--- "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: U.S. PIRG update - Environment At Risk Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:49:17 -0400
Dear supporter, If there's one thing most Americans agree on, it's the environment. The vast majority of Americans support stronger standards to keep pollution out of our air and water. From the Grand Canyon to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we support preserving our last wild places as reminders of nature's grandeur and wonder. Unfortunately, our environmental protections are in jeopardy right now. Never before has a presidential administration been so willing to hand over the power to weaken our environmental protections to powerful special interests. Since taking office, the Bush administration has given unprecedented access to industry lobbyists, inviting them to weaken our environmental laws for their own private gain. The oil, timber, auto, and many other industries are literally rewriting our environmental laws, resulting in more toxic pollution in our air and water, more clear-cutting in our last wild forests, and more drilling in America's wilderness. If we're going to stop the Bush administration from letting special interests spoil our environment, we need to take action. Ask your members of Congress to step up their opposition to the Bush administration's environmental agenda -- and to support stronger congressional action to clean up dirty power plants, clean up toxic waste dumps, and preserve our national forests. Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your members of Congress. http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=10&id4=ES BACKGROUND Since taking office, the Bush administration has done much to please corporate interests and almost nothing to grapple with the environmental problems facing most Americans. The administration is allowing coal, oil, timber, mining, and other industries to weaken an unprecedented number of safeguards for clean air, clean water, and public lands. Consider the following: * Despite the clearly documented health and environmental threats posed by coal-fired power plants - such as increased asthma attacks, mercury pollution, global warming pollution, and 30,000 premature deaths every year - the administration is proposing to weaken, not strengthen, clean air standards known as New Source Review. * The Superfund program has been instrumental in cleaning up the worst toxic waste sites around the country. The Bush administration has slowed down the pace of cleanups at Superfund sites by more than 50%. Innocent taxpayers are bearing additional costs of the clean ups, while polluters enjoy a $4 million a day tax holiday. While taxpayers are paying more, the funds collected from taxes levied on polluting activities to pay for cleanups dwindles. Superfund had $3.8 billion in surplus in 1995, the last year that the government collected the polluter pays taxes. In 2003, the Bush administration estimates the surplus will shrink to just $28 million. * The Bush administration is also actively working to weaken protections for public lands. They have failed to implement the widely popular Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect our last wild forests from most logging and road-building. They have also pushed to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other wild places. If we're going to stop the administration from letting special interests spoil our environment, we need to take action. Ask your members of Congress to step up their opposition to the Bush administration's environmental agenda -- and to support stronger congressional action to clean up dirty power plants, clean up toxic waste dumps, and preserve our national forests. Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your members of Congress. http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=10&id4=ES Sincerely, Gene Karpinski U.S. PIRG Executive Director http://www.USPIRG.org P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends. ---------- __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
