Pennsylvania's largest coal plant -- the Bruce Mansfield coal plant in Beaver County -- currently operates on an expired air quality permit. The state Department of Environmental Protection (or DEP) can renew the permit, and make it tougher, so that the Mansfield plant has to adhere to current Clean Air Act standards and current Pennsylvania law. Instead, the DEP has proposed a plan which would let them evade state sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide limits, and wouldn't even set a limit for fine particulates. And the DEP wouldn't even force Mansfield to keep its dirty air out of nearby states -- this, though Pennsylvania has the second dirtiest air in the nation! So the Sierra Club helps you tell the DEP to protect the air we breathe by restraining the Bruce Mansfield plant's power to pollute. It's not hard, really -- unless you're a state regulator angling for a private sector job after you've done your dirty work.
Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Darden Restaurants (owners of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse, and other chains) to treat their employees better, CREDO helps you tell Darden to pay its tipped employees at least $5/hour. The law generally exempts tipped employees from the minimum wage, under the mistaken assumption that because some tipped employees, somewhere, make a decent living off tips, then all tipped employees do, but you probably know from experience that's not the case. Darden's CEO is no Vikram Pandit, but he still makes $8.5 million a year, or roughly $4,086.54/hour, while his tipped employees make $2.13/hour. Gosh, that CEO makes over 1,918 times what his lowest-paid employee makes! Would it kill him to make only 817 times what his lowest-paid employee makes? Or are we a sick, immoral, and decadent society that can't help working families make a better life for themselves?
Comments