September, 15 2021, 01:32pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Frank, Environment America Washington Legislative Office Executive Director, 503-758-0712, lfrank@environmentamerica.org
Matt Casale, U.S. PIRG Environment Campaigns Director, 609-610-8002, mcasale@pirg.org
Josh Chetwynd, Deputy Director, Media Relations, 303-573-5558, jchetwynd@
Congressional Committee Moves Forward on Build Back Better Legislation, Which Tackles Potent Pollutants
Legislation targeting lead pipes, methane and other threats to clean air and water passes key hurdle.
WASHINGTON
After a summer of record-breaking air pollution, heat waves and an ongoing public health crisis, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced legislation this week to address many of the pollutants most damaging to human health and the environment. The provisions, which must still be considered by the full U.S. House of Representatives, would reduce the following types of pollution:
- Lead: Lead is a potent neurotoxin, especially for kids. The bill includes $30 billion to replace lead pipes, which can leach lead into drinking water, and $700 million to reduce lead in school drinking water.
- Methane: Methane is a greenhouse gas 80 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide in the short term. The bill would establish a fee on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, whose proceeds would go toward reducing pollution.
- Pollution from vehicles and at ports: Each year, pollution from cars, trucks and other vehicles cuts short an estimated 58,000 lives, and increases the risk of lung cancer, stroke and heart disease. Transportation is also now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The legislation includes billions in funding to reduce air pollution from heavy duty vehicles, at ports and from diesel engines. It also invests in electric vehicle charging infrastructure at workplaces, apartments and other public places.
The legislation, led by Chair Frank Pallone of New Jersey, also includes programs to increase clean electricity, clean up toxic waste sites, help consumers weatherize their homes, and switch to cleaner, more efficient appliances.
Experts from Environment America and U.S. PIRG issued the following statements.
John Rumpler, Environment America clean water director, said:
"The committee's bill answers the urgent call to get the lead out of our drinking water. Even low levels of lead threaten our kids' health, and yet for decades, we've allowed pipes, plumbing and fixtures to be made with this potent neurotoxin. As a result, we now have widespread drinking water contamination. Lead service lines are the single largest source of this problem, and this bill, together with the bipartisan infrastructure package, would provide the $45 billion needed to replace them all. In addition, the act provides crucial funding to install filters and replace lead-bearing parts at schools, where our research shows extensive water contamination. Safe drinking water is vital to the health of our children; ensuring it should be a no-brainer for Congress."
Matt Casale, U.S. PIRG environment campaigns director, said:
"We're grateful to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for taking strong climate action in this bill. With hurricanes battering our coasts and wildfires raging in the West, Chairman Pallone and the members of the committee understand the urgency with which we need to reduce global warming pollution. Methane is an especially harmful greenhouse gas and ratcheting down that gas' emissions is a critical piece to solving the global warming puzzle. Holding oil and gas companies accountable for methane emissions would be a significant victory for all Americans. So would policies like the Clean Energy Payment Plan, which will result in more renewable energy generation by penalizing utilities that don't meet certain thresholds. This will not only help address climate change, but will also provide for cleaner air and healthier communities today. It's about time we started making big climate polluters pay."
Morgan Folger, Environment America Destination: Zero Carbon campaign director, said:
"From delivering goods to transporting people across town, most of the cars, trucks and other vehicles on the road are still pumping out pollution from fossil fuels, which harms our lungs and warms the planet. This bill will make it easier for us to replace those old vehicles with cleaner electric options. Whether you drive a delivery van, a forklift or a sedan, the Build Back Better Act will help you go electric. It will also increase the infrastructure we require to give us a future where every American rides in an electric vehicle. We need a lot more charging stations in every corner of the country, and we're thankful this bill will give us more options to plug in and end the reign of vehicles that pollute."
Johanna Neumann, Environment America Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy senior director, said:
"America's renewable energy resources are practically unlimited, from the powerful winds blowing off our shores to the sun shining down on every state. The House Energy and Commerce Committee took a huge step toward tapping those vast clean and renewable resources by advancing the Clean Electricity Performance Program. By offering utility companies carrots when they meet clean electricity targets -- and sticks when they don't -- this program will put the U.S. on a path toward cleaner power, which is good news for our health and our environment. Coupled with the clean energy tax incentives included in the Build Back Better Act, the Clean Electricity Performance Program will bring a cleaner, healthier future powered by 100% renewable energy within reach."
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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Democrats Propose $300 Billion Investment to Treat Housing as Human Right
"In the richest country in the world, it is a moral imperative that we take this issue head-on," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Mar 22, 2023
Declaring that homelessness and housing insecurity is the result of "a structural failure of a country that has refused to make safe and affordable housing a priority," U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Grace Meng on Wednesday reintroduced the Housing is a Human Right Act and called on the federal government to provide $300 billion to end the crisis facing unhoused people.
The legislation would invest more than $200 billion in affordable housing and support services, $27 billion annually for services for unhoused people, and $100 million per year for community-driven alternatives to people experiencing homelessness.
Other funds would go to support communities at heightened risk for homelessness.
"Housing is a human right, and nobody in the world should be without a place to call home, especially not in America," said Meng (D-N.Y.). "This is an issue that impacts individuals for a number of reasons and sometimes isn't fixed with just a physical roof above a person's head."
The bill was reintroduced as real estate website Realtor.com released an analysis showing that even for people who have a place to live, housing is becoming more precarious across the United States.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recommends that people spend less than 30% of their income on housing, but eight of the country's top 50 metropolitan areas now have "a rent share higher than 30% relative to the median household income," including Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego.
Even in more affordable cities renters are spending more, with the average monthly rent in Cincinnati, Ohio costing 19.4% of the average monthly income—up from 18.4% last year. In Birmingham, Alabama, renters spend an average of 22.2% of their income on housing.
"As costs have risen and the minimum wage has stagnated, it would take the average minimum wage worker more than 96 hours of work per week to afford a two-bedroom rental," noted Jayapal (D-Wash.).
The shrinking stock of affordable housing is linked to the crisis of homelessness, which more than half a million people in the U.S. experienced in 2022—up by 3% from 2020.
"The crisis of housing instability is one that can be fixed by investing in housing infrastructure and supportive services for vulnerable communities," said Jayapal.
The legislation has been co-sponsored by Democratic lawmakers including Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, James McGovern of Massachusetts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
The $200 billion proposed investment included in the bill would go toward McKinney-Vento Emergency Solutions Grants, which fund engagement with people experiencing homelessness and improve emergency shelters; and Continuum of Care grants, which help rehouse people who have faced homelessness.
The legislation would also:
- Create a new grant program to invest in humane infrastructure, providing municipalities with $6 billion a year through a flexible program that will allow them to address their most urgent housing needs to keep people in stable housing and support those experiencing homelessness;
- Incentivize local investments in humane, evidence-based models to support people experiencing homelessness, including alternatives to criminalization and penalization;
- Provide $10 billion for Federal Emergency Management Agency food and shelter grants while improving grants to better represent high rates of homelessness and income inequality; and
- Authorize $100 million in grants to public libraries to provide assistance and tailored supports to persons experiencing homelessness.
"In the richest country in the world, it is a moral imperative that we take this issue head-on," said Jayapal. "Housing is a human right—and every person deserves to have a safe place to call home."
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Idaho Hospital Ends All Labor and Delivery Care, Citing Abortion Ban
"Consequences for Idaho physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines," said Bonner General Health as it closed its obstetrics unit.
Mar 22, 2023
Rural areas in the U.S. have faced a decline in hospitals that provide obstetric services for years, and the fate of one hospital in northern Idaho suggests that abortion bans could worsen the trend.
As The Washington Post reported reported Tuesday, Bonner General Health in Sandpoint, Idaho has been forced to announce the impending closure of its labor and delivery department, citing staffing issues as well as the state's punitive abortion ban—one of the strictest in the nation—and threats from state Republicans to make the law even more stringent.
The state's ban criminalizes abortion cases in almost all cases and threatens doctors who provide care with felony charges, suspension or termination of their medical license, and up to five years in prison. It includes potential exceptions for people whose pregnancies result from rape or incest and people who doctors determine face life-threatening pregnancy complications—but as Common Dreams has reported, such exceptions have led medical providers to withhold care until a patient is sufficiently ill, placing them in danger.
The threat of prosecution and pressure to withhold medical care from people who need it has contributed to the hospital's staffing shortage, said Bonner General Health in a statement late last week.
