Majorities of senators–including Senators King and Collins–voted to support key Clean Air Act provisions allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to limit the amount of industrial carbon and mercury pollution fouling our skies.

Congress shouldn’t use the budget to cut important public health protections against air pollution, and Maine Senator Angus King and Senator Susan Collins both deserve our thanks for opposing these amendments.

Thank Senator King for Climate Votes

Tell Senator King “Thank you for voting in-line with your concern about climate change by supporting the Clean Air Act!” on Facebook.

 Send him a tweet saying Thanks @SenAngusKing for your support of climate & @EPAgov during budget votes.”

Sen. King’s votes were clearly in line with his stated concerns about climate change and support for the Clean Air Act.

Thank Senator Collins for Her Climate Vote

  Tell Senator Collins “Thank you for putting Maine’s interests ahead of party politics by voting against the last attack on the Clean Air Act” by leaving a comment on one of her Facebook posts.

 Send her a tweet saying “Thanks @SenatorCollins for your support of climate & @EPAgov during budget votes. Pls step up on #KXL tar sands pipeline.”

Sen. Collins deserves special recognition because she put Maine’s interests ahead of party politics by voting against this attack on the Clean Air Act. She was the only Republican to cross party lines and support these common-sense clean air rules.

Congress Must Champion Clean Air

Polls show super-majorities of the American people support action on air pollution. Two-thirds of voters say elected officials should take steps now to reduce the impact of climate change on future generations, according to a Zogby post-election poll last November.

We need members of Congress to step up and champion clean air standards instead of looking for ways to undermine these vital clean air protections. Congress should protect the health and well-being of the people they represent, not the economic bottom line of big polluters.

As the Environmental Protection Agency works to finalize landmark limits on industrial carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act, the message is clear: The American people support climate action. Let’s get this done.

If the Keystone XL pipeline is constructed and tar sands development continues unchecked, some herds of Woodland Caribou could disappear in as little as 30 years. (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Good

Thanks to the help of the many NWF members and activists who influenced their Senators, we beat back many bad environmental amendments and saw the Senate pass some positive ones.  We were especially pleased to see a majority of Senators stand up for the Clean Air Act by voting down amendments that would have struck down the Mercury Air Toxins standard and blocked agencies from curbing the pollution driving climate change. The Senate also passed amendments to insure that critical funds are available to prevent the risk of wildfires, increase funding for ARPA-E, which provides research funding for innovative energy technologies, increase the amount of funding for weatherization and energy efficiency programs, and help homeowners and small businesses mitigate against flood loss.

The Bad

Unfortunately, several amendments with harmful consequences for people and wildlife did pass.  One passed amendment undermines federal efforts to avoid the need to list the greater sage-grouse  under the Endangered Species Act.   And another amendment weakens the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—the landmark environmental law that requires every federal agency to consider the environmental impact of any government action—by saying that greenhouse gas emissions produced outside the United States by any good produced here (including fossil fuels) are not subject to the requirements of NEPA.

And finally, the Senate passed an amendment that expresses support for building the Keystone XL pipeline—something that will have a disastrous impact on the climate and on wildlife.

For more information on the Keystone amendment and to see how your Senator voter, click here and hold them accountable>>

The Amendments

Pro-environment actions

• Udall-Barasso Amendment 239 – passed by voice vote.  Ensures critical funds are available to help reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, which threaten communities and natural resources across the country
• Merkley Amendment 398 – passed by voice vote.  Increases the investment of government research dollars under the Department of Energy ARPA-E program
  
• Reed-Collins-Merkley Amendment 482 – passed by voice vote.  Increases the budget for weatherization and energy efficiency retrofit programs
  
• Coats-Manchin Amendment 514 – failed 46-53.  Undermines the Mercury/Air Toxins Standard under the Clean Air Act.
• Inhofe Amendment 359 – failed 47-52.  Proposes funding cuts to block agencies from curbing the pollution driving climate change.
• Menendez 619 – passed by voice vote.  Helps homeowners and small businesses mitigate against flood loss.

Anti-environment actions

Polar Bears’ Hunting Season is Getting Shorter

Polar bear mother with yearling cubs. Photo credit: Susanne Miller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Last year, after ice hit a record low, the fall freeze up was delayed. The lack of near-shore ice over the shallow waters where most seals live left the polar bears with a much foreshortened period to hunt for seals in areas where the seals are abundant.

Right now in the dead of winter, the polar bears are struggling to make up for the calories they were unable to gain in the fall.

Struggle Increasing to Feed Cubs

Finding food to eat is not just about meeting adult polar bears’ hunger—it’s also about making sure that the cubs at their side will survive. Adult female polar bears must find enough food to build up the reserves they need to become pregnant and successfully give birth and nurse tiny cubs in their secure winter den.

Pregnant polar bears are the only ones who enter dens in the fall; other polar bears, including females that have cubs, will hunt all winter.  Pregnant females will give birth to a litter of usually two tiny cubs in their highly insulated den. After 5-6 months in their den, the family will emerge from their dens and begin their hunt for the food they need to assure her cubs will survive.

After they leave their dens, the polar bear moms must find enough seals to replenish her depleted reserves and give her cubs a shot at surviving for the next 2 years, until the cubs are able to fend for themselves.

Climate Change Harming Cubs’ Survival

Climate change is dramatically reducing the amount of time available for mother polar bears to hunt enough seals to give her cubs a chance of surviving.

The ice is increasingly far off shore and over deeper waters which are less productive for their prey of seals.  And climate change is causing arctic ice over the shallow near-shore waters where seals are most abundant to both break up earlier in the spring and to form up later in the fall.

This leaves all polar bears less and less time to find food, but the squeeze is particularly hard on recent mothers because of the high energy demands associated with giving birth to and raising their cubs. Polar bear moms nurse their cubs for over two years until the cubs are big enough to survive on their own.

When polar bears can’t find as much food in the spring and fall as they need, cubs just aren’t born or do not survive.

Fight for the Next Generation of Polar Bears

For polar bear moms to win their struggle against hunger, they need us to curb the unprecedented warming in the Arctic. Alaska has warmed twice as much as the contiguous United States, and warming is severely altering the Arctic landscape, including melting permafrost.

In 2012, over 3 million people like you spoke up in support of limits to carbon pollution from new coal-fired power plants.  Across the U.S., three times as many voters say the government is doing too little to protect America’s air, water, wildlife and other natural resources (44 percent) as say it’s doing too much (14 percent), according to a post-election Zogby poll.  And two-thirds of voters (65 percent) say elected officials should take steps now to reduce the impact of climate change on future generations, while just 27 percent say we should wait for more evidence.

The President is listening, but time is short. We need to remind President Obama that his legacy depends on taking action on climate change by taking immediate steps to halt the expansion of dirty energy, like tar sands, and set limits on carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants—the largest source of carbon pollution in the nation.

Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.

Speak up for the polar bears cubs—urge the President to move forward on addressing climate change now.

Hiking with Dad

The latest science on what we can expect if we don’t get serious about cutting carbon pollution that is driving climate change is daunting. Whether its wholesale transformations of ecosystems, species extinctions or more variable extreme weather events putting communities, people, and wildlife at risk, the realities of what we have done to our natural world is finally hitting home for people across the country.

Fortunately, we know what’s causing these changes and we know what needs to be done to chart a better course for the future.

Safeguard Natural Systems from the Impacts of Climate Change

A grizzly bear mom and her cub. Grizzlies are struggling to survive as climate change affects whitebark pine forests, an important food source. Photo by Jenny Grimm.

As we find ourselves in a new era of extreme weather, driven in large part by climate change, it is critical to prepare people, property, and communities for future climate extremes. Increasing resiliency to such extremes can benefit both people and nature if we make smarter development and infrastructure investments, rethink how and where we build, and utilize nature-based solutions to safeguard communities while benefiting wildlife.

If 2012 was a wake-up call for the American people — with devastating drought, intense wildfires, and destructive storms — then 2013 must be a wake-up call for policymakers to finally take swift, bold action to reduce the carbon pollution heating the planet and properly deal with the unavoidable impacts of an already changing climate.

Protect Wildlife from the Worst-case Climate Change Scenarios

It is time to adopt policies here at home that reduce the threat of catastrophic climate change while realizing economic opportunities in clean energy. We can do this by taking swift, significant action to reduce carbon pollution, invest in smart energy choices and restore our natural systems that absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

The choices we make today about how we approach energy development will have profound impacts on the future of our wildlife and our climate. Any serious effort to reduce carbon pollution will require smart energy choices that reduce dependence on fossil fuels and move America quickly towards a future powered by clean energy.

Only by taking the threat seriously — by rejecting dirty energy and embracing responsible, clean energy solutions — will we begin to alter the path we are on to catastrophic climate change.

Steps to Limit Carbon Pollution Using Clean Air Act Authority

President Obama’s Administration has already taken considerable strides to reduce carbon pollution from the country’s largest sources. In his first term, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — in conjunction with the Department of Transportation — implemented the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon pollution from cars and trucks, the second largest source of carbon pollution in the United States. More must be done to reduce the threat of climate change. 

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”

-President Obama in his 2nd Inaugural Address

The Obama Administration can take a number of significant, near-term actions to live up to his commitment to respond to the threat of climate change.  He must use the authority of the Clean Air Act to limit carbon pollution from new and existing power plants, reject the dirty Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure the budget fights ahead do not slash critical investments in clean energy.

NWF is ready to take on the dirty energy interests here in Washington and across the country to confront this challenge.

Speak up for wildlife by urging President Obama to limit carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants.

As documented by the Checks and Balances Project, people have been trying for nearly a century to free the oil from rocks underneath western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming and northeastern Utah. The last big push ended in Black Sunday, May 2, 1982. That’s when falling oil prices and rising costs led Exxon to abruptly shut down the Colony Project, throwing more than 2,000 people out of work and devastating the area economy.

 “It was a regional depression for probably about 10 to 12 years. It took a long time for this area, and Rifle in particular, to recover from that,” said Keith Lambert, a Rifle city councilman and former mayor, on the oil-shale bust.

Lambert is one of the Coloradans featured in three new videos by Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development. The videos, Shale Country: That was Then…This is Now, explore the uncertainty surrounding oil shale. Companies are still pursuing economically viable technologies.

A private oil shale test site in northwestern Colorado. Photo by David Ellenberger.

Never mind that a new report by Taxpayers for Common Sense says the federal government offered nearly $7 billion in loan and price guarantees to oil shale companies in the 1980s—and still no commercial oil shale industry exists in the U.S. So far, we’ve seen zero results from the public leases granted to companies for research and development.

Rep. Ralph Hall (Texas) wants to add another $50 million or so to the money U.S. taxpayers have already spent on chasing oil shale. I think multinational corporations like Shell and Exxon, both with stakes in oil shale country, can finance their own research.

Oil shale vs. shale oil

Oil shale and shale oil are not the same things. Oil shale is really kerogen, fossilized material that didn’t get enough heat and pressure in nature to turn into oil. It has to be heated to extreme temperatures, extracted and processed into a usable fuel. By contrast, shale oil is real oil that’s trapped in rock formations. Technological advances have made it easier to extract.

Look Before Leaping

Northwestern Colorado is home to oil shale deposits and some of the country’s argest mule deer herds. Photo by Steve Torbit

The process and technology to mine oil shale aren’t the unsettled issues. We don’t know how much energy and water will be required. The Government Accountability Office estimates that industrial-scale production could require as much as 123 billion gallons of water – enough water for a city of more than 750,000 homes. That could jeopardize such crucial Western water sources as the Colorado River and threaten fish, wildlife and communities, according to a new SFRED report.

 We’re kind of the canary in the mine – sportsmen— because the bald eagle doesn’t know about oil shale. The brown trout don’t know about oil shale. The deer and elk in this area don’t know about oil shale. We better know about oil shale because we become their voice.” -Kent Ingram, Colorado Wildlife Federation.

Nineteen regional and national sportsmen’s and conservation groups have signed a letter asking Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to proceed carefully on oil shale and saying that successful research must precede any commercial leasing of federal lands.

Let Salazar and Mike Poole, BLM acting director, know that we don’t want to gamble our water, wildlife, fishing and hunting on an unproven technology.

Make your own Thanksgiving hand-turkey card to send to president Obama reminding him that now is the time to put in place strong limits on carbon pollution.  We can help make a Thanksgiving with one more thing to be grateful for–action to reduce carbon pollution that contributes to the changing climate that is harming wildlife.

Here is my card–how will you customize your hand-turkey?

This week, President Obama connected the dots between the increase in temperature, melting Arctic ice, and extraordinary number of large storms. He emphasized that climate change is real and that we have “an obligation to future generations to do something about it“.  Ask the President to match his words with action by sending him a fun holiday card.

The doors of the federal government will stay open, but important issues have yet to be resolved and the leadership in the House seems to be content in leaving important business on the table, including:

X Farm Bill: The failure of the House of Representative to pass a Farm bill threatens important wildlife conservation programs;

X Extension of wind energy tax credits: Uncertainty around the continuation of important clean energy incentives has has already lead to plant closings and job losses across the country;

X “Fiscal Cliff”:  At the end of 2012, automatic budget cuts (aka sequestration) and expiration of many tax breaks are set to go into effect.  This deficit showdown, in particular the automatic across-the-board cuts, will have a severe impact on many conservation and clean energy programs.

flickr/universalpops

Any reasonable person would expect that if Congress canceled the previously scheduled October work period, the remaining days would be spent working to make progress on these important issues.

The House of Representatives doesn’t seem to be too concerned with dealing with the real business of the country. Instead, they are working to amplify a political message on behalf of big polluters by taking up a bill that has no chance of becoming law. The bill, dubbed the “Stop the War on Coal Act,” is a simple “re-do” of bills the House has already voted on and been rebuffed by the Senate.

Representing a broad attack important health and environmental safeguards, every piece of this bill only serves to further the interests of oil and coal companies while putting the health and safety of the American people at risk by:

• Dismantling fundamental clean air protections that protect public health and the environment by reducing carbon, mercury and other toxic air pollution from the nation’s largest polluters.
• Repealing EPA’s science-based endangerment determination and simply declaring that carbon pollution is not a risk to human health and welfare, despite the overwhelming consensus that climate change is a threat to people and wildlife across the country.
• Blocking the recently-finalized national fuel efficiency standards that will deliver dramatic savings at the pump, significantly cut U.S. oil consumption, and reduce harmful pollution.
• Threatening our nation’s fishable, swimmable and drinkable waters, and would roll back key provisions of the Clean Water Act that are the underpinning of 40 years of progress. Because of the Clean Water Act, remarkable advances have been made in cleaning up our waters, restoring fish habitats, protecting drinking water, slowing wetland loss, and growing water-based recreation.
• Repealing EPA’s authority to ensure that coal ash—the byproduct of burning coal, which is laden with arsenic, lead and mercury and other toxic chemicals—is disposed of safely and kept out of our air and drinking water.
• Stopping the Department of the Interior from developing stronger standards to protect  rivers and ecosystems from the most egregious mountaintop removal mining operations, thereby putting the communities and wildlife that depend upon healthy ecosystems at risk.

Rather than resolving the important business and working to solve the problems facing the country, the House leadership continues to push a polluter-backed agenda that threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the climate we depend on.

It is time national leaders take climate change and conservation values seriously. Pledge to speak up for wildlife in this election season and vote for lawmakers who will address the challenges we face.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The National Wildlife Federation and a coalition of allies, including Environment America, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Interfaith Power and Light, just delivered more than 2.1 million comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in support of carbon pollution standards for coal-fired power plants. The massive delivery marked the largest number of public comments ever submitted to a federal agency!

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new safeguards are a historic step, setting the first-ever national limits on the amount of dangerous carbon pollution that new power plants can emit into our air. These limits are critical to protecting public health and tackling climate change that threatens the future of wildlife.

Gina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, accepted the comments on behalf of the EPA and thanked the coalition for giving voice to millions of Americans who are concerned about our environment. The record-breaking 2.1 million comments—over 100,000 of which were submitted by NWF activists—will give the EPA the support they need to finalize strong carbon emissions standards. McCarthy told us:

Presenting Gina McCarthy, EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, with comments from NWF’s activists.

It’s  going to take these voices – loud voices – to make all the right things happen here in Washington, D.C., and your ability to bring millions of those voices to the table will make a difference…It’s going to make a difference in how this administration can achieve the kind of goal that it promises to achieve.

While these carbon pollution standards for new power plants are an important first step in the EPA’s work to address climate change, they are not enough, and we look forward to the EPA’s release of a proposal to safeguard the public and wildlife from carbon emissions from existing power plants. We know our activists will be up to the challenge of setting yet another comment record.

The official comment period is over, but EPA is still accepting comments in support of limiting carbon pollution from new coal-fired power plants. Add your voice to the 2.1 million!

1. 

   The "Border Bill" threatens to ignore environmental laws which protect important wildlife species like brown bears. (Photo: Steve Hillebrand for USFWS Headquarters/Flickr)

   Representative Bishop’s (R-UT) Border Bill (H.R. 2578) creates a 100-mile zone along U.S. Canadian and Mexican borders which will allow U.S. Border Patrol to regulate land while ignoring 16 essential conservation and environmental laws. If you live along the 100-mile buffer zone, call your local representative’s office and let them know what hiking, fishing, and hunting you could be missing out on  should the bill pass.
2. The House will also be looking at the Strategic Energy Production Act (H.R. 4480), a package of strategic drilling bills that jeopardizes access to public lands while undermining leasing reforms intended to safeguard air, water, fish, and wildlife in these drillable areas. The underlying message is drill, drill, drill, anyplace, anywhere, anytime. Additionally, the bill will expedite drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska without considering important wildlife areas for caribou and migratory birds.
3. On the Senate side, Senator Inhofe’s  (R-OK)  Congressional Review Act Resolution (S.J.Res. 37) would undo the EPA’s Mercury & Air Toxics Standards for power plants and would block the agency from reissuing similar safeguards. These standards and safeguards are designed with the public in mind for they protect the public from power plants’ mercury and toxic air pollution. (In case you missed it, here’s Sen. Inhofe’s attempt to misrepresent NWF’s statements on the rule, now that’s a headline that should be bogus)
4. 

   Farm Bill amendments are threatening the Clean Water Act's ability to protect America's important waterways. Alger County, Michigan (Photo: James Marvin Phelps/Flickr)

   The drama surrounding the Farm Bill continues in the Senate. Currently, the bill is bogged down with over 300 amendments, many of which wreak havoc on the environment. Attacks are most evident on the Clean Water Act.  Amendments (S.A 2165 and S.A. 2177) by Senator Barrasso (R-WY) and Senator Paul (R-KY) prohibit the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA from finalizing and implementing pending Clean Water Act guidance. The Rubio Amendment (S.A. 2261) by Senator Rubio (R-FL) would block EPA’s ability to hold the state of Florida to Clean Water Act numeric nutrient standards. Far from benefiting the American public, these amendments would further damage an already precious resource.

