The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Rose Braz, (510) 435-6809

U.S. House Votes to Repeal Clean Air Act Protections

Amendment Aimed at Gutting Efforts to Curb Global Warming

WASHINGTON

The Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives voted today to reverse Clean Air Act protections aimed at reducing dangerous greenhouse gas pollutants that are contributing to the perilous warming of our planet.

"The House voted today to give the worst polluters in our country free rein to continue dumping unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants into our atmosphere," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Last year was the hottest year on record, followingthe warmest decade on record. But the facts and the impacts of global warming on our health and our environment don't seem to matter to House members more concerned with profits than Americans' health and safety."

The amendment was one of hundreds tacked onto legislation intended to provide stop-gap funding to keep the government from shutting down.

"The Clean Air Act is the single-most important existing law for this nation to reduce carbon pollution and keep the worst effects of climate change at bay," Siegel said. "It doesn't make any sense to simply throw that potential out the window."

Acting on an order of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency, through the Clean Air Act, is working to curb global warming pollution from vehicles and the largest industrial emitters.

A recent nationwide survey by the American Lung Association found overwhelming support among the public for EPA's actions and overwhelming opposition to congressional moves to block them.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

(520) 623-5252