"Idaho's political and legal climate does pose as a barrier specific to recruitment and retention for OB-GYNs."
"Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult," said the hospital. "In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines."
Idaho Republicans have proposed classifying abortion as "murder from the moment of fertilization" and have called for bans that extend to people whose pregnancies result from incest and rape.
"Idaho's political and legal climate does pose as a barrier specific to recruitment and retention for OB-GYNs," hospital spokesperson Erin Binnall told the Post.
Patients in Sandpoint will now have to travel to Coeur d'Alene, about 45 miles south, to deliver their babies. The city now has the northernmost labor and delivery department in the state, and people living near the state's northern border may have to travel two hours to reach the hospitals there.
Bonner General Health announced its decision days after the podcast "This American Life" featured an interview with an obstetrician who has worked for several years at Bonner General Health but has considered leaving the state since Idaho's ban went into effect last June, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturnedRoe v. Wade.
"I was looking at social media and somebody was talking about a person who is completing their OB-GYN residency and was looking to come to the Pacific Northwest," said Dr. Amelia Huntsberger. "And I'm like, hey, there's all sorts of openings in Idaho. And then I'm laughing out loud because I'm like, who is going to be finishing their residency training and being like, I definitely want to go to the state with the super strict abortion laws that criminalize healthcare?"
The Journal of the American Medical Associationpublished a report in 2018 showing that a lack of obstetric care in rural hospitals is associated with a rise in preterm births and more people giving birth in facilities where medical staff lack the proper training to assist with labor and delivery, such as emergency departments. High rates of maternal mortality are also associated with "maternity care deserts," which include nearly half of rural U.S. counties, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
Nearly 90 rural obstetrics units closed their doors between 2015 and 2019, with hospitals citing financial losses associated with high numbers of patients who use Medicaid as well as difficulty in recruiting and retaining doctors.
"This will be the beginning of a trend, I fear," said behavioral scientist Caroline Orr Bueno of Bonner General Health's decision. "We already have a maternal mortality crisis in the U.S.—we're the only country in the developed world where maternal mortality rates are increasing—and abortion bans are going to make it worse."
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Fears of Monarch Butterfly Extinction as Numbers Plummet 22% in Annual Count
"Despite heroic efforts... we could still lose these extraordinary butterflies by not taking bolder action," warned one conservationist.
Mar 22, 2023
Wildlife conservationists sounded the alarm Wednesday as an annual count of monarch butterflies revealed a sharp decline in the number of the iconic insects hibernating in Mexican forests, stoking renewed fears of their extinction.
The annual survey—led by Mexico's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas and the Mexican branch of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF)—showed a 22% drop in the hibernating monarch population amid accelerating habitat loss driven primarily by deforestation.
"Despite heroic efforts to save monarchs by planting milkweed, we could still lose these extraordinary butterflies by not taking bolder action," Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said in a statement.
"Monarchs were once incredibly common," she added. "Now they're the face of the extinction crisis as U.S. populations crash amid habitat loss and the climate meltdown."
Renowned for its epic annual migrations from the northern U.S. and southern Canada to Florida, California, and Mexico, monarchs have suffered a precipitous plunge in population in North America this century.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the number of eastern monarchs fell from around 384 million in 1996 to 60 million in 2019, and in the West their numbers declined from 1.2 million in 1997 to fewer than 30,000 last year.
As CBD noted:
At the end of summer, eastern monarchs migrate from the northern United States and southern Canada to high-elevation fir forests in central Mexico. Scientists estimate the population size by measuring the area of trees turned orange by the clustering butterflies...The eastern population has been perilously low since 2008.
Last year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature formally listed the monarch butterfly as endangered, citing critical threats posed by the climate emergency, deforestation, pesticides, and logging.
(Graphic: Center for Biological Diversity)
In the United States, the Trump administration in 2020 placed monarchs on the wait list for consideration for Endangered Species Act protection. FWS has until next year to make a final listing determination.
"It is not just about conserving a species, it's also about conserving a unique migratory phenomenon in nature," said WWF Mexico general director Jorge Rickards. "Monarchs contribute to healthy and diverse terrestrial ecosystems across North America as they carry pollen from one plant to another."
"With 80% of agricultural food production depending on pollinators like monarchs, when people help the species, we are also helping ourselves," he added.
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