Clean Water Action welcomes today's Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment hearing on "Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Drinking Water." Growing evidence of occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals in the nation's water bodies, including sources of drinking water, has led to widespread concern that merits not only new research and water policy but an "upstream" approach as well.

President Obama was right to emphasize the job creation potential and economic stakes for America's leadership on global warming solutions in his State of the Union address this week.

Strategic use of federal stimulus monies is one of the best ways to jump-start the nation's transition to a clean energy economy. Planned investments in high speed rail, new energy efficiency technologies, clean energy start-ups and entrepreneurs can deliver the right combination of near term and longer range benefits.

By re-asserting the imperative for U.S. action and leadership on global warming, the President signaled the urgency and importance of Senate action to complete work on comprehensive energy and global warming legislation begun by the House.

Act Now To Fund Jobs That Save Lives

Legislation to create jobs is moving forward in Congress, and environmental health advocates have a great opportunity to significantly increase the funding to reduce diesel emissions. The request for $1 billion would potentially save or generate 19,000 jobs and increase economic output by over $3 billion.

It is a great opportunity to protect public health, curb greenhouse gases and otherwise protect the environment while putting Americans to work and boosting the economy. Please contact your House representative and two Senators to urge them to support $1 billion in the jobs package to reduce diesel emissions today. 

January 11, 2010

The Honorable Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Majority Leader Reid:

We are writing as a broad-based group of environmental, health and industry organizations to urge you to include $1 billion for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2005 ("DERA") in the anticipated jobs package.

Published On: 

01/11/2010 - 10:57

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Government, politics, relationships and most of life are all filled with compromise.  Most people have a point beyond which they won't compromise and the art of aligning those points among the negotiating parties determines the quality of an agreement.  It is very often the case that the parties to an agreement are both equally satisfied or dissatisfied and the agreement suffers in quality because there is no strong perspective left to drive the outcome.  Such is life.

There are two recent examples of compromise which are giving me more than the usual amount of concern because of what they imply about  leadership and the tendency to discount real life consequences of policy decisions.

We have never had a better chance of fixing the Clean Water Act and delivering results on the Clean Water issues that matter the most. Help us seize the moment and change the course of our nation's clean water future.

By continuing your support with a generous year-end gift, you are helping to advance Clean Water Action's vision for water protection in the 21st Century that will be realized by:

Delegates to the Copenhagen Climate Summit are leaving us high and dry. Or possibly low and wet. As part of their effort to achieve consensus, they have decided to delete water issues from their draft policy. This approach is, at best, misguided. By leaving out the most fundamental element of climate change, they are deciding to court failure. Got Drought?

Information on Clean Water Action's most recently completed fiscal years is summarized in the documents available for download below.

Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008)

Audited Financial Statement, September 30, 2008 (pdf, 1.1 MB)

Clean Water Action Statement on Water Contamination and U.S. Senate Hearings

Tuesday December 8, 2009 - Today the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee held an oversight hearing on federal drinking water protection, against a backdrop of growing public concern and awareness. Recent news such as the New York Times' "Toxic Water" series and reports from the Washington Post and others on "gender-bending" fish in the Potomac River have helped to expose the seriousness of the problem.

These problems are symptomatic of the nation's faltering commitment to clean and safe water. Anemic enforcement efforts and failure to maintain and modernize water infrastructure and treatment plants have had predictable consequences. But tough enforcement and more funding alone are not enough to protect the public's health and deliver the clean water Americans have come to expect. Federal drinking water standards have yet to be developed for several dangerous and ubiquitous contaminants, including perchlorate and hexavalent chromium. The key to protecting drinking water and preventing harmful health impacts is to stop pollution "upstream" before it even has a chance to enter our water. The alternative is costly end-of-pipe measures that leave consumers, water systems and governments mired in a no-win cycle of costly regulation, testing, treatment and cleanup, after the fact.

Primum non nocere - First Do No Harm

What makes us sick? Who makes us sick? If we pass laws to protect ourselves from disease and illness caused by human activity, is it up to us, as individuals, to pay for the consequences when those laws fail due to a lack of compliance or a failure of the government to enforce.

If we are stricken with mercury poisoning, cancer, heart disease, retardation, birth defects, lung disease, asthma or any of the hundreds of other illnesses caused by toxics in our environment, should we have to go bankrupt or decline treatment because there is no health care available to us? If we live in poverty and industry uses our neighborhoods to site their most toxic operations, how do we pay for the illness those operations cause?

Does our concept of personal responsibility stop when it comes to corporate behavior?

October 30, 2009

The Honorable Barbara Boxer, Chair
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
410 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

RE: Require Efficiency Investment of at least 1/3 of Allowance Value Given to Electric Utilities

Dear Chairwoman Boxer: