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For Immediate Release
February, 24 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Seth Gladstone - sgladstone@fwwatch.org, 917.363.6615
Amid Unprecedented National Water Crises, Comprehensive Water Access, Safety and Affordability Bill Introduced in Congress
WASHINGTON
Amidst some of the most severe national water crises in decades, a comprehensive water justice bill was introduced in both chambers of Congress today with the intention of urgently addressing the critical state of water access, safety and affordability in the country. Known as the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability (WATER) Act, the sweeping legislation was introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Congress Members Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). The bill is backed by more than 70 other original cosponsors, and over 500 advocacy, labor and faith-based organizations from nearly every state.
"From the plague of water shutoffs due to unaffordable bills during a pandemic, to the recent heartbreaking scenes across the South of frozen pipes leaving millions without water, it has become desperately clear that our country is in a water crisis. Grave crises require robust solutions, and this is just what the WATER Act provides," said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Action, a leading organizational supporter of the bill. "The WATER Act paves the way to rebuilding our failing water system by addressing maintenance and modernization, cleanliness and safety, affordability and social justice - all in one clean sweep. The time for Congress and the Biden administration to make this critical legislation a priority has very clearly come. Our country can't wait any longer for a functional, safe and affordable water system for every community."
"We have a water crisis in the United States that affects every corner of our country. You're seeing it right now in Texas, and we've witnessed it here in Michigan as well. The longer we wait to act on this issue, the worse it will get for the health, well-being, and safety of the American people," said Rep. Lawrence. "I'm proud to lead the fight with Rep. Khanna and Sen. Sanders to reintroduce the WATER Act and invest in our nation's water infrastructure. Access to clean and safe drinking water is a basic human right."
"It is beyond belief that in 2021 American kids are being poisoned by tap water. It is critical that we work to improve our nation's crumbling water infrastructure," said Sen. Sanders. "Not only do we allow corporations to pollute our waterways, but the government has failed to keep up with critically needed improvements to our drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. We should not privatize water and wastewater services, which would drive up prices and reduce access to clean water. Instead, the federal government should make massive investments in water infrastructure, and that's one of the issues I intend to focus on in the next round of budget reconciliation. We must support local communities in their work to carry out these necessary infrastructure improvements."
Among other things, the WATER Act would: provide a $35 billion annual trust fund for urgently-needed drinking water and sewer infrastructure improvements; address pervasive water contamination related to lead and PFAS" forever chemicals"; direct grants to low-income communities to stem water shutoffs due to unaffordable bills; and create up to one million well-paying jobs per year.
"Decades of federal underinvestment has left many communities, particularly low-income and minority neighborhoods, with leaky and contaminated water systems," said Rep. Khanna. "It's past time that we ensure everyone in this country has access to the most basic human need: clean drinking water. I'm proud to cosponsor this important legislation."
In addition to Food & Water Action, the WATER Act is supported by 540 organizations including the NAACP, Earth Justice, Consumer Reports and the Partnership for Working Families, and labor groups including AFSCME, AFT, CWA, UAW and the Steelworkers.
"When you turn on your faucet at home or when your child takes a drink from the fountain at school, you should have peace of mind that the water is safe and toxin-free," said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. "But for too many families and neighborhoods nationwide, even something as basic as clean drinking water is out of reach. Years of austerity measures and privatization schemes have eroded the infrastructure in poor, marginalized communities, exposing people to lead and other poisons. AFSCME thanks Sen. Sanders and Rep. Lawrence for providing the federal leadership we need to address this injustice, and we look forward to working with them to pass the WATER Act of 2021."
"The federal disinvestment in our water systems has left communities like mine facing perpetual water woes. As our water department has had to raise funds for needed infrastructure upgrades through rate increases, Detroiters have endured skyrocketing bills, unaffordable rates, mass shutoffs, and tax sale foreclosures - and Black and Brown community members are facing the brunt of the burden, said Monica Lewis Patrick, President of We the People of Detroit. "Water is a human right, but our current water systems are a breeding ground for environmental racism and trauma. The WATER Act will overhaul our broken water system, fund our crumbling infrastructure, and ensure that everyone across the country can access affordable, safe drinking water. Our communities can't wait any longer, Congress must act to pass the WATER Act."
"The widespread water outages and boil orders across Texas due to last weeks' polar storm is an urgent reminder that we must do more to ensure access to water. In my community of Houston, most of the water pipes in residential, mostly low income communities, froze, or bust. We were without water for four days, and I'm still working to restore water to many of my neighbors. Climate change is here - it's a necessity for our government to think about the future and invest in our water, said Juan Parras, Director of T.E.J.A.S.. "The WATER Act would also deliver much needed support to the colonias, the small, rural communities across the U.S. Mexico border, many without plumbing. Water is necessary for life and dignity, so the federal government must ensure all families in all communities have access to accessible, affordable, safe water."
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
Groups Warn Trump Executive Orders Would Spike Cancers Caused by Exposure to Nuclear Radiation
A letter implored the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to "stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power."
Nov 14, 2025
A series of nuclear power-related executive orders issued by President Donald Trump seek to legitimize people's "suffering as the price of nuclear expansion," said one expert at Beyond Nuclear on Friday, as the nongovernmental organization spearheaded a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and top Trump administration officials warning of the public health risks of the orders.
More than 40 civil society groups—including Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Sierra Club, Nuclear Watch South, and the Appalachian Peace Education Center—signed the letter to the commission, calling on officials not to revise the NRC's Standards for Protection Against Radiation, as they were directed to earlier this year by Trump.
"NRC has not made a revision yet, and has been hearing that the Part 20 exposure (external only) should be taken from the existing 100 mr [milliroentgen] a year, per license, to 500 mr a year, and in view of some, even to 10 Rems [Roentgen Equivalent Man], which would be 100 times the current level," reads the letter.
In 2021, noted PSR, the NRC "roundly rejected" a petition "to raise allowable radiation exposures for all Americans, including children and pregnant women, to 10 Rems a year."
The revision to radiation limit standards would result in anywhere from 5-100 times less protection for Americans, said the groups, with 4 out of 5 adult males exposed over a 70-year lifetime developing cancer that they otherwise would not have.
"Radiation is dangerous for everyone,” said Amanda M. Nichols, lead author of the 2024 study Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “[Trump’s] executive order will allow the industry to relax the current standards for radiological protection, which are already far from adequate. This will have detrimental health consequences for humans and for our shared environments and puts us all at higher risk for negative health consequences. ”
The change in standards would be even more consequential for women, including pregnant women, and children—all of whom are disproportionately susceptible to health impacts of ionizing radiation, compared to adult males.
"Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
In Gender and Ionizing Radiation, Nichols and biologist Mary Olson examined atomic bomb survivor data and found that young girls "face twice the risk as boys of the same age, and have four to five times the risk of developing cancer later in life than a woman exposed in adulthood."
Despite the risks to some of the country's most vulnerable people, Trump has also called for a revision of "the basis of the NRC regulation," reads Friday's letter: the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model, the principle that there is no safe level of radiation and that cancer risk to proportional to dose.
The LNT model is supported by decades of peer-reviewed research, the letter states, but one of Trump's executive orders calls for "an additional weakening of protection by setting a threshold, or level, below which radiation exposure would not 'count' or be considered as to have not occurred."
The Standards for Protection Against Radiation are "based on the well-documented findings that even exposures so small that they cannot be measured may, sometimes, result in fatal cancer," reads the letter. "The only way to reduce risk to zero requires zero radiation exposure."
Trump's orders "would undermine public trust by falsely claiming that the NRC’s radiation risk models lack scientific basis, despite decades of peer-reviewed evidence and international consensus supporting the LNT model," it adds.
