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| Richmond – Americans use more than 100 billion plastic and paper bags every year, but we recycle less than 5 percent of those bags. Many of these bags end up in landfills, and even worse millions end up floating around our waterways clogging the Chesapeake Bay and the rivers, lakes and streams that feed into it. This morning, a three member subcommittee of the House of Delegates voted against a bill that would have taken steps to reduce waste from these bags in the Commonwealth. | |
| Today marks the end of a public comment period on the federal government’s recent proposals to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The comment period follows the release of nine reports authored by federal agencies that served as a “draft strategy” for bay cleanup. In response, more than 40,000 residents of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania submitted comments calling for bold federal action to restore the bay. | |
| In response to recent comments from the Virginia Farm Bureau about the cost of Chesapeake Bay cleanup, the conservation organization Environment Virginia released data on the financial incentives for farmers within proposed bay restoration legislation while calling for a new direction in cleanup efforts. | |
| Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) announced he will introduce a bill to reauthorize the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program. Along with renewed and increased funding, the bill establishes an accountability system whereby states must enforce limits on all sources of pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay. | |
| Virginia Beach, VA – Environment Virginia today released a new report on the impacts of an unhealthy Chesapeake Bay for Virginia’s commercial fishing industry. The report comes as Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection agency are considering new actions to jumpstart bay restoration efforts. | |
| Mount Vernon, VA – President Barack Obama issued an executive order today creating a Federal Leadership Committee to manage efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay. U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson unveiled the order at a press conference following a meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council. The order, which declares “a new era of shared federal leadership,” will bring together representatives from at least seven federal agencies to oversee bay cleanup. | |
| Americans rely on our rivers, lakes, streams and bays for clean water to drink and safe places to swim, boat and fish. The Clean Water Act has protected all waterways across the country for more than three decades. Recent murky Supreme Court decisions and Bush administration policies have thrown that longstanding certainty into doubt. | |
| As the Senate subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water Quality is hearing in testimony today, pharmaceuticals are emerging as a serious concern for our nation’s drinking water supplies. Congress should require the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry to prevent its products from further contaminating our drinking water, or to pay for the cost of removing them. | |
| A broad coalition of hunting, fishing and environmental groups collectively support the passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2008. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a public hearing this morning on the pending bill. | |
| Today’s findings by the Associated Press confirm what Environment America has suspected for some time: that prescription drugs and other medicines are now in the tap water for millions of Americans. Many of the nation’s top health experts have predicted this growing threat for years and have warned about the impending challenge of protecting U.S. drinking water supplies from increased contamination due to pharmaceutical drugs. | |
| Washington, DC—A federal appeals court today ruled that the Bush administration’s rules allowing coal-fired power plants to avoid making deep cuts in mercury pollution violate the law. The court’s decision invalidates the administration’s so-called “Clean Air Mercury Rule,†which would have allowed power plants to continue emitting dangerously high levels of mercury emissions under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not have taken full effect until 2020. | |
| Washington, D.C.—Fourteen states and dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups, and organizations representing registered nurses and physicians appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today seeking to overturn Bush administration proposals that evade legally required cuts in mercury pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants. | |
| Environment America applauds the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for voting to better protect swimmers, surfers and boaters at America’s beaches. | |
| Washington, DC— More than 57 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across America discharged more pollution into our waterways than their Clean Water Act permits allowed in 2005, according to Troubled Waters: An analysis of Clean Water Act compliance, a new report released today by Environment America. | |
| Nearly one year after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a murky split decision on federal clean water protections in Rapanos v. United States, the U.S. EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced a policy guidance today that instructs agency field staff on which waters are now protected by the Clean Water Act. | |
| Environment America applauds Representatives James Oberstar (D-MN), Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and John Dingell (D-MI) and 155 of their House colleagues for introducing the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007. This important legislation protects America’s waters by ensuring that all U.S. waterways continue to be safeguarded by the Clean Water Act. | |