A Chance to Restore Our Environment
Clean air. Clean water. Open space.
ENVIRONMENT AMERICA Your Winter Report
A chance to restore our environment
Acting president Wendy Wendlandt talks about what we’ve lost under Photo credits: Menno Schaefer via Shutterstock. Top photo: R. Vickers via Shutterstock. the Trump administration—and how to get it back.
Under the new Biden-Harris administration, we’re eager to get back to the work of building a better world, instead of fighting to fend off backsliding. And we’re looking forward to a president who will engage in that campaign with us.
Yet we also need to repair the damage done under the previous administration: undoing the Clean Power Plan; weakening fuel economy efficiency standards; allowing commercial fishing in marine preserves; lifting a ban on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The list includes at least 100 protec- tions for the environment that the Trump administration either ended or worked to undermine. Reading through the list is like flipping through a scrapbook of favorite photographs—which We rallied to the defense of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge someone has defaced with a Sharpie. and the wildlife—including caribou—that live there. Thousands of Americans—advocates, attorneys, biologists, epidemiologists, engineers, socially conscious entrepreneurs, increased fuel economy standards to match those state laws at elected leaders, government regulators, organizers and, last the federal level. but not least, ordinary citizens with extraordinary spirit and perseverance—have worked together to put these protections For a second example, in the years before online petitions, we in place, watchdog their enforcement, abide by them, and collected a million actual signatures from Americans who want- defend them. ed to keep still-wild areas in our national forests protected from mining, drilling and logging, and convinced then-President A couple of examples: Together, over many years, our clean Clinton to adopt the Roadless Rule. air advocates and climate activists helped fight for and win laws requiring cleaner cars in more than a dozen states, one Those snapshots of environmental progress belong to all hard-won campaign after another. Then we promoted and won Americans.
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VOLUME 13 | NO. 2 Winter Report | 2021 - - Get more updates on our work online at Get more www.environmentamerica.org that will mitigate its worst effects into stark effects into its worst mitigate that will relief. the driver’s California has taken “Once again, our cars andit comes to cleaning up seat when other states is paving the way for trucks and state director said Dan Jacobson, to follow,” Research & Pol- of Environment California research our national network’s icy Center, State. partners in the Golden Research & PolicyEnvironment California our of part as goal this for called Center a for campaign Carbon Zero Destination: a zero-emission trans- broader move toward portation system. challenges last-minute Lawsuit drill in Arcticpush to National Refuge Wildlife last administration’s One of the Trump actions could end up spoiling one of Amer actiontook We places. wild great last ica’s to save it. - On Aug. 24, Environment America, a coa andlition of environmental organizations, thethe Gwich’in Steering Committee sued administration over its plans to begin Trump an oil and gas leasing program in Alaska’s Refuge. Even after Arctic National Wildlife change in administration, those January’s plans could still result in lease sales going through. administration’s “Not only will the Trump theslapdash and tragic plan threaten one of wildlife areas, but it most untamed world’s is also completely blind to the reality that, extractingdangerously century, 21st the in more fossil fuels from the ground is a fool’s op energy renewable clean, when errand said Steve rise,” on the are rapidly tions Blackledge, senior director for Environment Program. Conservation America’s Home to polar bears, wolves, herds of caribou birds,migratory of species 200 and more than the refuge has been in the crosshairs of fossil fuel companies for decades. Our lawsuit alleges that the government’s decision violates several federal statutes, in- cluding the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. home to is now California most ambitious the country’s electrifyingplan for our transportation Gavin Newsom issued On Sept. 23, Gov. an executive order calling for all new cars and passenger trucks in California to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The order came as wildfires continued to rage across of urgency the bringing states, Western climate change and the necessity of policies “Any time that you’re faced with a huge “Any time that you’re faced with a huge problem, like how do we break our country addiction to fossil fuels and and our planet’s a massive decouple everything from that, it’s undertaking,” said Johanna Neumann, senior - director of our Campaign for 100% Renew able Energy. make bold let’s make bold steps on solar, “Let’s steps on wind, secure that progress and then do it again.” If you’re worried about extreme weather about extreme If you’re worried certainly not alone.events, you’re research partner, On Sept. 22, our national Research & PolicyEnvironment America Fierce hosted a webinar called “The Center, discuss how wildfires,Urgency of Fire” to extreme weather eventshurricanes and other need for climate underscore the urgent the watched people 100 than action. More presentation. ‘The Urgency Fierce Fire’: of AmericaEnvironment Research webinar hosts & Policy Center actions climate on vital
