January, 28 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Sanders Unveils Bill to Combat Corporate Polluters and Protect Drinking Water
Today, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Prevent Future American Sickness (PFAS) Act to require the cleanup of a class of toxic, so-called "forever chemicals"--known by their acronym PFAS--from America's drinking water.
WASHINGTON
Today, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Prevent Future American Sickness (PFAS) Act to require the cleanup of a class of toxic, so-called "forever chemicals"--known by their acronym PFAS--from America's drinking water.
New laboratory testing found that PFAS--per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances--are prevalent in the tap water of 43 American cities. Environmental Working Group scientists now believe PFAS compounds are likely detectable in all major water supplies in the United States and that previous studies dramatically underestimated these toxins' pervasiveness.
"As hundreds of communities across the country are dealing with toxic PFAS contamination in their drinking water," Sen. Sanders said, "it is unconscionable that huge corporations like DuPont have, for decades, concealed evidence of how dangerous these compounds are in order to keep profiting at the expense of human health. Congress must pass this legislation to put an end to corporate stonewalling and criminal behavior and tackle this public health crisis. It is not a radical idea to demand that when people in the world's richest country turn on their taps, the water they drink is free of toxic chemicals."
"Every American--regardless of the color of their skin, their zip code, or their income--has the right to be free from exposure to a slew of carcinogens and hazardous chemicals," said Sen. Merkley. "But millions of people are ingesting dangerous PFAS chemicals against their will through the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat. Congress needs to come together to put the health of our communities above the wish lists of American's biggest polluters, and that means establishing and enforcing chemical standards that protect Americans from PFAS substances."
Sen. Markey said, "PFAS pose a serious health risk to residents across Massachusetts and the country. Cleaning up our air, soil, and water of these forever chemicals is an important component of the Green New Deal, as we fight to provide our communities with a future free of the legacy of corporate pollution."
The PFAS Act requires the EPA to designate PFAS compounds as hazardous substances in order to hold polluters accountable for cleaning up contamination. The legislation also provides grants to households and communities to safely filter out PFAS compounds from their drinking water, while prohibiting the use of PFAS in food packaging and containers. The bill also bans waste incineration of PFAS firefighting foam, a major source of airborne PFAS pollution.
Once released into the environment, PFAS chemicals do not break down, instead accumulating in blood and organs when ingested. PFAS exposure is responsible for cancer, birth defects, and other serious ailments, and is now present in over 98 percent of the U.S. population. The EPA has not yet set any enforceable standard for PFAS under any of its various authorities. In the absence of aggressive federal action, states like Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, and New Jersey have imposed robust drinking water standards for PFAS chemicals.
Last year, Sen. Sanders introduced the WATER Act to invest $35 billion a year in our nation's aging water infrastructure, including federal support for PFAS cleanup and filtration. Sanders also partnered with Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) to direct the Department of Defense to conduct a survey of where all PFAS firefighting foam is held and also where it has been incinerated. Sanders incorporated these prior legislative efforts into the PFAS Act.
"Senator Sanders has proposed an urgent solution to address the widespread PFAS contamination of our food and water," said Food & Water Action Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "His Prevent Future American Sickness Act of 2020 would rapidly speed up the remediation of toxic PFAS sites across our country. It lays out a plan to finally hold polluters accountable to pay for cleanup of the worst contamination, while providing much needed financial relief for rural homeowners and local governments that need to upgrade treatment plants to remove these forever chemicals. This is the sort of concrete and swift action we need to take to help ensure that every American has access to safe water. Our communities can't wait; we need Congress to act now to address America's toxic water crisis."
Watch a panel discussion tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET hosted by Sen. Sanders with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), activist and actor Mark Ruffalo, and scientist Dr. Anna Reade at facebook.com/senatorsanders.
Read the legislative text here.
Read a section-by-section overview here.
