and is advising all shareholders to do the same at Duke's upcoming annual shareholders meeting next week.
The federal investigation into Duke’s huge environmental mishap has raised questions about the company’s approach to the land it operates in and the people that live there. Coal ash -- a byproduct of burning coal to power Duke Energy’s electrical generation plant -- should never have been stored in leaky, unlined ponds on the river bank, and almost certainly never would have been if the Governor hadn't dismantled the State's environmental regulatory agency.
By taking action, you’ll be telling Duke that you don’t think it’s right to buy off political candidates for corporate gain at the expense of everyday people.
Tell Duke to disclose its political contributions in North Carolina.
Thanks for all that you do,
Taren, Jon, Lisa and the rest of us

**********
For more information:
Coal ash spill has wide-ranging impacts in North Carolina, New York Times, 28 Feb 2014


SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3.

Climate Champion or Pipeline President? Share your Climate State of the Union 28JAN14

SEND your climate State of the Union message to Pres Obama and the nation by clicking the link below. 350.org will stream messages across their website while the president speaks and post some on their facebook page and tweet others.....

Friends,
If you were taking the podium tonight for the State of the Union instead of President Obama, what would you say about the state of our climate?
I’m collecting 'climate State of the Union' messages to share with the world during the President’s speech tonight, and I'm hoping you can contribute yours. They’ll be streaming across the front of the 350.org website -- and we'll be posting some of the best on 350.org's Twitter and Facebook feeds later today.
Click here to share your climate State of the Union message: act.350.org/letter/sotu2014/
President Obama hasn't been the climate leader we need. Sometimes he gets it, making big promises and taking some steps to move us forward. But other times he goes out of his way to cheerlead fracking, and the Southern leg of Keystone XL.
With so much on the line, we need a climate champion, not a pipeline president. President Obama needs to get right to work moving our economy towards 100% renewable energy, starting with rejecting Keystone XL.
To show the kind of leadership we need, I want to collect climate State of the Union messages that set an example for how to speak truth and call for ambitious action.
Here’s what I decided I would say if I were addressing the nation tonight:

"The state of our climate is dire. We need drastic steps forward -- starting with rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and committing to a goal of 100% renewable energy as soon as possible.”

What would you say if you were in President Obama’s shoes? Click here to share it with the world. 
If you’re on Twitter, you can join in the conversation tonight with the hashtag #ClimateSOTU, and we’ll also have a feed of live commentary on the front page of the (brand new!) 350.org site.
Let’s show what leadership looks like,
Duncan

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350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by making a donation.

LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS 2012 SCORECARD 20FEB13

THE LCV has released it's Environmental Scorecard on the 112th Congress, and I have to agree with their comment, at least it is over. Click on the interactive map and links to see how your congressional delegation rates.....

JUST UNVEILED: Be the first to find out how your members of Congress measured up in LCV's 2012 National Environmental Scorecard and use our new, interactive website! Take a look at our new online National Environmental Scorecard here >> Today is a big day for us. Not only are we releasing the 2012 National Environmental Scorecard, but we're also unveiling a completely new, interactive Scorecard website, where you can see all the votes we've scored going back more than 40 years. Right now, I'm about to jump on a call to share this news with the national press, but I wanted to make sure that LCV members like you got an exclusive look at our new site before anyone else lays eyes on it. Find out where your members of Congress stood on the most important environmental votes of the year. Explore LCV's 2012 National Environmental Scorecard on our new website here >> Unfortunately the best thing that can be said about this session of the 112th Congress is that it's over. This was hands down, the most anti-environmental House of Representatives ever. Continuing their bad record from 2011, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) forced through radical bills attacking cornerstone environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. They pushed to drill off our shores and in the Arctic Refuge, tried to approve the harmful Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and attacked protections for our national parks, forests, and wildlife. If it wasn't for our champions in the U.S. Senate and the Obama Administration, many of the environmental and public health safeguards we rely on would have been lost. Want to know if your members of Congress stood with people or polluters last year? Take a look at the 2012 National Environmental Scorecard here. The good news is: if we can educate the public about anti-environmental legislators' records, we can build the public pressure to hold them accountable and improve our environmental policies in the years to come. So that's why we've completely overhauled our Scorecard website to make it easier for you to access and share the information not just from this year, but every year since the National Environmental Scorecard was first released in 1971. On our new website you can not only read about the votes and check out the scores for your members of Congress, but you can also see how your state's congressional delegation has voted compared to the rest of the country using interactive charts and maps. You can look at votes taken over the years on just one issue like clean energy or climate change. And we've built in share features that make it easy to spread the word on social media or send a message to your members of Congress to thank or reprimand them depending on their vote history. I hope you'll take a moment to explore and share our new National Environmental Scorecard website today at: scorecard.lcv.org Thanks for helping us make a major splash with this release by getting the word out today. Best, Gene Karpinski President League of Conservation Voters

