For the fracking industry, coal companies and oil pipeline builders, there’s a huge opportunity as Congress faces the upcoming budget deadline. They’re using the frantic rush to load the bill down with amendments that defund critical environmental protections.
The riders attached to the must-pass spending bill would gut the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of criminal pollution, roll back regulations on uranium miners and chemical producers, and more.1And our national network is fighting back — organizing 183 events in districts nationwide, fending off dozens of bad amendments, alerting the media to the worst impacts, and helping recruit 263,000 people nationwide to pressure their legislators.
We need to ramp up our efforts before Sept. 30 to defend our air, water, and health from this existential threat — so we’ve set a goal of raising $25,000 by 9/30. Donate to Environment America today.
If polluters get their way, clean water from the Puget Sound to the Great Lakes to the Delaware River watershed will be at risk — as well as the tens of millions whose drinking water is sourced in these areas. Here’s what else we could lose if these amendments pass:
- Critical restoration efforts, like the dozens of PCB-contaminated hotspots in rivers, lakes and ports nationwide that the EPA is planning to clean up — but only if we can defend funding for them.
- Policing pollution. If we can’t monitor and inspect pipelines, industrial facilities and chemical plants, they’ll be given a free pass to contaminate without consequence. And that depends on EPA monitoring and enforcement.
- Protecting against invasive species, like the Asian carp, which threatens fishing ecosystems in the Great Lakes. But those efforts will dry up if EPA funding is cut.
These are the stakes. Before this crucial deadline of 9/30, will you stand with us to defend our special natural places?
Yes, I’ll donate.
All this is at stake because of the pernicious legislative situation: The House just passed an EPA appropriations bill chock-full of giveaways to polluters. But it’s not law yet — first, it has to be reconciled in conference with a Senate funding bill.
And this is where our work is so important: Our policy experts have been reviewing the hundreds of different provisions, working with our legislative champions, and organizing thousands of citizen voices from the districts of legislators who matter most.
We can’t expand this work without you. Be a part of the national campaign to protect our most special natural places, before it’s too late.
Yes, I’ll donate to Environment America.
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