July, 01 2021, 11:42am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Frank, Environment America Executive Director, Washington Legislative Office, lfrank@environmentamerica.org
Matt Casale, U.S. PIRG Environment Campaigns Director, mcasale@pirg.org
Mark Morgenstein, Director of Media Relations, markm@publicinterestnetwork.
House Passes Landmark Water and Transportation Bill to Restore and Enhance U.S. Infrastructure
Billions in funding would improve Americans’ health and environment.
WASHINGTON
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a legislative package on Thursday that would improve water infrastructure, protect drinking water, and repair and expand our transportation system. The package combined several bills, including the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021 and the AQUA Act, under the umbrella of the INVEST in America Act.
The INVEST in America Act would devote a record $547 billion to public transit, walking and biking infrastructure, and wildlife crossings, while emphasizing a fix-it-first, climate-friendly approach to transportation. Additionally, the package authorizes a landmark $40 billion for clean water infrastructure (with 15 percent of that funding dedicated to natural infrastructure projects) and $45 billion to replace lead pipes nationwide. It also creates a grant program to protect drinking water in schools.
Last November, Environment America and U.S. PIRG released Blueprint for America, an infrastructure plan to make our families and communities safer, healthier, and more resilient by focusing specifically on the areas of energy, transportation, water, solid waste, and natural infrastructure. In a letter spearheaded by Environment America and U.S. PIRG this past March, more than 360 local officials organized from 34 states to call on President Joe Biden and Congress to prioritize funding for infrastructure that will make our communities healthier and protect our environment. Environment America recently released polling that shows voters across the political spectrum strongly support the types of investments just passed by the House.
In response to the House vote, Environment America and U.S. PIRG leaders issued statements.
Environment America President Wendy Wendlandt said:
"It's 2021, but much of our infrastructure is stuck in the 1950s. The INVEST in America Act is the approach we need to tackle today's problems, including the greatest challenge of our time: climate change. This bill's investments in clean, electric and zero-carbon transportation options such as walking and biking are good news for people and the planet. Even animals such as Los Angeles' famous cougars will get safer ways to cross roads thanks to investments in wildlife crossings!"
U.S. PIRG President Faye Park said:
"No one wants dirty air, polluted water or unsafe roads. Adopting common-sense solutions to these problems is in the interest of all Americans and we applaud members of the House for coming together to do so today with the passage of the INVEST in America Act. This bill shows a healthier, safer future is possible and we look forward to continuing to work with Congress to address all our infrastructure needs."
Additional experts from Environment America and U.S. PIRG issued the following statements on specific water and transportation provisions:
U.S. PIRG Environment Campaigns Director Matt Casale said:
"The transportation status quo in the U.S. is inefficient and unsustainable. The INVEST in America Act breaks the mold and takes a new fix-it-first and more carbon-conscious approach to support a safer, cleaner and greener transportation network. If signed into law, this bill will drastically improve our options for getting around while making Americans healthier and tackling the climate crisis."
Environment America Clean Water Program Director John Rumpler said:
"This legislation takes vital steps to end the widespread contamination of our drinking water with lead. The bill not only authorizes $45 billion to pay for replacing lead pipes but also sets a 10-year deadline for water utilities to get the job done. In addition, the bill establishes new funding for schools to filter lead out of the water our kids drink every day. Kudos to Congress for moving boldly to get the lead out."
Environment America Federal Legislative Advocate Sean Hoffmann said:
"Now more than ever, Americans are reminded of the promise we made to ourselves when we adopted the Clean Water Act in 1972 -- that all our waterways would be safe for swimming. This House package marks a substantial step towards meeting that promise because it invests in stopping sewage overflows, which prevents runoff pollution from flowing into our rivers, lakes, and streams. Polls show that Americans across the nation and political spectrum want to see federal investments in clean water infrastructure, so this House package is long overdue."
Environment America Conservation America Campaign Advocate Alex Petersen said:
"The Federal Highway Administration found the chance of getting hit by a car or truck is a major threat to the survival of more than 20 threatened and endangered species. The wildlife crossings funded by the INVEST in America Act would help ensure the long-term survival of these incredible species such as bighorn sheep and Canada lynx. We thank Congress for building out 21st century infrastructure with nature in mind.
