Rep. Murphy: Don’t Undermine Climate Action

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

 

CONTACT: Adam Beitman, adam.beitman@sierraclub.org

 

Sierra Club to Rep. Murphy: Don’t Undermine Climate Action

 

 A Few House Democrats Threaten Progress on the Most Important Climate Legislation In U.S. History

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A small group of House Democrats, including Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida’s 7th Congressional District, have threatened to halt progress on the most important climate legislation in U.S. history and the only potential vehicle for major action on climate, care, jobs, and justice in near term view. 

 

This comes on the heels of dire warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the extreme weather events we’re already experiencing — including historic droughts, superstorms, record-breaking wildfires, and unprecedented coastal flooding — will continue to rapidly worsen unless the world cuts all carbon pollution in half by 2031.

 

Other House members who are presenting obstacles to much-needed community investments are Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. 

 

In response, Sierra Club Florida Chapter Chair Steve Wonderly released the following statement: 

 

“We are disappointed that Congresswoman Murphy is threatening the passage of such an important piece of legislation. Her constituents in Florida will benefit significantly from the budget reconciliation bill and are relieved to see federal action on the climate crisis through investment in improved transit and the expansion of clean energy, not to mention the resulting family-sustaining jobs. Congress can pass both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget reconciliation bill; there is no reason to give up leverage now. We encourage Congresswoman Murphy to reconsider her decision.”

 

 

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Governor DeSantis: Stop the Greenwash!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 3, 2021 

Contact:  Cris Costello, 941-914-0421, cris.costello@sierraclub.org 

 **PRESS RELEASE**

Governor DeSantis:  Stop the Greenwash!

Hold Polluters Accountable 

TAMPA—Today Sierra Club Florida responded to Governor DeSantis’ actions regarding the recent Red Tide outbreak and the state’s wider water quality crisis in the following letter:

August 3, 2021

The Honorable Ron DeSantis

Plaza Level, The Capitol

400 S. Monroe St.

Tallahassee, FL 32399

RE:  Stop the Greenwash and Hold Polluters Accountable

Dear Governor DeSantis:

Sierra Club, the oldest, largest environmental advocacy organization in the nation with more than 240,000 members and supporters in Florida wants to set the record straight.  Yet another summer of slime has unfolded in Florida and we all have been horrified by the devastation to our environment, coastal economy, and quality of life.  Our current reality is of course no surprise to anyone – your administration’s failure to implement or even encourage or promote stopping pollution at its source makes our repeatedly toxic waterways inevitable. 

All hands are not on deck.  Since your election, there has been little to show for all of your “all hands on deck” rhetoric.  Photo ops, heralded appointments, and multiple task forces have been all greenwash, an insidious greenwash that makes your inaction even more dangerous to the taxpayers of this state.  The most glaring example is your failure to champion legislation that would have implemented the recommendations of your Harmful Algae Bloom/Red Tide and Blue Green Algae Task Forces.

Control and mitigation research and technologies and states of emergencies keep taxpayers on the “clean-up” treadmill but do nothing to stop pollution at its source.  “After-the-fact” attention to harmful algal outbreaks is not what Florida needs.

The system is rigged.  How many times have environmentalists brought in experts, submitted comments, attended meetings, and served on technical advisory committees or task forces just to have their input ignored in order to make way for whatever the “regulated industry” (the polluter) desired?  The public participation process has become yet another way to give your administration a toxic coat of greenwash.

Your dismissal of Piney Point's role in fueling red tide in Tampa Bay is reckless. There is no question that Piney Point has both fueled and intensified this red tide bloom. When you make public statements claiming that red tide blooms are “naturally occurring” and dismiss Piney Point you spread a dangerous false narrative that works to protect polluters from meaningful accountability.  Rats are naturally occurring, but we know not to dump household garbage in the streets so as to avoid feeding a rat population explosion.  Likewise, the science community has made it clear that dumping nutrient pollution (agricultural and urban fertilizer, animal manure, and sewage) into receiving water bodies, especially ones warmed by climate change, fuels harmful algae and increases the intensity and duration of toxic outbreaks.  Your use of “naturally occurring” is a big red flag that the phosphate industry has you in its pocket.

Until pollution is stopped at its source, polluters will go on setting taxpayers up for a never-ending series of costly clean-ups.  If we want to get off of the expensive clean-up treadmill, you and your Administration need to champion the strict regulation of the state’s major polluters. The status quo is to give polluters everything they want where water quality legislation and agency action are concerned.  That needs to end if we are to fix Florida’s water quality crises. 

