February, 24 2021, 11:00pm EDT
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Congress Just Introduced the Answer to America's Water Woes With Unprecedented Support: The WATER Act of 2021
77 Members of Congress and 540 Groups Unite to Endorse the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act of 2021
WASHINGTON
As America's communities continue to face oppressive water rates amidst a haunting pandemic, Rep. Brenda Lawrence and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced federal legislation today that would transform America's water infrastructure and ensure affordable, safe, and clean public water for all in this country. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
The Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability (WATER) Act of 2021 is the comprehensive solution to America's escalating water woes. And Americans overwhelmingly support it.
The People's Water Project, a group dedicated to passing the WATER Act, joined 73 U.S. House representatives, 4 U.S. Senators, and a diverse coalition of 540 justice, labor, environmental, and advocacy organizations in endorsing the legislation. The organizations include ACRE, AFSCME, Consumer Reports, Corporate Accountability, Earth Justice, NAACP, Flint Rising, Food & Water Action, Citizens Action Coalition, In the Public Interest, United Steelworkers,The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans, and UAW, among others.
"The crisis in Texas illuminated how vital access to running water is for human survival. And the COVID-19 pandemic has put on display the unjust reality of America's water affordability, reliability, and equity crisis. Now, Congress finally has a real solution with the WATER Act of 2021," said Brittany Alston, Deputy Research Director of Action Center on Race & The Economy. "The only way to combat America's water crisis is with this type of bold, reparative change that both challenges corporate power and addresses water affordability, accessibility and quality across the entire country, especially in low-income and BIPOC communities. We thank Representatives Brenda Lawrence and Ro Khanna, Senator Sanders, and every Congressional cosponsor for stepping up for America's families today."
The WATER Act of 2021 creates a WATER Trust Fund that would dedicate $35 billion each year to grant programs and to the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs. These programs include a specific focus on providing support for rural and small municipalities, Indigenous communities, and low-income Black and brown communities who face disproportionate water issues.
Additionally, the WATER Act can create upwards of 1 million jobs at a time our country needs them most and will require the use of U.S.-made iron and steel on water system projects. It also applies prevailing wage law and encourages union labor to all projects funded by the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund programs.
"We have a moral and ethical obligation to ensure that all people have access to clean and affordable water," said Mary Gutierrez, Founder and Director of Earth Ethics. "For years, pre-COVID 19 and recent natural disasters, we have seen the inequities in the distribution of water, the WATER Act addresses these inequities. The WATER Act ensures that all communities, low-income, BIPOC, have access to clean and affordable water. Let's not forget that we can expect to see additional impacts to our existing infrastructure with increased intensity and frequency of storm events due to climate change. It's time to act now to address our failing infrastructure before more adverse environmental and public health impacts occur."
Over the past 50 years, federal funding for water has declined by more than 80% on a per capita basis. As a result, water rates have skyrocketed and are now unaffordable for millions of households in the U.S. When households are unable to pay these exorbitant bills, states often allow water service shutoffs.
In the face of COVID-19, a disease that has led public health officials to urge frequent at-home hand washing, only 43% of the U.S. population are protected from water shutoffs, and hundreds of local and state moratoria have already expired. As a result, 57% of the U.S. population --186 million people--are at risk of losing their water supply if they cannot keep up with bill payments during an unprecedented economic recession.
"From Flint to Pittsburgh, the private water industry's failures have endangered communities. It's clear that public investment -- not privatization under any name -- is the solution to American's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure crisis. And the WATER Act is just the tool we need," said Alissa Weinman, Associate Campaign Director at Corporate Accountability. "COVID-19 has only exacerbated the long-standing harms of lack of safe water access, particularly for low-income communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color. In order to truly 'Build Back Better,' the federal government must renew its commitment to the human right to water by robustly funding our nation's water systems."
The WATER Act of 2021 not only responds to water accessibility and affordability, but also to privatization and quality. It details a path for upgrading our water systems to remove highly toxic and hazardous chemicals like lead and per-and polyfluorinated substances (or PFAS) from drinking water while also maintaining public control over these systems instead of handing over control to the private water industry and their Wall Street partners that want to commodify water for profit over public health.
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Additional quotes from People's Water Project Partners:
"Water is life. We have a sacred duty to heed the cry of the earth and the cry of her most vulnerable people. Supporting the provisions of the WATER Act, including protections specifically aimed at improving water access and affordability in BIPOC communities, is our moral duty," said Blair Nelsen, Executive Director of Waterspirit.
"From the plague of water shutoffs during a pandemic for countless families with unaffordable bills, to the recent heartbreaking scenes across the South of frozen pipes leaving millions without water to drink and bathe, 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."
"Privatization of our water systems is a threat to public health, the environment, and democracy," said Donald Cohen, Executive Director of In the Public Interest. "Water is an essential public good, not a market commodity for corporations and wealthy investors. We need direct federal investment in water infrastructure across the country. This is an opportunity for the federal government to prove it works for all of us and not just the wealthy and connected."
On behalf of all the people who are suffering the consequences of a failing for-profit system and are denied the basic right to clean, affordable water, the People's Tribune newspaper supports the Water Act," said Sandy Reid of People's Tribune.
"Access to clean and affordable water is a basic human right. But for far too long, our country has allowed water to become a market commodity," said Toni Preston, Senior Campaigner at SumOfUS. "The Water Act is a necessary piece of legislation that will finally begin to address our country's failing water infrastructure, and ensure that every person in this country has access to clean and affordable water."
"The WATER Act is the first essential step towards social and economic liberation of all people, especially for the poor and marginalized. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season generated 30 names tropical storms and 13 hurricanes, 6 of which were major hurricanes. This along with the recent winter storms that are pummeling Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi exposes the deep privation and indigence of the nation's water infrastructure. The WATER Act meets the nation's most pressing need for sustained investment into aging and unprepared water systems.," said Jessica Dandridge, Executive Director of The Water Collaborative,New Orleans.
In the U.S. Southwest - Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah - there is less rain and snowfall each year than the amount of water used in homes, businesses, and farms. As aquifers dry up, competition for scarce resources between water utilities, rural communities and agriculture leaves poorer communities at a disadvantage. In the face of climate change, with significant portions of the Southwest already under extreme drought conditions, these challenges threaten to endanger the health, safety and livelihoods of some of the most vulnerable people in our country. Federal investment in public water utilities is a critical necessity as the climate crisis looms, said Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director of New Energy Economy in New Mexico.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
ordered county election offices to stop registering voters with past felony convictions who have not received official pardons. The move came after the state's unicameral Legislature passed a bill granting voting eligibility to felons immediately after they have completed their sentences instead of waiting two years.
"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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