The signatories noted that the US government could and should strengthen radiation regulations by ending its reliance on "Reference Man"—a model that the NRC uses to create its risk assessments, which is based on a young adult male and fails to reflect the greater impact on infants, young children, and women.
“Newer research has shown that external radiation harms children more than adults and female bodies more than male bodies," reads the letter. "Existing standards should therefore be strengthened to account for these life-stage and gender disparities… not weakened. Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
Olson, who is the CEO of the Generational Radiation Impact Project, which also helped organize the letter, warned that "radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males.”
The groups emphasized that "executive orders do not have the power to require federal agencies to take actions that violate their governing statutes, nor to grant them powers and authorities that contradict those governing statutes. The NRC needs to stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power—a mission outside its legal regulatory mandate under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and the concurrent amendments to the Atomic Energy Act."
Federal agencies including the NRC, they added, "should not favor industry propaganda asserting that some radiation is safe over science-based protection of the public. This is a deliberate subversion of science and public health in favor of corporate interests."
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"The climate crisis is a health crisis—not in the distant future, but here and now."
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The World Health Organization on Friday issued a report documenting what it described as a "global health emergency" being caused by the climate crisis.
The report, which was released jointly by the WHO, the government of Brazil, and the Brazilian Ministry of Health at the start of the United Nations climate summit (COP30) being held in Belém, Brazil, warns that global healthcare infrastructure is not currently sufficient to deal with the climate emergency, and that "1 in 12 hospitals could face climate-related shutdowns" worldwide.
Overall, the report finds that hospitals are experiencing "41% higher risk of damage from extreme weather-related impact compared to 1990," and that the number of at-risk health facilities could double if the global temperature continues rising at its current pace.
Ethel Maciel, COP30’s special envoy for health, said that flooding that decimated the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul last year showed the importance taking the climate crisis seriously, especially since the floods also led to "the largest dengue epidemic in history, driven by these climate changes."
"So, it is not something for us to think about in the future; it’s happening now," Maciel added. "So, thinking about how to adapt our system is urgent.”
Professor Nick Watts, director of the NUS Centre for Sustainable Medicine, recommended dedicating 7% of current climate adaptation finance toward making healthcare infrastructure more resilient to climate change, which he said would "safeguard billions of people and keep essential services operating during climate shocks—when our patients most need them."
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the report should give nations urgency to decarbonize as quickly as possible.
"The climate crisis is a health crisis—not in the distant future, but here and now," he said. "This special report provides evidence on the impact of climate change on individuals and health systems, and real-world examples of what countries can do—and are doing—to protect health and strengthen health systems."
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Broadening Assault on the Left, Trump Designates EU Anti-Fascist Groups as ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’
Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein warns that the designation opens up US citizens to government surveillance, asset seizure, and material support charges.
Nov 14, 2025
President Donald Trump's State Department on Thursday broadened his efforts to use "terrorism" to crush his enemies on the left, designating four European groups as "foreign terrorist organizations" based on their alleged connections to the vaguely defined network of leftist agitators known as "antifa," short for "anti-fascist."
Following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September, Trump turned his attention toward waging a war on left-wing protest groups and liberal nonprofits, describing them as part of a vast, interconnected web that was fomenting "terrorism," primarily through First Amendment-protected speech.
As part of that effort, Trump formally designated "antifa" as a "domestic terrorist organization," even though it is not a formal group with any structure, but rather, a loose confederation of individuals all expressing an amorphous political belief. Civil rights advocates warned that the vague nature of the designation could be extended to bring terrorism charges against anyone who describes the Trump administration's actions as fascist or authoritarian.
Shortly after, Trump also signed a little-reported national security order, known as National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which mandated a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Some of the indicators of potential violence, the memo said, were “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity," "extremism on migration, race, and gender," and "hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.“
Referencing NSPM-7 explicitly, the State Department on Thursday spread that crusade against the left overseas, slapping four German, Greek, and Italian anarchist groups with the label of "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO). The same designation has been given to groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Shabaab.