"Whether to migrate, hunt, mate or seek out new territory, animals need to move freely to thrive. For too long, we built our infrastructure without regard to the movement of wildlife. That's why it's great to see the INVEST in America Act make an unprecedented commitment toward reconnecting divided habitats with wildlife corridors. This will help ensure the long-term survival of incredible species such as Florida panthers and pronghorn antelope."
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
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Peace Advocates Say Putin Plan Reveals Dangers of 'Nuclear Deterrence'
"As long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior," said one expert.
Mar 27, 2023
In addition to denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to station so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, anti-war campaigners are calling into question the effectiveness of "nuclear deterrence" and reiterating their demands for global disarmament.
"As long as Putin has nuclear weapons, Europe cannot be safe," Daniel Högsta, acting executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), said Monday in a statement.
But "he has justified this dangerously escalating proposal to move nuclear weapons into Belarus by citing decades of NATO nuclear sharing," said Högsta. "As long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior."
When announcing the Kremlin's plan on Saturday, Putin pointed to the United States' positioning of tactical nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
"We're basically doing the same thing they've been doing for a decade," said Putin. "They have allies in certain countries and they train their carriers, they train their crews. We are going to do the same thing."
"We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
Russia "will not hand over" warheads to Belarus, Putin said. He explained that his country has already provided its ally with a nuclear-capable Iskander missile system and ensured that 10 Belarusian aircraft are equipped to use such weapons. According to Putin, Moscow intends to start training crews next week and aims to finish building a special storage facility for the arms by the beginning of July.
Putin's announcement came 13 months into Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Three days after Putin launched the military assault, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko amended the Belarus Constitution to remove its nuclear-free clause. In late 2021, Lukashenko had offered to host Russian nuclear weapons if NATO moved U.S. atomic bombs from Germany to Eastern Europe.
Moscow's deployment decision also came just days after the United Kingdom unveiled its plan to send armor-piercing tank rounds containing depleted uranium to Ukraine—a proposal that has elicited concerns about provoking a nuclear war as well as causing public health and environmental harms.
Putin said the U.K.'s announcement "probably served as a reason" why Lukashenko agreed to Russia's plan, which he argued won't violate the country's obligations under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
As Reutersexplains, the NPT "says that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a nonnuclear power, but it does allow for the weapons to be deployed outside its borders but under its control—as with U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe."
ICAN warned Monday that "the deployment of nuclear weapons in additional countries... complicates decision-making and increases the risk of miscalculation, miscommunication, and potentially catastrophic accidents."
Belarusian human rights activist and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Saturday that "Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus directly violates the Constitution of Belarus and grossly contradicts the will of the Belarusian people."
"This unacceptable development" makes "Belarus a potential target for preventive or retaliation strikes," she warned, imploring world leaders to demand that Russia "stop this threatening deployment and impose adequate and severe sanctions on the regimes of Lukashenko and Putin as outright threats to international peace and security."
According toAgence France-Presse, "Kyiv is seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council over the move."
The U.S., for its part, "has reacted cautiously," Reutersreported Sunday. An unnamed senior Biden administration official told the news outlet that "we have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon."
But a European Union official said Monday that the bloc would respond with fresh sanctions if Russia moves ahead with its plan, according toAnadolu Agency, Turkey's state-run news agency.
"That will be a further escalation and direct threat to European security," said Peter Stano, the European Commission's lead spokesperson on foreign affairs.
E.U. authorities "haven't seen any confirmation from the Belarusian side about this being on the agenda or happening anytime," Stano stressed. But if it happens, "there will be consequences."
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said Monday that Russia won't abandon its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus because of mounting Western criticism.
In the words of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, "Such a reaction of course cannot influence Russian plans."
For Beatrice Fihn, the former executive director of ICAN who led the organization when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the entire episode underscores the dangerous incoherence of "nuclear deterrence" theory, which asserts that threatening to use atomic bombs dissuades governments from taking certain actions and thus helps avert nuclear war.
In a Twitter thread, Fihn argued that "the way nuclear deterrence has been talked about this past year has been so bizarre."
According to Fihn:
Most proponents of nuclear weapons have spent this past year arguing that we now shouldn't believe in nuclear deterrence. They say, "Don't believe Russia's threats, it doesn't deter us," but also, "Don't worry, Russia will definitely believe and be deterred by our nuclear threats."
