Washington, DC -- Yesterday, as a part of the rules package passed in the House of Representatives, now under Democratic control, Congress will establish a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Previously, Speaker Pelosi announced that Rep. Kathy Castor will be the chair of the committee, which will focus on “policies, strategies, and innovations to achieve substantial and permanent reductions in pollution and other activities that contribute to the climate crisis.”
Today, Nancy Pelosi made history by being re-elected Speaker of the House. The Sierra Club previously announced its support of Nancy Pelosi to be next Speaker of the House of Representatives in the first endorsement the organization ever made for a House leadership race.
Quite a bit happened over the holidays. Donald Trump rolled back the Mercury Air Toxic Standards which protect young children from toxic emissions spewed by coal plants, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke left office in disgrace, oh, and the government was and remains shut down, leaving our national parks without park rangers, gutting the EPA of over 13,000 employees and forcing the few who remain to work without pay.
Prompted by mounting investigations into Ryan Zinke’s conduct, Donald Trump announced last month that today would be Zinke’s final day at the Department of the Interior.
The Maryland Board of Public Works (Board) voted 3-0 to deny a crucial easement to the fracked gas Potomac Pipeline
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed plans to ignore the health and environmental benefits of clean air and water safeguards while prioritizing corporate polluter profits as part of a planned roll-back to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). MATS protects Americans from pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants. These safeguards, which EPA finalized in 2012 with compliance deadlines that ended in 2016, drastically curtailed the emission of dangerous toxic pollution that poisons wildlife, contaminates seafood, and threatens the health of pregnant women and young children.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Environmental Protection Agency has stayed open these first days of Trump's government shutdown, running on surplus funds. However, Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that the agency would run out of funds and need to shut down Friday, 12/28 at midnight.
In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:
WASHINGTON, DC - Donald Trump has shut down the U.S. government in a failed effort to force taxpayers to fund his useless, divisive, dangerous and exorbitant border wall. This is a shutdown he said he would be “proud” to own. Trump’s government shutdown -- now expected to last at least into next week -- is putting thousands of people out of work and denying public servants their paychecks right before the holidays. Bloomberg News reports that the shutdown will require 420,000 federal employees to work without pay, and will mean that 380,000 workers are sent home. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, at least one-third of the nation’s 400 parks are closed. The NPCA also notes that in December, the National Park System sees nearly 500,000 visitors per day who spend around $18 million per day in nearby communities, on average.
WASHINGTON, DC - Just one week after Donald Trump declared that “I am proud to shut down the government" in order to secure taxpayer funding for a racist, useless, and destructive border wall he has repeatedly claimed would be paid for by Mexico, Trump has vetoed legislation to fund the government and provoked a government shutdown.
Today, on the Friday before Christmas, the Department of Environmental Quality opened a comment period on specific documents newly submitted to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board (Board) on the Buckingham County Compressor station.