
News Items
This web page will have links to newspaper and web alerts and articles
Protect Endangered Species: On July 23rd, the Endangered Species Coalition sent out this alert on the Endangered Species Act:
“Congress plans to vote soon on several bills that could spell doom for endangered species. These bills are filled with anti-wildlife “riders” that would remove or block protections for many of our nation’s most endangered wildlife. If they become law, Endangered Species Act protections would be fully removed for gray wolves nationwide and grizzly bears in Yellowstone, and blocked for Northern long-eared bats, wolverines, critically endangered whales, and more.
HERE IS THE TEXT OF A SIGN ON LETTER ON THE PROPOSED HOUSE RECONCILIATION BILL OF GOP –
THAT PHAS RECENTLY JOINED:
“House Reconciliation Letter Sign-On
As organizations committed to protecting our environment, our global clean energy
leadership, and a safer, healthier future for all, we strongly urge you to
oppose the House majority’s budget reconciliation bill. If signed into law,
this bill would constitute the most extreme and sweeping anti-environmental
piece of legislation in U.S. history.
With nearly 100 separate anti-environmental provisions, this bill takes a
sledgehammer to our historic clean energy progress, hundreds of thousands of
good-paying jobs, and the fundamental protections that keep communities safe
from polluters and corporate greed. Climate disasters are daily news, yet this
bill guts clean energy and resilience projects. Big Oil is raking in record
profits, yet this bill sells off our public lands to boost them even more.
Working families are struggling with rising household costs, yet this bill robs
them of rebates and tax credits they are depending on. All just to finance tax
breaks for billionaires and give more handouts to the country’s worst
polluters.
Among its most egregious provisions, the budget reconciliation bill:
- Increases
everyday costs for working families by
gutting clean energy tax credits, slashing home energy rebates, and
creating new fees for electric vehicle owners. Repealing clean energy tax
credits alone will raise electricity prices for households by more than $110 per year. - Sells
off hundreds of thousands of acres of our public lands,
while also mandating oil and gas lease sales on huge swaths of our public
lands, ocean and waters, including the Arctic, regardless of environmental
harm, community opposition, or lack of market demand. - Provides
massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry
by lowering royalty rates and reinstating speculative leasing terms, all
while gutting tax credits for wind, solar, electric vehicles, and clean energy
manufacturing. It also creates pay-to-play permitting schemes that allow
polluters to pay for fast-tracked environmental reviews that cannot be
challenged in court. - Rolls
back major investments in programs that protect our health and communities
from climate impacts, including clean air programs
in schools, coastal protections, climate-smart agriculture, national park
restoration, and pollution monitoring in the most polluted neighborhoods. - Kneecaps
environmental protections by gutting standards like
those governing vehicle and methane emissions and reviving radical
provisions from the REINS Act that prevent agencies from enacting major
climate and health safeguards.
All told, the budget reconciliation bill is a cruel lose-lose for the American
people. It uses taxpayer dollars to fund even more handouts for corporate
polluters, despite the more than $20 billion a year Americans already spend on fossil
fuel subsidies. It then makes Americans pay even more down the road through
higher energy bills, dirtier air, worsening climate disasters, and rising
health care costs, all of which already cost an estimated $649 billion annually.
The environmental wreckage of the bill alone is staggering, but it comes on top of
a host of other reckless provisions that would throw millions of Americans off
of Medicaid, slash food assistance for children, block access to higher
education, and gut so many other programs working families depend on to make
ends meet.
We urge you to reject this extreme, polluter-driven legislation and stand with the
vast majority of Americans who want to enjoy our public lands, grow our clean
energy economy, and build a safer, healthier future for our children — not pay
for billionaire tax breaks and fossil fuel handouts.
Sincerely,”
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