The "Most Anti-Environmental" Congress in History

Legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that attempted to strip funding for Chesapeake Bay pollution limits was among the reasons the League of Conservation Voters today labeled the 112th  Congress “most anti-environmental” in history.

EPA was under assault in several bills last year, and environmental regulations in general were (falsely) painted by lawmakers as “job killers.”  For the truth about how environmental regulations create jobs in the Bay region and beyond, click here.

“House Majority Leader Eric Cantor released a fall agenda just before the House returned from its August recess in which he laid out plans to gut ten so-called ‘job-killing regulations,’ most of which are critically important to protecting public health and the environment,” LCV wrote in its annual report card.

 “The House voted on the Cantor Agenda throughout the fall, passing an unprecedented nine abysmal bills between mid-September and early December," LCV wrote. "These included multiple rollback
bills to prevent the EPA from enacting critical regulations under the Clean Air Act to protect public health and the environment, as well as to block specific rules to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants, cement kilns, industrial boilers and incinerators.”

Fortunately, the U.S. Senate stood up to the House and refused to approve many of these measures. 

How did your representatives vote?  Check out the full scorecard here.

By Tom Pelton

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

 

Comments

[Waddell Robey]

Sadly we have a House of Representatives that get glory for no guts. Big Oil and Big $$ fully manipulate these legislators at the hurtful expense of our environment and thus we-the-people. If these elected officials cared and were dedicated to their sworn responsibilities then they would have the guts to resist dangled promi$e$ and instead earn true glory by protecting and sustaining our home planet. Best of all, they would refuse to legislate our extinction.

At the same time these purportedly responsible officials would instruct and encourage we-the-people to also be more caring for the environment and thus for each other.

In the history of this nation, we have been through this BIG$$ taking over the nation and we stopped them in time. Will we do it again, or just shrug life away.

[Tom Pelton]

I hear you, Waddell. They certainly are not standing up for the people (unless you count corporations as people)