February, 04 2014, 12:09pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Rich Bindell - 202-683-2457; rbindell@fwwatch.org
Julie Gouldener - 443-935-3536; jgouldener@fwwatch.org
It's the Poultry Industry's Turn to Pay Their Fair Share in Maryland
Senator Richard Madaleno (D-18) and Delegate Shane Robinson (D-39) introduced the Poultry Fair Share Act in the Senate and House respectively today. The legislation would hold Maryland's big poultry companies, some of the biggest polluters of the Bay, partially accountable for their contribution to nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay by requiring them to pay their fair share towards the necessary costs of Bay restoration.
Annapolis, MD
Senator Richard Madaleno (D-18) and Delegate Shane Robinson (D-39) introduced the Poultry Fair Share Act in the Senate and House respectively today. The legislation would hold Maryland's big poultry companies, some of the biggest polluters of the Bay, partially accountable for their contribution to nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay by requiring them to pay their fair share towards the necessary costs of Bay restoration.
Over the past several decades, the water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has declined as factory chicken farms on Maryland's Eastern Shore produce a billion and a half pounds of waste a year in this historic watershed. Since these big companies refuse to take any responsibility for the waste from its 300 million chickens on the Eastern Shore, their contract growers are forced to dump excess manure on already saturated farm fields, where it ends up in the Bay and its tributaries. As a result of this irresponsible behavior, agriculture is the largest contributor of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment to the Bay watershed.
"A healthy Bay is important to Maryland's economy, and all Marylanders benefit from making the Bay cleaner," said Senator Richard Madaleno. "So, it's important that all major polluters of the Bay pay their fair share, and this legislation ensures that one of the biggest sources of pollution begins to do just that. "
"Poultry companies are polluting with impunity while the public pays for the cleanup," said Delegate Shane Robinson. "Poultry corporations need to pay their fair share by contributing to the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund. It's important that we all do our part to save the bay."
State and federal officials have long been aware of the pressing problem that industrial agriculture brings to the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States and one of the most important biologically productive estuaries in the world. Unfortunately, elected officials and policymakers have passed the Bay clean-up costs to Maryland's residents and refuse to make the chicken industry, a main polluter of the Bay, pay its fair share for the waste from its thousands of factory farms.
"Maryland taxpayers are subsidizing the big chicken companies, while they pollute for free," said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "Perdue alone has received over $4.2 million dollars in grants and payments from the state of Maryland since 2008, including $74,000 to Jim Perdue personally, while the company leaves its waste behind for others to deal with."
Marylanders pay $15 million in Baltimore City, $21 million in Montgomery County, $4.8 million between Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, and Wicomico Counties, and $110 million across the state towards cleaning up the Bay through the Bay Restoration Fund. Meanwhile, a company like Perdue enjoys annual chicken sales of $4.8 billion and pays nothing into the fund despite the significant impacts the industry has on the health of the Bay.
The Bill introduced today would require these companies to foot a large percentage of the bill for the Maryland Department of Agriculture's Cover Crop program, a $20 million per year initiative designed largely to address the massive amounts of excess chicken waste produced on the Eastern Shore where the chicken companies operate. Presently, this program is funded entirely by state taxpayers, including through the diversion of funds from the annual $60 tax placed on the state's septic users. By shifting the financial burden of the Cover Crop program over to the profitable companies who create the problem in the first place, the PFSA would allow 100% of the septic money collected to go towards the critical need of upgrading the state's septic systems.
"The public health and environmental impacts of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay are clear," said Robert Lawrence, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. "Continued pollution from poultry waste runoff has created dead zones in the Bay and puts the public at risk for exposure to a number of harmful pathogens and other contaminants and contributes to water-related diseases including blue baby syndrome. It's time for Maryland regulators to take a stand for public health and hold polluters accountable for the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay."
"We believe big corporate agriculture should pay their fair share to clean up the Bay," said Environment Maryland Director Joanna Diamond. "Corporate agriculture's chicken waste is one of the biggest sources of pollution to the Bay and we welcome efforts to hold them accountable."
Poultry companies reap immense profits while Bay aquatic life, and fishing and crabbing communities, are suffering. Maryland's legislators should support a Poultry Fair Share Act to end Big Chicken's free ride and make the biggest polluters pay their fair share.
