Long story short: tell our EPA to enact the most vigorous rules against PFAS and soot pollution possible, tell our Justice Department to abandon rules allowing prisons to garnish even more money from prisoners and their families, and tell President Biden to get a good public servant on our FCC as its fifth Commissioner. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Consumer Reports helps you tell our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) to enact the most vigorous PFAS regulation possible. Our EPA is setting limits on PFAS plastics, a.k.a. “forever chemicals,” in our drinking water for the very first time, and that’s a good thing, since PFAS chemicals are (as evidenced by their nickname) virtually everywhere, from non-stick saucepans to fast food wrappers to plastic water bottles. Also, they don’t break down once they’re in your system, and scientists have linked them to cancer, heart, and immune system issues. So let’s lend our EPA the steel they’re going to need in their spine to withstand all the corporate hackery they’re going to hear.
Evergreen Action helps you tell our EPA to strengthen its proposed soot standards. Currently they’re planning to limit soot particulates – which scientists have linked to asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive breakdowns – to 10 micrograms per cubic meter, rather than eight, and eight is a lot better. Yeah, I know, two micrograms doesn’t sound like a lot, but you'll also inhabit way more than one cubic meter in a day, and a lot of the biggest killers in America are also the smallest. And not for nothing, but you find a lot more soot in poor, Black, and Brown communities, because big polluting corporations tend to build their power plants near them. Why, it’s almost like they know.
Color of Change helps you tell our Department of Justice to abandon new Federal Bureau of Prison rules that allow prisons to garnish even more money from prisoners and their families. I could argue basic human decency and compassion, and I could argue that sentences should be about loss of freedom and not price-gouging, but note well that these changes will interfere with our ability to rehabilitate prisoners, all so some corporate executives can gild the plumbing in their 19th vacation home. Is that why we build and maintain civilizations? No, it is not. And no use arguing but jails need money if you’re not going to tax the rich a lot harder.
Finally, Common Cause helps you tell President Biden to nominate a good public servant to be the fifth Commissioner on our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC). I’m sad it won’t be net neutrality architect Gigi Sohn – who may have decided that even more abusive questioning from Senators wasn’t worth the trouble and can we really blame her? – but America is a big place, so she can’t be the only person qualified for the job. And the person Mr. Biden nominates had better champion internet freedom – for people, not corporations – and that person should also champion bridging the racial divide and the rural divide with regard to internet access. So let’s get on that.
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