This doesn't make any sense. And I genuinely would like to know from pro-nuclear weapons people in the U.S., U.K., France, and NATO, what could Putin do with his nuclear weapons that would deter you?
If your answer is "nothing" then you either admit nuclear deterrence doesn't work or you're basically saying nuclear deterrence only is credible when you do it but it's not when your enemies do it.
"We know Putin is a war criminal who has no problem killing civilians, so how can you be so sure he won't go ahead with this while at the same time [be] so sure that Putin... would be convinced that Biden would?" she asked.
"Nuclear weapons don't seem to deter any real war and conflict situations," said Fihn. "They only possibly deter hypothetical abstract scenarios in people's minds."
She continued:
None of this means that I'm saying Putin won't use nuclear weapons. There is a risk that Putin will use nuclear weapons in this war. We can debate how high it is, but everyone knows that this risk isn't zero and agrees that it has grown this last year.
But the decision to use nuclear weapons doesn't actually have much to do about believing or not believing in nuclear deterrence, it's just a decision by one man—and will be made based on whatever goes through his head at that point.
He makes the decision based on whatever he's thinking at that moment. Are you really that confident he will always think the right thing? That he'll always make the decision you think he should be making?
"We have to stop being so stupid by continuing to say nuclear deterrence works," Fihn added. "We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
For the first time since the Cold War, the global nuclear stockpile—90% of which is controlled by Moscow and Washington—is projected to grow in the coming years, and the risk of weapons capable of annihilating life on Earth being used is rising.
"We need to use all available methods and tools of the international community to pressure Russia on this," said Fihn. "And then we need to urgently work to eliminate nuclear weapons and remove this option from all counties. For Ukraine and also for every other country and person on this planet."
In October, U.S. President Joe Biden warned that the war in Ukraine had brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Just days later, however, his administration released a Nuclear Posture Review that nonproliferation campaigners said increases the likelihood of calamity, in part because it preserves the option of a nuclear first strike. The U.S. remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in August 1945.
"As we're hurtling straight towards climate disaster, where large parts of our Earth will become inhabitable, the incentives for some leaders to use nuclear threats to grab whatever land and resources they feel they need will only increase," Fihn argued. "Nuclear disarmament and stopping climate change are the two central fights for the fate of humanity. You need to get on the right side of these two issues if you want a chance for us all to survive."
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'The Inhumanity Defies Words': Italy Seizes Banksy-Funded Migrant Rescue Ship as Dozens Drown
"These deaths are not an accident nor a tragedy," said the ship's crew. "They are wanted."
Mar 27, 2023
Italian authorities on Sunday seized a migrant aid ship financed by renowned British street artist Banksy after the vessel allegedly violated a decree by Italy's far-right cabinet by refusing to head to port following a rescue operation.
Reutersreports the Italian coast guard instructed the MV Louise Michel—named after the French "grande dame of anarchy"—to dock at Trapani in Sicily after rescuing migrants in the Libyan search and rescue zone. Instead, the ship went to aid distressed migrants in Malta's search and rescue area. The 30-meter vessel, painted bright pink and white, ultimately docked in Lampedusa Saturday with 178 rescued migrants aboard.
Louise Michel's Twitter account said Monday that the ship's crew "received official notification that the ship is detained for 20 days due to violation of the new Italian decree law" and that "we will take all necessary steps to fight this detention."
Last month, Italy's parliament codified a December 2022 decree by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her neo-fascist Brothers of Italy cabinet requiring ships to proceed immediately to an assigned port after a rescue instead of providing aid to other distressed vessels, as is commonly done. Critics say humanitarian vessels are being assigned to distant ports in order to keep them from rescue zones for as long as possible.
Under the new law, migrants must also declare while aboard a rescue ship whether they wish to apply for asylum, and if so, in which European Union country. Captains of civilian vessels found in violation of the law face fines of up to €50,000 ($53,900) and confiscation and impoundment of their ships. Migrant rights advocates have slammed the new legislation as "a call to let people drown."