What can you do to oppose this week’s heavy-handed attacks on our environment? Look up your Senators and Representative’s numbers or e-mails. Urge a NO vote on all of these anti-environmental legislation (bills and amendments are listed here for reference). And remember, your voice counts! I’m off to give the offices of Senator’s Stabenow and Levin and Representative McCotter a call—you should get cracking too.

Common Loons are in jeopardy from toxic mercury pollution that contaminates fish they eat

Sen. Inhofe is pushing a bill that would revoke the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit mercury pollution under the Clean Air Act. Quite simply, it would be an act of politicians taking wildlife and public health protections out of the hands of EPA scientists. The National Wildlife Federation has been pushing for new mercury standards since the Clinton administration. After 13 years of delay and debate, the EPA’s new rule will prevent 11,000 thousand premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 cases of childhood asthma and 6,300 cases of acute bronchitis. Over 900,000 Americans have spoken out in support of it.

One of them was Brenda Archambo, the National Wildlife Federation’s outreach consultant in Michigan (transcribed section starts around 9:30):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brenda Archambo: Last year, the sportsmen’s community joined together and about 330 sports organizations across the country representing several hundred thousand members spoke up on behalf of the Clean Air Act and the reduction of mercury for our outdoor heritage and our hunting and fishing heritage, urging our members of Congress to please look seriously at this rule and in defense of the Clean Air Act.

Sen. Barrasso: Ms. Archambo, Sen. Lautenberg just made a comment about enemy of good and the perfect and some of the things I talked about a little earlier. I had mentioned in my opening statement the Senate had an opportunity  to reduce mercury emissions by 70% back in 2005. Would Michigan lakes, sturgeon, sportsmen, familes had been better off had those reductions already gone into effect when they had an opportunity to pass that back  in 2005?

Brenda Archambo: Absolutely, but going forward – I understand history is important, but I’m looking out in front, where we go next.

Sen. Barrasso is referring to the infamous “Clear Skies” initiative, the Orwellian name given to President George W. Bush’s effort to gut Clean Air Act protections. It was written by James Connaughton, who lobbied for big polluters before joining the Bush White House and does so again today. Among the bill’s main sponsors in Congress were two of Big Oil’s All-Stars, Sen. Inhofe and Rep. Joe Barton. The National Wildlife Federation fought hard against the Clear Skies Act and ultimately a bipartisan group of senators joined together to stop it.

Now here’s how Sen. Inhofe’s Environment & Public Works Committee staff misrepresented Brenda’s testimony on their site: “Would Public Health and the Environment Be Better Off Today If President Obama Voted in Favor of Clear Skies? National Wildlife Federation Says: ABSOLUTELY.” How do you get that from what Brenda said? Zero mention of President Obama. Zero endorsement of Clear Skies.

“The Senate EPW minority staff is shamefully twisting my words,” Brenda says. “I was for reducing mercury pollution in 2005, and am for reducing mercury pollution today. To imply that I supported gutting the Clean Air Act in the process brazenly misleads the public.”

It’s clear what Sen. Inhofe and his staff are really trying to do here. They’re manipulating Brenda’s testimony in a ham-handed attempt to embarrass the White House.

An odd part of Sen. Inhofe’s attack: He’s essentially saying a 70% reduction in mercury emissions would’ve been just dandy, but the 91% reduction proposed by the EPA would destroy the economy. Is that really such a huge difference? Or is he just playing politics with public health?

Sen. Inhofe’s dirty tactic here is a huge tell that he knows what a lousy hand he’s got. He and a handful of America’s worst industrial polluters are up against nearly a million Americans who’ve said loud & clear they support strong mercury standards.

Take Action

Let your senators know you oppose dirty attacks on clean air standards. Please email your senators right now asking them to stand up for wildlife and public health.