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.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Study Links Abortion Restrictions and Intimate Partner Homicide
"In thinking about pregnancy itself as a risk factor for homicide, it follows that the ability to prevent or end a pregnancy" could have "immediate implications" for the safety of pregnant people, said one researcher.
May 08, 2024
A new study links abortion restrictions to an increased risk that pregnant people will be murdered by their intimate partners—and since researchers examined laws that were in place before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and cleared the way for statewide abortion bans, the authors warn that the threat may be even greater than the analysis shows.
In the study released Monday, researchers at Tulane University looked at five separate abortion restrictions and compared them to the intimate partner homicide rates reported by the National Violent Death Reporting System at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For each of the abortion restrictions, all of which were in place from 2014-22, the rate of intimate partner homicide among women and girls of reproductive age rose 3.4%.
The researchers found that extrapolated across the United States, an additional 24 women were killed by their intimate partners over the time period.
The study controlled for domestic violence risk factors including income inequality and gun ownership.
Intimate partner homicide is "consistently among the leading causes of death in pregnant and postpartum people," lead author Maeve Wallace, an associate professor at Tulane, toldThe Guardian.
Because it is still relatively rare, however, the research team used girls and women of reproductive age as a proxy for victims of violence who were likely pregnant or postpartum.
"In thinking about pregnancy itself as a risk factor for homicide, it follows that the ability to prevent or end a pregnancy" could have "immediate implications" for the safety of pregnant people in states with severe abortion restrictions and bans, Wallace told The Guardian.
The newspaper reported that the research "is almost certainly an underestimate of the potential risk to pregnant and postpartum women, because intimate partner violence is generally underreported."
The study is the latest research illustrating "the horrific reality for women in America," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in February found a 75% higher rate of peripartum homicide—the murder of a pregnant person or within a year of their giving birth—in states that restricted abortion access from 2018-20.
Reproductive justice advocates have pointed out that at least four states with abortion bans in place also ban divorce for married people who are pregnant.
"An abusive partner oftentimes views pregnancy as a loss of control, that their victim will now not be solely dedicated to them but will have somebody else that diverts their attention away from the abusive partner," Crystal Justice, chief external affairs officer at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, told The 19th last month after the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated an 1864 abortion ban, which has since been repealed by state lawmakers but still could be in effect for part of this year.
"Not only is the state now saying with this harmful and antiquated law that you must stay pregnant against your will," Justice said, but "during that pregnancy, the state is not going to let you legally divorce your abusive partner. I can't think of anything more outrageous or cruel."
The U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting "START" to 88788, or through chat at thehotline.org. It offers 24/7, free, and confidential support. DomesticShelters.org has a list of global and national resources.
Keep ReadingShow Less
White House Needs a Strategy for Combating Islamophobia, Say Rights Groups
"Any genuine attempt to combat Islamophobia must start with the government acknowledging the harm it continues to inflict both domestically and internationally, and offering adequate redress to affected communities at home and globally."
May 08, 2024
Nearly 100 organizations joined Muslims for Just Futures on Tuesday in calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to introduce a White House Islamophobia Strategy that centers government accountability and solidarity with Muslim and Arab American communities, demanding that the Biden administration honor the "lived experiences" of people who have faced Islamophobic attacks that have ramped up since Hamas attacked southern Israel last October.
The coalition's 26-page community memorandum, dated April 2024, was publicly released on Tuesday, the same day Biden spoke about fighting antisemitism in a speech marking the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Days of Remembrance.
Biden's conflation of antisemitism with protesters' and voters' demands to end U.S. support for Israel in order to save the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, said the community memorandum, has had "profound negative effects" on Muslim and Arab Americans.
The coalition said that organizations involved in drafting the memorandum—including Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, American Muslim Bar Association, and the Center for Constitutional Rights—"emphasized the direct role of the White House in perpetuating Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and anti-Arab racism through its ongoing support for the genocide and occupation in Palestine," among other military campaigns.