Following the drowning of more than 60 migrants whose boat broke apart just off the Calabrian coast last month, Meloni's cabinet approved another decree establishing a new crime—death resulting from people smuggling—punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
On Sunday, Tunisia's coast guard said it recovered the bodies of at least 29 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa who were attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy when three boats capsized. There has been an increase in violence against Black people and spike in migrant departures from the North African nation since its president, Kais Saied, delivered an inflammatory speech earlier this month blasting what he called "hordes of illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa" who bring "violence, crime, and unacceptable practices" to Tunisia and threaten its "Arab and Islamic" character.
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Toxic Fears, Confusion After Chemical Leak Hits Philadelphia Drinking Water Supply
"There is no circumstance under which the city should announce that tap water may be unsafe two full days after they learned of possible contamination and without a plan to provide safe water to every resident," said Democratic mayoral candidate Helen Gym.
Mar 27, 2023
Residents of Philadelphia and the surrounding area demanded clarity about the safety of their drinking water from city officials on Monday, three days after chemicals leaked from a plant into a tributary of the Delaware River, which provides water for about 14 million people in four states.
About 8,100 gallons of acrylic polymer solution leaked from a burst pipe at the chemical plant Trinseo PLC in Bucks County, Pennsylvania late Friday, entering Otter Creek, which flows into the Delaware.
The solution contained butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate, which are used in paints and adhesives.
Exposure to butyl acrylateand ethyl acrylate is associated with breathing difficulties, and the latter is listed as a "potential occupational carcinogen" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite the leak of the chemicals, city officials did not alert residents until Sunday morning, when they said people in Philadelphia should use bottled water to prevent exposure and warned that although contamination had not yet been detected in the drinking supply, water from Otter Creek could have traces of chemicals.
Hours later, Michael Carroll, the city's deputy managing director for transportation, infrastructure, and sustainability said residents no longer needed to buy bottled water—which had rapidly sold out at stores across Philadelphia following the earlier warning—and that the chance of contamination was diminishing over time.
"In a matter of days, the water in the Delaware should be okay," Carroll said, noting that tap water which had gone through the city's Baxter Water Treatment Plant had been determined to be free of contaminants as of Sunday.
Carroll said the city's drinking water had been confirmed to be safe to consume until at least Monday at 11:59 pm; the Baxter treatment facility took in new water overnight, which still has to be tested, according toThe Philadelphia Inquirer.
Democratic mayoral candidate and former city council member Helen Gym accused officials of "haphazardly" communicating with residents about the safety of their drinking water.
"There is no circumstance under which the city should announce that tap water may be unsafe two full days after they learned of possible contamination and without a plan to provide safe water to every resident," said Gym. "The mayor must guarantee access to safe drinking water... Should future water samples at the treatment plant show contamination, the city must provide clear guidance to residents on how to access safe water, and when to expect safe water access to return."
She added that Trinseo PLC must be held accountable for the pipe rupture.
Business owners and residents echoed Gym's concern about being forced to wait for information about whether the water will be safe to drink after Monday night.
Scott Coudriet, a co-owner of Lloyd Whiskey Bar, closed his restaurant temporarily on Sunday, telling the Inquirer that the cocktail-focused business relies heavily on ice and that he didn't want to risk serving contaminated drinks.
"We didn't feel equipped to make any other choice than to close," Coudriet told the newspaper Monday. "But if anything, today I'm still confused about the language that 'You're safe through 11:59 p.m'... I don't know what happens at midnight."
Helicopter surveillance on Sunday did not show visual evidence of a chemical contaminant plume in Otter Creek or the Delaware River, and a water quality expert at Drexel University, Charles Haas, told the Inquirer that his concern level about contamination was "fairly low" based on the information provided by Carroll and other city officials.
The chemicals would be highly diluted in the river, Haas told the newspaper, and a reservoir at the Baxter plant could close off intake of new water from the river if necessary.
A map released by the city, however, showed more than two dozen zip codes in Philadelphia listed as ultimately being "potentially impacted" by the spill.
Consumer rights and environmental justice advocate Erin Brockovich denounced officials' assurances of the safety of the water as "bullshit... from the 'stay calm and carry on' folks."
"I honestly don't know what to make of this latest update," said journalist Kim Kelly, a Philadelphia resident. "After everyone ran out and bought up all the bottled water, the tap water is now safe until 11:59 pm Monday night? What happens after that?"
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