The groups targeted were Antifa Ost in Germany; the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI) in Italy; Armed Proletarian Justice in Greece; and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense, also in Greece.
The State Department said:
The designation of Antifa Ost and other violent Antifa groups supports President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, an initiative to disrupt self-described ‘anti-fascism’ networks, entities, and organizations that use political violence and terroristic acts to undermine democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental liberties.
Groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, ‘anti-capitalism,’ and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas.
Each of the accused groups has had members charged with or convicted of violence, often against Neo-Nazis or adjacent far-right causes. But while they are more organized than America's anti-fascist movement, they are still broad-based and diffuse.
Mirroring what studies have shown in the US, the far-right is responsible for the overwhelming bulk of political violence in the European Union. A 2024 study by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) found that across Europe, the far-right was responsible for 85% of the violent targeted incidents they tracked.
Though Greece was one exception, where far-left violence was more prevalent than far-right violence, Mary Bossis, an emeritus professor of international security at Piraeus University in Athens, told The Guardian that Greece's anti-fascist movement has little to do with it.
"It is highly exaggerated to say that the antifa movement in Greece employs terror tactics," she said. "They even run in elections and have never shown any sign of violence.”
While most social movements have some violent adherents, Bossis said, "that does not mean, as in the case of antifa, that the whole movement is either violent or supportive of terrorism. In fact, it is very much not the case… Standing against fascism does not make someone a terrorist.”
As Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor who teaches a course on the history of antifascism, pointed out in The Guardian, Antifa Ost is the only one of the four groups designated by Trump that self-identifies as anti-fascist.
“The others are revolutionary groups,” he said. “This shows how the Trump administration is trying to lump all revolutionary and radical groups together under the label ‘antifa’. By establishing the (alleged) existence of foreign antifa groups, the Trump administration seems to be setting the stage for declaring American antifa groups (and all that they deem to be ‘antifa’) to be affiliated with these supposed foreign terrorist groups.”
Ken Klippenstein, an independent investigative journalist who has warned about NSPM-7 since its release, noted that this marks the first time that an entity in any of these three European countries has ever been slapped with the label of an FTO.
"The move seems an attempt to make people accustomed to white Westerners being treated as terrorists," he wrote Thursday. "That, after all, is the goal of Trump’s national security directive NSPM-7."
While there is no law on the books to back Trump's designation of antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, there is such a designation for foreign terrorist groups.
Being designated as a member of a foreign terrorist organization can subject one to significant sanctions, including having assets in American banks frozen, being unable to enter the country, or being prosecuted for "material support."
The government has used accusations of terrorism to go much farther, including carrying out extrajudicial assassinations of targets. Over the past two months, the Trump administration has bombed over a dozen boats in the Caribbean using the unsubstantiated justification that their passengers are "narco-terrorists" shipping drugs for cartels, which the administration has also designated as FTOs. The attacks have killed at least 76 people.
Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested last month that the Trump administration planned to use the "same approach" to antifa as it has with cartels, leading many to fear that might include assassinations.
Mehdi Hasan, the founder of the media outlet Zeteo, said the designation of these groups as terrorist organizations was "super bad for US citizens, especially on the left of the spectrum," because it "gives this authoritarian administration potentially the power to surveil and go after US citizens on spurious 'funding of FTO' grounds."
The State Department noted in a fact sheet on the designations that it is also seeking to target those in the US accused of supporting these groups.
"US persons are generally prohibited from conducting business with sanctioned persons. It is also a crime to knowingly provide material support or resources to those designated, or to attempt or conspire to do so," the memo said. "Persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with those designated today may expose themselves to sanctions risk. Notably, engaging in certain transactions with them entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to counterterrorism authorities."
Klippenstein said that while Trump's "domestic terrorist" designation was limited, "with an FTO designation, the gloves come off," opening Americans up to "FISA surveillance, seizure of financial assets, [and] material support charges."
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