Thanks Thanks all possible for making it for Environment America Environment The sky in partsThe sky and of California in September turned orange Oregon wildfires. due to the nearby SvetlanaSF via Shutterstock THoffman via Shutterstock Kimball Nelson Page 1 story continued: A chance to restore our environment
In debates about water, air, land use, open From the first days of the Trump adminis- spaces and oceans, Environment America has tration, the president sought to un-protect researched problems and constructed solutions, the American environment—to throw the taken our campaigns to the American people, nation into reverse when it comes to the Thank you for supporting and collected public comments, and led groups of quality and sustainability of our land, water, sustaining our work—still done citizen lobbyists to Washington, D.C. We’ve air, oceans and open spaces. Making cars at a safe social distance—to lost more battles than we’ve won. cleaner, preserving wilderness, and dozens keep our air and water clean, to of other important ways we’ve collectively defend our public lands, and to But over the years, up against legions of protected our environment—and our chil- protect our climate and envi- well-funded lobbyists, we’ve beaten a lot of dren—were unravelled by the administration ronment for future generations. odds and notched some crucial victories for in four years. the environment. Your action and support al- Whether it’s in the courts, in Congress or lows us to keep up the work Why? Because, like most Americans, we in the executive branch, we are resolved to you’ll read about in these pages. could see that America the Beautiful was in restore these protections. Thank you for standing with us. danger of becoming less open, more covered with asphalt, more polluted, more barren of We’ve got a scrapbook with a lot of pages animal life, more dependent on dirty fossil left to fill. fuels and life-threatening chemicals, more overrun by the waste that those materials By Wendy Wendlandt, acting president, produce, and more bereft of wonder. And Environment America we could see, with our own eyes, glimpses of Wendy Wendlandt the dire future that lies ahead if we do not Acting President act immediately to curtail global warming.
From sea to shining sea, there are so many special places Americans love—and over the past four years, far too many were threatened by actions the Trump administration took. Image contributions from Environment America activists
Winter Report | 2021 GeorgeColePhoto via Shutterstock
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Your Winter Report VOLUME 13 | NO. 2 | 2021 Clean air. Clean water. Open space.
Our mission: We all want clean air, clean water and Why we need to replace the Trump open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our administration‘s ‘Dirty Water Rule’ ASAP environment, especially when In 2020, when companies asked the gov- streams and wetlands. In effect since June, the powerful interests stand in the way of ernment whether the waterways they’d like rule has narrowed federal protection of water environmental progress. to pollute or pave over were still protected bodies under the Clean Water Act, allowing That’s the idea behind [[C4_Name]],Environment under the Clean Water Act, in too many companies to win rulings that no federal pro- Inc.,America. a project We focusof Environment exclusively on cases, the answer was “no.” tection applied for 758 out of 1,085 waterways America,protecting Inc. air, Wewater focus and exclusively open examined by federal officials—including, more onspaces. protecting We speak air, outwater and and take open On Sept. 10, a report from Bloomberg Law recently, much of Georgia’s wildlife-rich Oke- spaces.action atWe the speak local, out state and and take national found that polluting businesses were taking fenokee Swamp. actionlevels to at improve the local, the state quality and ofnational our advantage of the Trump administration’s levelsenvironment to improve and the our quality lives. of our “Dirty Water Rule” to gain federal exemp- “Wetlands and streams are crucial to the environment and our lives. tions for their destruction of our nation’s health of our iconic waters—from the Okefe- nokee to the Puget Sound,” said John Rumpler, Deborah Ferrin via Shutterstock senior director of our national network’s Clean Water for America Campaign. “Yet the Dirty Water Rule wiped out protections for count- less streams and wetlands—a move that was rebuked by the Environmental Protection Agency’s own science advisors.”
Environment America is working to overturn the Dirty Water Rule through the Biden ad- ministration and in the courts.
A White Heron in Okefenokee Swamp.
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