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Earlier this month in a legislative session that went until the early hours of the morning, both chambers of the Michigan Legislature passed the budget for 2017. Included in the budget omnibus bill is $114.3 million in emergency supplemental funding for solutions to the Flint water crisis. As late as the week before, it looked like there was a good possibility that the Legislature would adjourn for summer recess without passing funding for Flint.

The State Senate passed $128 million in emergency funding for Flint with a 34-3 vote in early May. For weeks, the Senate bill languished in the House

During the special hearing on Kain v Department of Environmental Protection that I attended on my first day at Cleab Water Action, David Ismay of the Conservation Law Foundation highlighted fixing gas leaks as an accessible method to reduce Massachusetts’s emissions. Since that hearing, I have been focusing a lot on gas leaks. And for good reason— there are over 20,000 leaks across Massachusetts, heating up our planet and making it difficult to reach our climate goals.

Massachusetts has done some great work so far. In 2014 the state passed “An act relative to natural gas leaks,” a solid

On June 6, 2016 we said goodbye to Helen Fabela Chavez, a first generation Mexican American, wife, mother, activist, union bookkeeper and visionary, born in Brawley, California.

Not much is known or documented about women activists in the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). History rarely cites the contributions of the mujeres, esposas, hijas, hermanas, and tias, contributors who led the grape boycott and kept the home fires burning. One thing we do know: Without Helen at his side, Cesar Chavez could not have fulfilled his dream of a union to serve farm laborers.

Helen Chavez played a