1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-785-8683

 

Throw Big Oil off the fiscal cliff 5DEZ12

BIG oil did their best to buy this election, they threw away millions of dollars trying to buy a government that would protect their corporate welfare. They lost. NOW is the time, with the fiscal cliff looming, to demand our government eliminate the federal tax subsidies exxon, chevron, mobil, conoco, texaco and all the other dirty energy companies. They do not deserve the federal tax subsidies and tax breaks, and we can not afford to continue them. NOW is the time to end corporate welfare for the big oil companies. Click the link to send this message to your members of Congress.

Tell your members of Congress to throw Big Oil off the fiscal cliff and protect investments in conservation, clean energy, and public health! Tell your members of Congress to end Big Oil handouts, not environmental protections! We've got an idea for Congress: How about instead of cutting investments that support our families, protect our health, and preserve our environment, we finally get rid of those handouts that give oil companies billions of our taxpayer dollars every year to keep polluting our air and waterways? It seems like the most obvious plan, but right now Big Oil's congressional allies are pushing hard to do just the opposite as Congress looks for a way to deal with the so-called "fiscal cliff." Big Oil's allies in Congress want to protect special tax breaks for dirty energy companies while cutting investments in conservation, clean energy, and public health.  That makes no sense. But unless Congress hears from us now, they might just have their way. Email your members of Congress today: Tell them to throw Big Oil off the fiscal cliff, not the environmental programs that we all depend on! Big Oil has already recorded over $90 billion in profits so far in 2012. Yet the oil industry continues to receive $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies every year.  It is unacceptable that Big Oil's congressional cronies would have us fork over our tax dollars to these corporate polluters, while being forced to cut programs that protect our health and our environment. But even though environmental programs only make up 1.25% of the national budget, some members of Congress think we can somehow balance the budget by further decimating these critical programs. They would:     – Eliminate tax credits that have helped the wind industry grow,     – Starve our National Parks of funding,     – Cut programs for clean energy research and innovation,     – Undermine efforts to clean up contaminated waterways, and     – End programs that support more than 130 National Wildlife Refuges. We can't afford to lose these programs that keep our water clean, protect the places and wildlife we love, and build the infrastructure we need to curb global warming. So we need to make sure that Congress hears loud and clear that their constituents will not allow our health and our future to be traded away — especially not while they keep doling out billions to dirty energy companies. Send a message to your members of Congress right now urging them to put an end to Big Oil handouts, not our environmental protection programs. If we ended the handouts that we currently give to oil and gas companies, it would save more than $40 billion over the next 10 years. Given the furor over cutting wasteful spending, this should be a no-brainer. But Congress won't do it without hearing from you today. So we hope you'll join us in asking your member of Congress to stop subsidizing an industry that harms our health, and invest instead in clean energy jobs that will that strengthen our environment, our economy, and our energy independence. Thanks, Gene Karpinski President League of Conservation Voters

1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-785-8683

Tell Congress: Don't sacrifice the environment to cut the deficit 10OKT12

IT is the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act but all the laws and regulations that protect us and our environment at risk if sequestration kicks in on 1JAN13. Please send a message to your Representative and Senators asking them to keep the EPA and other environmental regulatory agencies adequately funded. From the NRDC...


The programs that protect our air, our water, our wildlife and our national parks are facing severe cutbacks.

Unless Congress acts soon, those programs will suffer severe, indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts, and at the same time tax credits that boost clean energy will expire. To make matters worse, some in Congress want to cut environmental protection even further, using the need to reduce the deficit as an excuse to hammer away at popular programs that protect health and the environment.

How would the across-the-board cuts affect you? There would be a shortage of meat inspectors, raising the risk of disease outbreaks; almost $200 million would be cut from fixing or building drinking water and sewage systems in your communities; more than $400 million would be slashed from finding newer, cleaner ways to produce and use energy; funding for national parks would be cut; and work to protect your air and water would struggle. And the damage under the House Republicans' spending plan would be even worse.

Congress needs to come up with a plan that will cut the deficit without harming the environment. Environmental programs have already been cut; the deficit can be reduced through a balanced, bipartisan program that looks at all aspects of the budget.

What to do Send a message right now telling your senators and representative that slashing environmental programs is unacceptable.