The EPA has determined that over half our river and stream water is in bad biological condition -- yet still it drags its feet on updating polluted runoff standards that would mandate capturing and filtering runoff water before it gets to our rivers and streams. Rain doesn't just glide off the roads and rooftops it hits -- it carries with it the bacteria present on those roads and rooftops, as well as some of heavy metals and chemicals that go into those roads and rooftops, and all that crap ultimately winds up in our rivers and streams. And the EPA has dragged its feet so long on runoff standards that it's missed a deadline (negotiated in a settlement with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation) to issue those rules for the seventh time. It's almost like the EPA doesn't know that the greatest advance in health care over the last century-plus has been clean water -- without clean water, as our 19th century ancestors could probably tell us, getting and staying healthy is an uphill battle. So American Rivers helps you tell the EPA to update its runoff standards already, and protect our drinking and bathing water.
Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved S. 42, the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act, a Patrick Leahy (D-VT)/Charles Grassley (R-IA) production, which would, rather surprisingly, protect those who report antitrust law violations from retaliation, permit whistleblowers to get a jury trial in federal courts if they need it, and allow whistleblowers to recover their jobs, damages, back pay, and attorney costs. I say "rather surprisingly" because recent legislation mooted in Congress (which didn't pass, praise the Lord) treated whistleblowers like liars; this bill would give whistleblowers a chance to face those monsters who try to destroy their lives after having their own corruption exposed for all to see. What will the right wing response be, I wonder? Will some Tea Party knuckle-dragger primary Mr. Grassley in 2016 for his "apostasy"? Don't laugh; the right wing threw Richard Lugar under a bus because he supported a bank fee. The National Whistleblowers Project helps you tell your Senators to support S. 42, and thus support whistleblowers who alert us to antitrust violations.
Finally, word on the street is that the forces of good are a mere one vote short in the Senate to pass S. 815, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Thomas.loc.gov currently lists 56 Senate sponsors, and while their numbers include two Senators no longer serving, they don't include the Senate's newest member, Cory Booker of New Jersey, who will likely sign on as a co-sponsor with a quickness, or Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who said he'll vote for the bill this week. They also don't include Rob Portman of Ohio, who announced his support for gay marriage earlier this year. So CREDO helps you tell Senate Republicans to get on board the ENDA train, because (as we've said repeatedly!) ENDA doesn't give gays "special rights" regardless of anything they've heard or wished was true. (As an aside, I really would prefer if CREDO didn't use the words "moderate" and "Pat Toomey" in the same sentence. While Mr. Toomey's co-sponsorship of a gun background check bill may yet earn him a challenger in his 2016 primary, he is in no way a "moderate," or even one of the "more moderate" members of the Senate.)
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