You may have heard about the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act that would slice and dice the Clean Water Act by giving the states, rather than the EPA, the ultimate decision-making authority over our nation’s water quality standards.

Please ACT NOW and call your Congressperson and urge them to oppose on HR 2018, The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. Take action today – let’s ask our Congressional Representative to vote NO on this blatant attempt to weaken the Clean Water Act. Please consider taking one of two actions right now.

1) click on the following link to fill out a web form to submit a pre-written letter http://ilovemountains.org/dirty-water-act-2011

2) take the below message and send it yourself either as is, or with your own edits or perspectives.
You can find your Representative by searching with your zip code at –http://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Big Coal’s allies in Congress are determined to undermine the EPA, not just on coal mining, but on greenhouse gas regulations, water quality standards, and clean air act laws. Your dedication has made all our progress in protecting Appalachia possible. Don’t let Congress take that all away with one vote. Please ACT NOW and call your Congressperson and urge them to oppose on HR 2018, The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011.

After the jump, check the message to see how you can help:

Subject – Please oppose The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, HR 2018
Dear Representative [insert here]

The Clean Water Act is one of our nation’s most important and fundamental laws. Just this week, an attempt to weaken this landmark legislation was passed in the Transportation and Infrastructure committee in the form of The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, HR 2018. Notice of this markup was only posted the day of the vote, giving little chance for citizen input. Passage of this bill on the floor will have deleterious impacts on our nation’s clean water and would create regulatory uncertainty that coal companies say they are seeking. I urge you to vote against HR 2018 if and when it comes to the floor of the House.

HR 2018 would reverse many key provisions of the Clean Water Act by appointing the states, rather than the EPA, as the ultimate arbiter of water quality standards and final authority on Clean Water Act permits. The result would be a patchwork of state water quality standards in which the EPA would be powerless to interject, even if they found a state-issued Clean Water Act permit to be questionable.

Passage of this bill would spell disaster in states where mountaintop removal coal mining is practiced in light of these states’ poor record on permitting and enforcement. Companies conducting mountaintop removal coal mining commit tens of thousands of violations of water quality standards that go unnoticed and unpunished every year by state regulators.

By allowing states to opt out of implementing federal water quality standards, not only are citizens of the communities near polluters affected, downstream communities in other states would also suffer from the pollution flowing into their drinking water supplies from upstream states willing to adopt scientifically indefensible water quality standards that sacrifice public health for corporate profits.

Once again, I urge you to OPPOSE HR 2018.

Thanks everybody- we must support the Clean Water Act and protect the Spokane River!

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