"Any genuine attempt to combat Islamophobia must start with the government acknowledging the harm it continues to inflict both domestically and internationally, and offering adequate redress to affected communities at home and globally," reads the memorandum.
The document includes a number of recommendations for agencies across the federal government, including a call for all agencies to vet potential employees "for affiliation with white nationalist or white supremacist" groups.
In the first weeks of Israel's bombardment of Gaza last fall, one high-profile alleged Islamophobic attack was perpetrated by a former State Department official who had served in the Obama administration and was filmed harassing a food cart vendor in New York.
The document makes other recommendations including:
- Biden to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza and end U.S. support for Israel's bombardment of the enclave;
- The closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention center;
- The U.S. intelligence community to "stop weaponizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Black, Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) communities by surveilling citizens and non-citizens and collecting communications without a warrant;
- The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to consult with Black, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and South Asian communities about their needs and concerns, amid a surge in Islamophobic attacks that was recorded by the Council on American-Islamic Relations last year;
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation to end its use of "secret and discriminatory watchlists," which includes 1.5 million people in 2019—95% of whom had Muslim names; and
- The government to ensure that universities and schools end the targeting of "Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and allied students supporting Palestine," who have been "discriminated against by their universities, and physically attacked, doxxed, and intimidated in efforts to silence their advocacy for Palestinian rights and opposition to Israel's genocide."
The memorandum was released as a research scholar at Arizona State University, Jonathan Yudelman, was reported to be on leave after cellphone video last weekend captured him intimidating and yelling at a women wearing a hijab.
Other Islamophobic attacks in recent months have included the stabbing of a young Palestinian American man in Austin, Texas and the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont.
"By embracing a framework that honors lived experiences and acknowledges the diverse impacts within Muslim and related communities, we can begin the urgent task of dismantling systemic barriers that harm Muslim communities and those racially perceived as such," said Muslims for Just Futures. "Additionally, the government must take decisive action to dismantle policies that perpetuate Islamophobia while actively involving affected communities in decision-making processes."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Hold on Bomb Delivery 'Must Be a First Step' to Ending US Complicity, Says Sanders
"The U.S. must now use ALL its leverage to demand an immediate cease-fire, the end of the attacks on Rafah, and the immediate delivery of massive amounts of humanitarian aid to people living in desperation."
May 08, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that the Biden administration must go much further than merely delaying shipments of two types of Boeing-made bombs to Israel, whose long-feared ground assault on the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah is currently underway.
Sanders (I-Vt.) said U.S. President Joe Biden was "absolutely right" to halt the delivery of thousands of bombs to "this extreme, right-wing Israeli government" as it inflicts an "unprecedented humanitarian disaster" on Gaza's population.
"But this must be a first step," said the Vermont senator. "The U.S. must now use ALL its leverage to demand an immediate cease-fire, the end of the attacks on Rafah, and the immediate delivery of massive amounts of humanitarian aid to people living in desperation. Our leverage is clear."
President Biden is right to halt bomb deliveries to this extreme Israeli government.
But this must be a first step. The U.S. must now use ALL its leverage to demand a ceasefire, stop attacks on Rafah, and secure delivery of massive humanitarian aid throughout Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Td3aRfpBya
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 8, 2024
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 weapons sales for Israel since it began its latest assault on Gaza in October. Last month, Biden signed into law a foreign aid package that includes billions of dollars in unconditional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
The New York Timesreported Tuesday that Biden "withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge." Israel has dropped hundreds of U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza since October.
"The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions," the Times added.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) downplayed the importance of the delay on Wednesday and said the U.S. and Israel will resolve their disagreements "behind closed doors."
The Biden administration's decision to suspend a bomb shipment for the first time in the seven-month war came amid growing pressure from human rights organizations, United Nations experts, and U.S. lawmakers to halt all offensive weapons deliveries to Israel, which has repeatedly used American arms to commit atrocities in Gaza.
"Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel," Sanders said Wednesday. "We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu's horrific war against the Palestinian people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular