Call and Urge Your Representative to Stop Sabotaging Science

This week, Congress will vote on whether it should prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from establishing strong public health standards based on landmark laws such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.

Both bills would prevent the EPA from establishing strong public health standards?including protecting the air we breathe and the?water we drink?by increasing corporate influence over how the EPA uses science and bringing the agency’s work to a grinding halt. Although these bills died last year, the bill’s sponsors brought them back, hoping to have better success in a Congress that is more hostile to science.

If this misguided legislation were to become law, the EPA would be less able to carry out its mission of protecting human health. And if Congress can get away with doing this to the EPA, it will try the same approach to paralyze other federal agencies that protect our health and safety. Help the EPA continue to put science and public health first?call and urge your representative to vote NO on H.R. 1029, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015, and H.R. 1030, the Secret Science Reform Act of 2015.Click here to learn more about these attacks on science and why you should call Congress.

Tell the FDA: Ban Monsanto’s Artificial Growth Hormone in Milk

Breyer?s, one of America?s largest ice cream producers, just announced that it will stop making its ice cream with milk from cows treated with Monsanto?s artificial growth hormone recombinant bovine somatotropin, better known as rBST or rBGH, which is linked to prostate, colon and breast cancer.

While it?s great when a company makes the decision to protect consumers and rid its products of substances that could harm them,?using milk tainted with rBST shouldn?t even be an option. It?s already banned in the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. It?s time for the FDA to do its job and ban it here, too.

Studies have shown that the use of rBST increases the rate of deformities in calves and increases the rate of severe bacterial infections in cows. Milk from cows treated with rBST has been shown to contain higher levels of insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a hormone that occurs naturally in both cows and humans. Higher levels of IGF-1 in humans have been associated with prostate, colon and breast cancer.

Breyer?s latest decision to drop rBST from its products should be applauded. But when companies make that kind of decision in response to consumer demand, the FDA should realize its on the wrong side of public opinion. Click here to tell the FDA: Ban the use of artificial growth hormone rBST in dairy cows now.

Stop Port Amborse’s Approval

Port Ambrose is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) port that has been proposed by Liberty Natural Gas off Long Beach, Long Island for the New York/New Jersey Harbor close to three major airports. This project threatens our health, safety, security, environment and climate. Port Ambrose would?endanger beaches, ocean ecology, tourism, fishing industries and shore economy.?It would also increase our reliance on natural gas, a methane-emitting fossil fuel which is 86 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere over a 20-year period contributing significantly to climate change and put pressure to frack for more natural gas across the Northeast region.

Monday 3/16/15 is the deadline to comment on the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS) issued by Maritime?Administration (MARAD) and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). We need to generate a massive amount of comments to send a message that we will not allow our shores to be put in danger. You can comment online by clicking on this link:?Comment Online Or you can comment by mail to: Docket Management Facility (USCG-2013-0363), U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., Washington, DC 20590; Please remember to indicate docket number USCG-2013-0363 on all your comments.

For talking points to help with writing comments, you may wish to click on the?Clean Ocean Action Website, or, the?No LNG Coalition Website.

Please call Governor?Cuomo (518) 474-8390?and Governor?Christie (609) 292-6000, as often as you can, and tell them to veto Port Ambrose.