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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Oxfam Says Israel 'Actively Hindering' Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order
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The report, titled Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction, argues that Israel's continued obstruction of humanitarian aid is a direct violation of both international humanitarian law (IHL) and a January order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled the Israeli government is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and must ensure that assistance reaches desperate Gazans.
Oxfam said Sunday that "humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip has effectively worsened" since the ICJ handed down its interim order nearly two months ago, and conditions on the ground in the Palestinian territory have deteriorated rapidly. New data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) shows that Gaza's "entire population" is facing "high levels of acute food insecurity" and 1.1 million people are experiencing "catastrophic" hunger—a figure that one expert called "unprecedented."
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In its new report, Oxfam outlines seven ways in which the Israeli government is impeding humanitarian aid shipments and exacerbating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history:
In February—the first full month after the ICJ's order—Israel allowed just 2,874 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip, a 44% decline compared to the previous month, according to Oxfam.
The group said Israeli authorities "have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators, and Oxfam water and sanitation gear, all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 kilometers away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza."
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Celine Maayeh, advocacy and research officer at Juzoor for Health and Social Development—an Oxfam partner organization—said Sunday that "there's been an alarming increase in cases of malnutrition among children in the last month, and yet the only food the team is able to find to feed people living in 45 shelters is some vegetables."
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Oxfam's findings are consistent with those of other aid organizations and lawmakers who have visited the region in recent weeks.
In January, U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told reporters that they witnessed "miles of backed-up trucks" stuck at border crossings as Gazans nearby struggled to survive, eating grass and drinking contaminated water.
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Oxfam argued Sunday that the "only meaningful solution" to Gaza's intensifying humanitarian emergency is "an immediate, permanent, and unconditional cease-fire."
"Even the trickle of aid that a humanitarian response could provide under the current circumstances is being further obstructed by Israel's policies and practices, inflicting suffering on millions of Palestinians who are living under Israeli bombardment without access to food, clean water, and medical care," the group said.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned Sunday that Donald Trump will aggressively pursue a national abortion ban if elected to another term after the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee boasted about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—a move that opened the floodgates for draconian attacks on reproductive rights across the country.
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In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump said the justices "did something that from a lot of standpoints is extremely good" and repeated commonplace right-wing lies that Democrats support infanticide—claims that are frequently used to justify further rollbacks of reproductive freedoms. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case brought by right-wing groups that could dramatically weaken access to medication abortion.
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Asked during the Fox News interview whether he thinks a 16-week abortion ban would be "politically acceptable," Trump responded, "We're gonna find out."
Trump's campaign previously dismissed the Times reporting as "fake news."
Trump on if a national 16 week abortion ban would be politically acceptable: "We're gonna find out."
He then lies about Democrats supporting the murder of born babies. pic.twitter.com/B5e41m9ftm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2024
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Despite protests on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin won reelection with more votes than any candidate since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Exit poll the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) put the final tally after three days of voting at 87.8%, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) at 87%, and Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) at 87.3%. Putin will now serve another six-year term, meaning he will have been at the helm of the Russian state for longer than any leader since Catherine the Great, surpassing Josef Stalin.
The election comes less than a month after the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and is likely to lead to more tensions between the Russian and U.S. governments.
"It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia."
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With most of Putin's prominent opponents either dead, imprisoned, or in exile, the elections results were considered a foregone conclusion by both friends and foes of his administration.
A Putin spokesperson said in 2023 that the election was "not really democracy" but instead "costly bureaucracy," according to CNN. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the election was "obviously not free nor fair."
However, Russian opponents of Putin did find a way to demonstrate their position with a protest called "Noon Against Putin." The protest was called for by St. Petersburg politician Maxim Reznik, according to The Guardian. Participants were instructed to head to a polling place at noon and cast a paper ballot for one of the candidates running against Putin, or to write-in another candidate or spoil their ballot.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had endorsed the protest before his death last month in a Russian prison, leading the Independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper to dub it "Navalny's political testament."
The action drew crowds to polling places both in Russian cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg and at Russian embassies around the world.
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CNN. Russian journalists reported that the lines at some stations within the country reached the thousands, according to Reuters.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who had also endorsed the protest, voted at the embassy in Berlin, while several protesters gathered outside the embassy in London.
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Ruslan Shaveddinov of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation told Reuters:
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