Watch Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, as he reacts to the vote from the Platte River in Nebraska–a vital stopover for hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes threatened by toxic oil spills from Keystone XL:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At a time of record-breaking temperatures and increasingly devastating extreme weather events, our leaders need to stand up against dirty and dangerous energy projects. With your voice today, we can hold the senators accountable who sided with Big Oil over their constituents interests.

On Twitter?

Find your senators in the list below and remind them that Americans don’t want the Keystone XL pipeline by tweeting at them:

Protect caribou by telling the Obama administration to address Keystone XL’s impacts on wildlife, habitat and climate change.

But, as in previous years, big polluters and their allies in Congress are desperately trying to insert additional measures unrelated to the budget that would weaken protections for our wildlife, air, water, and climate.

Your senators need to hear from you TODAY—urge them to oppose anti-wildlife amendments in the budget.

Among the dozens of reckless amendments being considered are proposals that could:

• force the approval of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, despite the disastrous impacts it would have on the climate crisis and wildlife, including woodland caribou in Canada;
• undermine the federal government’s authority to move forward with limiting carbon pollution that causes climate change;
• slash funding for programs that safeguard crucial habitat for wildlife and prevent endangered species like ocelots from heading for extinction;
• increase oil and gas drilling on federal lands, which will increase our dependence on dirty fuels and endanger critical habitats;
• prevent the administration from moving forward with clean water safeguards that are critical for healthy fish and wildlife

At a time of record-breaking temperatures and increasingly devastating extreme weather events that are putting wildlife and our communities at risk, it’s crucial that we shift away from high-carbon fossil fuels and towards cleaner energy sources. Yet some members of Congress are allowing big polluters to misuse the federal budget to approve their pet projects such as the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline, at the expense of wildlife and ecosystems.

It is urgent that your senators hear from you TODAY so they know the grassroots base will hold them accountable if they side with polluters over their constituents’ interests. With your voice, we can win this critical fight and continue to create a brighter future for America’s cherished wildlife.

Chesapeake Bay photo by Scott Bauer

The government shutdown clock is ticking away furiously in Washington, D.C. as Congress wrestles with a budget agreement.

While many Americans have no choice but to ride out the storm, bad water riders in the house-passed Continuing Resolution, or H.R.1, continue to cloud the budget battle.

These harmful and unnecessary pieces of legislation have little to do with the budget bill or spending cuts and more to do with handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and creating giant loopholes for big polluters.

Bad water riders will:

• Ban EPA from closing recent Clean Water Act loopholes that remove protections for many waters,  jeopardizing the drinking water for 117 million Americans, threatening over half the nation’s stream miles, and opening 20 million acres of wetlands and prime wildlife habitat to polluters and developers. The Clean Water Act gives the EPA the authority to hold polluters accountable for oil spills, sewage and animal waste dumps, and other pollutants that go into rivers, lakes streams, estuaries, and wetlands.
• Ban EPA from protecting municipal water supplies, fisheries, and other critical water resources from being destroyed by large-scale mining, public works, and development projects that dredge, fill, and pollute productive waters.  EPA’s use of its Clean Water Act “404(c)” authority, a deliberative and open process rarely used, has saved taxpayers millions of dollars on wasteful and destructive public works projects, and saved Americans some of their most precious bays, rivers, and streams. This authority has only been used 13 times, and most recently to block the Yazoo Pumps project in Mississippi, which would have destroyed valuable wetlands and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
• Endanger the Chesapeake Bay by blocking efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay just as progress is finally being made to limit allowable pollution in the waters that feed the Bay through fair and effective measures. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, covering 6 states and Washington, D.C. The watershed supports rural economies and the $730 billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry.
• Endanger Florida Waters by blocking recently issued water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters that are necessary to protect Florida’s waters from excess pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer.  Excessive nutrient pollution from these chemicals and waste has created toxic algae blooms in Florida waters that can spread for over a 100 miles. The blooms undermine water quality in Florida, which lowers properties values, hurts waterfront businesses, and serves a major health risk to people, pets, and wildlife.
• Endanger the San Francisco Bay Delta by blocking key measures to protect imperiled salmon, Delta smelt, and the health of the entire Bay-Delta ecosystem, which is reliant on its life-giving water supply.
• Endanger Klamath salmon restoration by blocking a study critical to rebuilding what was once the Nation’s third largest salmon-producing river systems, while also accommodating fisheries, landowner, and electric utility stakeholders.
  
• Allow more stream dumping of coal mining waste by blocking EPA from restricting water pollution from proposed mountain top removal and other coal-mining projects, and from the toxic coal ash waste that is contaminating our streams and water supplies.

Speak Up for Wildlife

You can help stop the attacks on water and wildlife in the Continuing Resolution by speaking up for wildlife at NWF’s Action Center. Don’t let these bad water riders wash away America’s bedrock environmental safeguards.