If you truly believe in “protecting Florida together,” you will end your greenwash campaign.  It is time for you to direct your agencies and the legislature to exchange the greenwash for direct, enforced, restorative regulatory action.

Respectfully,

Michael McGrath

Sierra Club Organizing Representative

Red Tide-Wildlands Campaign

2022 Hendry Street, Suite 250

Fort Myers, FL 33901

386-341-4708

michael.mcgrath@sierraclub.org

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Stop The Burn-Go Green Harvest Campaign Statement on Pending NASA Sugar Field Burning Study

 

The announcement of the upcoming NASA-funded study highlights the growing public awareness of the injustice posed by the toxic, outdated, and unnecessary practice of pre-harvest sugar field burning. It is a testament to how impacted community leaders in and around the Everglades Agricultural Area, persisting in speaking truth to power for six years, have elevated this issue to a national level, and we are grateful for the attention.

However, although we are not against science or the collection of new data, and are not opposed to the new NASA-funded study, we are wary of it when it may be used against our call for an immediate remedy.  Waiting for data before action is taken is kicking the can down the road.  

Florida and the nation have a long history of data and research on environmental hazards not translating into meaningful environmental laws or regulations. Cancer Alley in Louisiana, an 85-mile stretch of petrochemical manufacturing facilities along the Mississippi River, serves as an unfortunate example of how increased air quality monitoring alone is no guarantee that environmental justice will be achieved.  A 2015 EPA report confirmed that census blocks within the heart of the chemical industry in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have a cancer risk rate 50-times the national average, and in response, the EPA set up air quality monitoring stations at six separate locations in St. John’s Parish.  Despite the EPA monitors consistently recording cancer-causing chloroprene emissions dozens of times higher than EPA recommendations, including one instance in 2017 when chloroprene levels were measured at 755 times the EPA recommended guidelines, true protective regulations on regional polluters have not been implemented.  

Denka Performance Elastomer, one of the main corporate polluters in the region responsible for the dangerous levels of chloroprene in the region, has used tactics straight out of Big Sugar’s playbook to cast doubt on scientific research, leverage their resources to obtain lenient state and federal regulators, and drum up support from local politicians representing fence line communities who have ties to the industry.

It is not lost on us that communities of color and lower-wealth neighborhoods, like those in Cancer Alley and in the Glades, are constantly being told to wait, wait until it is politically expedient, wait until the next election, wait until the study is done.  

Cancer Alley and the Everglades Agricultural Area highlight the reality that there are two standards of environmental protection in the United States: those afforded to predominantly White higher-wealth communities and those afforded to communities of color and lower-wealth communities.  In 1991, public outcry from residents in Eastern Palm Beach County brought about new wind direction-based sugar field burning regulations to protect them without the need of any expensive studies to prove their communities were being harmed by the toxic smoke and ash.  Studying, which takes time and money that could be instead spent on the transition toward burn-free green harvesting, rather than phasing out the toxic practice immediately, is a form of environmental racism.

Why are we expected to wait for more data?  Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried and her administration have ignored an existing mountain of data on the negative impacts of sugar cane burning. 

Commissioner Fried has full authority to add meaningful protections for the communities impacted by toxic sugarcane burning.  Commissioner Fried has ignored a long line of public demands for her administration to act.  We are not less deserving of quick action than the residents of Wellington, and after 30 years, this disparate treatment is clearly an example of environmental racism. 

Even if new data from the NASA study leads to strong regulatory action to end pre-harvest sugar field burning, residents in and around the Everglades Agricultural Area will continue to have their health, quality of life, local economy, and natural environment polluted by pre-harvest sugar field burning for at least 18 more months, when the study is to conclude.  We are once again threatened by the next burn season that begins on October 1.  We are done waiting.  

No new data will make it more necessary to stop pre-harvest sugar field burning.  Who doesn't already know that breathing toxic smoke is bad for you?  Why else would the Center for Disease Control (CDC) encourage the cessation of agricultural fires during the Covid pandemic?  It isn't rocket science.  Sugar growers around the world have already modernized and transitioned toward burn-free green harvesting.  The phase-out of burning in Florida should begin immediately.

Stop The Burn-Go Green Harvest Leadership Team

Fred Brockman 

Sister Laura Cavanaugh 

June Downs 

Anne Haskell 

Brittany Ingram 

Elaine Lavallee 

Catherine Martinez 

Steve Messam 

Elena Michel 

Robert Mitchell 

Kina Phillips 

Shanique Scott 

Kathey Sullivan 

Richard Sullivan 

Colin Walkes