Simone Lightfoot heads up regional urban initiatives for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Great Lakes Regional Center. She integrates the work of the NWF with the region’s urban green efforts including air and water quality, sustainability, climate change, solid and hazardous waste, recycling, environmental justice, water conservation, invasive species, aged infrastructure, mass transit, wind energy, community college trainings and new economy jobs.

Years ago as a young staffer in the Michigan House of Representatives I had the great privilege of working for the Speaker Pro Tempore (second in charge) who also served as chairman of the House Labor committee.  By virtue of his position and the power that came with it, he single-handedly protected labor laws and the rights of public employees – always respecting the broad roles public employees play.

Today’s heightened political rhetoric of anti-environment; anti-renewable energy; anti-conservation; anti-labor and anti-public employees emanating from both the Congress and the states indicate that we are at an important crossroad. These challenges relate to one another and solutions lay in both our history and good common sense.

flickr / Clyde Robinson

Before public services – as we know them today – cities were squalid with inadequate water systems, over run refuse and barely tolerable living conditions.  Citizens relied on volunteer fire fighters, night watchman (not police) and individual property owners collecting trash and sweeping the streets.  It was precisely when the economic vitality and very existence of municipalities became threatened that nineteenth century civic and business elites, chose to support public services and public employees.  Once provided, these services became institutionalized, normal and routine; there was no going back…until today.

Public employees are essential to all life, life quality and advancing societies’ green best interest. They are those teachers and college instructors who introduce us to science, research and technological innovation around our natural resources (water, land and air).  They are judges who interpret energy and environmental laws, inspectors that ensure compliance of those laws and police officers that enforce violators of the law.

They are first responders like paramedics and firefighters, public health workers responsible for emergency preparedness and catastrophe relief.  Public lighting workers, snow plow drivers who clear our roads and bus drivers who transport our children and seniors.

Public employees provide cross coordination of broad agency efforts protecting animals, plant life and our waterways. They ensure against pollution, pesticides, radiation and toxic substances, and look out for public parks, wilderness, wildlife and endangered species.  Public employees protect our forestry, soil conservation, atmospheric monitoring and marine animals.  Including environmental clean up, restoration, city infrastructure, sewage and waste disposal not to mention safe workplace conditions, public safety, licensing and regulating along with broad municipal services at local city, county and township offices.

Although change is necessary all around, our collective reliance on and consumption of the indispensable benefits provided by public employees and green programs are indisputable.  But so is government’s role in backing public laws that are meaningful, measured and tempered through a humane lens amidst budget deficits. Congress and state legislatures must ensure clean and safe water, air, and land amidst budget deficits while respecting and valuing those public employees charged with carrying out that work.

This piece was also published in The Michigan Chronicle, The Cincinnati Herald and The Cleveland Call & Post.

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.

That’s why we’re asking YOU to spread the word far and wide that cuts to our bedrock conservation programs are unacceptable.

Below is a list of facts about how wildlife and wild places depend on conservation programs. Please help us SPREAD THE WORD throughout the week by tweeting and posting these facts to your facebook wall:

The endangered Hawaiian monk seal needs conservation programs to aid in its recovery. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Don’t let congressional budget cuts mean aloha (goodbye) for HI’s endangered species. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

If it weren’t for the Endangered Species Act, bald eagles would have disappeared years ago. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

San Francisco Bay supports more than 500 species of wildlife and depends on conservation funding. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Restoring Clean Water Act protections for small streams and wetlands is vital for fish, wildlife. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Great Blue Herons and many other birds rely on protected wetlands for their survival. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Even as the icy habitat of polar bears melts, Congress wants to take away key protections. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has conserved important elk habitat in the Rockies. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Fed. budget bill would allow 20 mil. acres of wetlands to be opened to polluters, developers.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

At risk: the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program, which prevents wildlife from becoming endangered.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Proposed restrictions on the EPA would make it harder to keep Florida waters clean. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Great Lakes endangered piping plover depends on funding to protect their breeding habitats. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Chesapeake Bay budget cuts would affect the 1 mil. swans, geese and ducks that migrate there.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Recovery of 21 Puget Sound threatened or endangered species depends on EPA funds.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Chinook salmon are at less than 10% of their historic levels in Puget Sound river systems.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

PA Game Commission is using federal funding to protect more than 30,000 bats. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Fed. budget bill could cut funding for research on bats and white-nose syndrome. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

Without federal funding, the now-common peregrine falcon would be extinct.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

In the US, fewer than 100 ocelots exist — conservation laws are needed for their survival.#ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

There are 21 endangered butterfly species in the U.S. — resources are needed to protect them. #ContinuingResolution
Tweet it! | Post to Facebook.

TAKE ACTION TODAY: Stop the Stealth Attack on Wildlife >>

courtesy universetoday.com

Today, attempts to rollback parts of the Clean Air Act that direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address carbon pollution failed in the Senate.

In a game of political hide-and-seek, varying polluter interests attempted to highjack a bill (S. 493) that reauthorizes two small business innovation and technology research programs.

It was a stealthy attempt to amend the bill to prevent the EPA from limiting the vast amount of carbon pollution spewing everyday from our power plants, oil refineries, and factories.

Instead of a polluter payday, however, the attempted highjacking exposed confusion among the varying interests targeting the Clean Air Act and showed that navigating how to limit air pollution is a job best left to the experts at the EPA.

The four failed votes put a spotlight on the separate special interests seeking their own particular version of a rollback.

1. An amendment offered by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (Amendment 183) was supported by the oil industry because it would allow their refineries to continue to spew unlimited carbon pollution. It failed to get the needed 60 votes (a vote of  50 to 50) despite the oil industry’s campaign contributions, led by Koch Industries and Exxon-Mobil, totaling nearly $28M in 2010.  At $560,000 a vote, this was one expensive failure for Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
2. A separate amendment offered by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) (Amendment 215) was a two-year “stop work” order on the EPA’s carbon control efforts and supported by his home-state coal companies.  It failed 12 to 88.    In the 2010, campaign contributions from the coal industry topped $7.3M with Senator Rockefeller’s co-sponsor and West Virginian colleague Senator Manchin (D-WV) by far topping the list. In coughing up over $608,000 a vote, Dirty Coal fared even worse than Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
3. Another amendment offered by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) (Amendment 277) that sought a more nuanced form of a 2-year delay on EPA’s enforcement of carbon limits designed to help manufacturers also failed 7 to 93.  The substance of this rollback amendment was not even enough to placate the National Association of Manufactures and their $8.5M in 2010 lobbying expenditures. See how your Senators voted here.
4. Finally, an amendment offered by Senator Baucus (D-MT) (Amendment 236) trying to navigate the EPA’s use of the Clean Air Act on agricultural facilities failed 7 to 93.  This loophole amendment still couldn’t garner the support of the American Farm Bureau Federation, political contributor of nearly $700K in the 2010 election cycle.  The Farm Bureau joined with the Koch Brother’s Americans for Prosperity to seek an even broader attack on the EPA’s ability to limit carbon pollution. See how your Senators voted here.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s polluter compatriots in the House continued their own assault on the Clean Air Act.  Picking up where they left off in using the budget battle to gut EPA (see my previous blog here),  the House is poised to pass Congressman Upton’s H.R. 910 later tonight - a bill that even overturns the scientific finding that carbon pollution causes climate change.

As these special interest measures collided on the Senate floor and the House legislated away a scientific consensus, the public continued to look on with disgust.  A recent poll confirms that 77 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.” Only 18 percent believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution standards.

Luckily, 34 senators have actually chosen to stand up for the majority of Americans.  They have introduced a resolution (S. Res 119) supporting the economic, environmental, and public health benefits of the Clean Air Act.  And more than 150 House members took a similar stand in a letter released this week.

These numbers ensure that if the polluter dollars somehow are successful in an attempt to roll the Clean Air Act on either another bill or during the upcoming budget battles a Presidential veto of their dirty work would be upheld.

In addition to the wind, rain, and cherry blossom pollen, there’s tension in the air this week as questions abound. Will certain Congressmen keep trying to attach riders that destroy our environmental protections to the budget bill? Are those in favor of the Dirty Air Act trying to “lose the future”? Will the government shut down? I know I’m in suspense.

Thanks for reading!

Amanda

This week’s stories:

1. Highlight of the Week: Growing Momentum for a “Clean” Continuing Resolution
2. Quote: Larry Schweiger on the Clean Air Act
3. Economic Story of the Week: High-rollers back EPA on GHGs
4. Editorial of the Week: No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline
5. Senators Stand up for Clean Air Act
6. Fighting The Good Fight Against Dirty Energy
7. Happening this Week

Subscribe to the Climate Capsule RSS Feed to have your weekly update delivered automatically!

Highlight of the Week

Growing Momentum for a “Clean” Continuing Resolution

The House, Senate and White House are still racing to reach an agreement on a six-month spending plan to avoid a government shutdown, with a deadline of April 8th, when the current interim measure will expire.

The budget bill has been loaded up with riders that have nothing to do with fiscal discipline, but instead are trying to limit the power of the EPA and shed decades of bipartisan support for our most basic clean water and clean air protections.

Belinda Serata/NWF

“Voters didn’t go to the polls last year worried that our air is too clean or our water too safe to drink,” said NWF Senior Vice President of Conservation and Education Jeremy Symons. To the contrary, a recent poll confirms that 77 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.”

The White House stated their opposition to environmental riders in the budget bill. “As the administration has made clear, the funding bill should not be used to further unrelated policy agendas, and we remain opposed to riders that do that, including as it relates to the environment,” said Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) told reporters that Senate Democrats won’t “accept any of the EPA riders they have in their bill.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called the EPA riders “totally unacceptable. The idea that we are going to close down the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to keep our air clean and our water pure, I mean, that sort of thing is irresponsible.”

NWF has been working hard to have all environmental riders removed, as well as maintain sensible investments for conservation programs.

Back to top

Quote:

Sportsmen oppose cuts to conservation. Photo: Flickr

There’s a lot of political theater on Capitol Hill these days.  That may not be much of a surprise to anyone who has followed the Continuing Resolution (aka the ‘CR’) budget debate over the last few weeks.

But what may surprise many people are the threats to our clean air and water by political “riders” that don’t have anything to do with the budget process. Not only that, but there are a number of of proposed cuts to programs that actually boost the creation of jobs — especially jobs in rural economies.

One example of a program in jeopardy that supports jobs is the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). LWCF funds do not derive from taxpayer dollars–they are revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters. The LWCF program works in partnership with state and local efforts to conserve irreplaceable lands and improve outdoor recreation throughout the country.

Some of America’s most treasured places have been acquired by using the Land and Water Conservation Fund, including Grand Canyon National Park, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, and many historic Civil and Revolutionary War Battlefields. In addition, the LWCF provides matching grants to help states and local communities protect open spaces, build trails and playgrounds, and construct boat houses and other outdoor recreation facilities.

Unfortunately, the new short-term CR that was just passed by Congress cuts LWCF 16% from the last enacted budget and almost 36% from the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. That’s not all. One budget proposal, passed by the House of Representatives but not the Senate, made a decimating of 90% to the LWCF.

Further attacks to the LWCF program will have immediate impacts to projects that enhance public lands and are critical to tourism and recreation spending across the country.  According to the Outdoor Industry Foundation, recreation contributes $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy and supports nearly 6.5 million U.S. jobs. Without LWCF investments, the natural resources that are vital to the survival of communities close to outdoor destinations (think rural towns that depend on visitor spending) will be placed at risk. Without LWCF investments, many Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields will be sold, developed, and perhaps lost forever. Simply put, without LWCF investments many places in the great outdoors will be developed and the economic benefits will be lost forever.

The LWCF is appealing to many different groups. Sportsmen support the improved access the program provides to prime hunting and fishing spots and healthy wildlife populations from protected habitat. Families appreciate local parks and trails with playgrounds to help get kids outside. Communities that depend on wetlands to act as a buffer against floods or public lands to act as a buffer against forest fires need those ecosystem services that LWCF provides.

Despite the attacks to LWCF, the program has a strong bipartisan reputation on the Hill. The American public also overwhelmingly supports LWCF. A recent bipartisan poll showed that 86% of voters nationally support committing LWCF’s offshore drilling revenues to the program.

The House and Senate are negotiating the details of a CR budget agreement in the next few days. If you are one of the many that support programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, now is a crucial time to make your voice heard.

Contact your elected official in Congress and tell them that enough is enough: additional cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and other conservation programs are unacceptable.

The amendments and riders attached to the House-passed Continuing Resolution are dismantling Clean Water Act (CWA) protections. The CWA protects clean drinking water for millions of Americans, limits pollution and helps to restore troubled waters.

Who's laughing now? Photo:Flickr

Another troublesome bill stripping away Clean Water Act safeguards is H.R. 872, which recently passed in the House of Representatives. The legislation, otherwise known as the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011, could be a big burden on public health and wildlife habitat. This legislation rolls back CWA by giving free reign to industries that pollute our waters with pesticides.

The battle over polluter bailouts in H.R. 1 isn’t over, yet. The Senate, House of Representatives and White House must reach a budget compromise, and legislators have an opportunity to restore the Clean Water Act and other bedrock environmental safeguards. Tell your papers and your members of Congress not to let big polluters have free reign with our natural resources. Clean water isn’t a joke, and lawmakers shouldn’t treat it that way.

The Grand Canyon is one of 58 parks that could close if the government shuts down.

Rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is a trip few Americans ever get to make. Unless you have the money to pay for a commercial trip, which can cost upwards of $2500 a person, you must possess either a great amount of luck or plenty of patience to obtain one of the coveted private permits handed out by the National Park Service.

These golden tickets, I mean permits, are so hard to come by that before a 2006 transition to a weighted lottery, the National Park Service used to maintain a waiting list of more than 8,000 applicants waiting up to 20 years for a launch date.

For my friend and colleague Dr. Sterling Miller, the chance to ride a raft through one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World has been a lifelong wish. Naturally, when a friend asked him this past December to captain one of three rafts on a private trip this spring, Sterling jumped at the opportunity.

“Going on the Grand Canyon trip is a dream of a lifetime,” said Sterling. “I love being on the water more than anything.”

Unfortunately for Sterling, his 14 trip mates and the thousands of Americans planning to visit to a National Park this spring, the budget showdown in Congress has put into question whether the parks will be open to visitors come March 18.

Attack on America’s Outdoor Economy

In February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a Continuing Resolution – a bill designed to make sure the U.S. government stays open for business for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. However, rather than focus on responsible spending cuts, the GOP-led House used the bill as cover to mount a reckless and irresponsible sneak attack on the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act and to slash investment in key land and wildlife conservation programs.

It is now left to the Senate to stand up for our values and stop this shameful attack on the laws that protect our country’s water, air, wildlife and public health. Unless the House, Senate and White House can come to a compromise soon over the budget, the federal government will shut down.

The closing of our National Parks is just one of the ways Americans would be impacted by a shutdown, yet it is representative of what is at stake in this fight. In addition to the campers, hikers, bird watchers, and other outdoor recreationists who may see vacations canceled, the shuttering of National Parks would be devastating for those communities that depend on tourism dollars generated by park goers.

Likewise, if the House-passed version of the Continuing Resolution were signed into law, it would directly impact America’s $730 billion outdoor recreation economy.

By slashing funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, State and Tribal Wildlife Grants, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service — programs that work to  maintain healthy wildlife populations, keep parks running and open new areas to outdoor recreation – the House has essentially launched an assault on America’s outdoor economy. At risk are the livelihoods of the outfitters, guides, restaurants, bed and breakfasts and other family-owned small business that depend on healthy wildlife and wild places.

Take Stand for American Values

I took this photo of Sterling on a recent work trip to Churchill, Manitoba.

The battle over the budget boils down to this: is Congress going to stand up for the things we value as Americans or will they choose to give big polluters free reign at the expense of our health, our wildlife and our public lands?

Essentially, will they help us make our dreams come true — dreams like rafting down a river, opening up a bait and tackle shop, and having safe drinking water for our families — or will they give us a nightmare.

For Sterling, the idea that his whitewater rafting trip could be canceled is not as painful as the idea that Congress might move forward with cuts to our bedrock conservation programs.

“I will be terribly disappointed personally,” he said. “However, it would be worse if the Senate were to destroy decades worth of progress on environmental issues by agreeing with the reckless choices made by the House. The current budget crisis was not the fault of the middle class, but it is the middle class that is being asked to pay for the excesses of the past.”

If you are like Sterling and the rest of us who value clean water, clean air, healthy parks, abundant wildlife and unparalleled outdoor recreation opportunities, please take action today to help stop this attack on America’s conservation programs.

NWF Rally at US Capitol, March 2, 2011

Dozens of National Wildlife Federation members, supporters and partners rallied at the U.S. Capitol today, asking members of Congress to stand up for America’s air, water, wildlife and public health. Representatives Jim Moran (VA-08), Rush Holt (NJ-12), Raul Grijalva (AZ-07), and John Sarbanes (MD-03) also joined the call to stop playing politics with our environment.

The Continuing Resolution passed by the House of Representatives would weaken America’s bedrock safeguards that protect clean air, water, public lands and wildlife.

“Clean air, clean water and health natural resources are what make our country strong, make our quality of life some of the best in the world. Programs that protect our health and our way of life shouldn’t be cut,” said Jeremy Symons, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior vice president. “If certain members of Congress really want to save taxpayers money, why not cut something that’s not needed, like the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for some of the wealthiest global oil companies in the world?”

“We can’t afford not to protect the Great Lakes—they contain over 90 percent of this country’s surface fresh water and supply drinking water to more than 30 million people,” said Jeff Skelding, campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. “Restoration efforts are already producing results, but there is still a lot of work to be done. If we cut funding now, it will only cost more later because all of these projects will only get harder and more expensive the longer we wait.”

“Programs that work shouldn’t be cut, and zeroing out State and Tribal Wildlife Grants will hurt conservation efforts in every state in this country,” according to Ron Reagan, executive director, Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. “There are more than 12,000 plants and animals at risk of becoming endangered, and these grants save wildlife and taxpayers the future costs of saving endangered species.”

“This amendment is so broad that it might restrict nearly every federal dollar going toward restoring the rivers and streams of the Chesapeake Bay,” said Tony Caligiuri, co-chair of the Choose Clean Water Coalition. “We’re not sure why the House is giving polluters a pass to wreak havoc on the source of drinking water for millions.”

Please take a moment to tell your representatives in Congress to stop this stealth attack on wildlife.

Learn more about how the Continuing Resolution would endanger America’s air, water, wildlife and public health at the National Wildlife Federation Media Center.

Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act supporters rally at Rep. Gerlach's Exton, PA office

Want proof we can disagree without being disagreeable? Look no further than Friday’s planned House Continuing Resolution protest outside the district office of Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA). When strong wind and rain moved in just as National Wildlife Federation supporters and partner groups were arriving, Rep. Gerlach’s staff invited the activists inside the office for a meeting:

Specifically, the groups take issue with three amendments in the legislation which environmentalists say prevents the EPA from limiting carbon pollution and allows companies to emit unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide.

“We want (Gerlach) to know and the public to know what he’s voting for and the threat he poses to people’s health,” Adam Garber, field director with PennEnvironment, said Thursday.

Activists pointed out that pollution aggravates asthma. They explained that clean air regulations deliver a fantastic return on investment, with $30 in public health benefits for every $1 in cost to business. Finally, they urged Rep. Gerlach and his staff to consider our air and water as resources that we pass along to our children and grandchildren.

His staff assured our activists that Rep. Gerlach thinks Congress needs to deal with our climate and energy challenges. However, Rep. Gerlach voted against the American Clean Energy & Security Act and voted for the House Continuing Resolution that includes provisions to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. When they asked what Rep. Gerlach’s plan would be for curbing climate pollution, his staff didn’t have an answer.

I talked to National Wildlife Federation’s Ed Perry and the Clean Air Council’s Katie Feeney outside Rep. Gerlach’s office:

Click here to view the embedded video.