Nature's Voice Summer 2022

SUMMER 2022

’ NATURE SVOICE For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council

IN THIS ISSUE

NRDC continues to fight for a national recovery plan for endangered gray wolves like this one in Montana.

Gray Wolves Win Back Protections Bees Are Getting More Love, but Is It Enough to Save Them?

Toxic PFAS Increasingly Are a Fashion Don’t NRDC Fights for U.S. to “Get the Lead Out!”

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

Victory

CLEAN AIR ATTACK REVERSED The Trump administration’s attempt to undermine life-saving clean air protections has been rejected.

The Environmental Protection Agency has again affirmed that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury, lead, and scores of other hazardous air pollutants coming from the nation’s coal- and oil-fired power plants. Says John Walke, director of the Clean Air Program at NRDC, “These safeguards work—and there’s proof, if you look at the decrease in mortality, asthma, and other­health outcomes since they first took effect in 2015.”

Victory

CHARGING STATIONS: LET’S GO! The Biden administration has put forth an ambitious plan to turbocharge the build-out of a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations, which includes nearly $7.5 billion in funding to states over five years. To capitalize on that historic investment, NRDC helped launch the National EV Charging Initiative, a coalition of automakers, power­ providers, EV industry leaders, and labor and public interest groups. The initiative aims to partner with government to accelerate progress toward a 21st-century charging network that is equitable, convenient, and reliable for all drivers.

MARYLAND BLAZES NEW TRAIL In a first for the United States, Maryland has passed legislation that will deliver healthier housing and significant energy savings to the state’s most vulnerable households. By providing energy efficiency upgrades such as better insulation and HVAC systems for low-income residents—­who shoulder a dispropor­tionate share of energy costs—the law will lower energy bills for 32,000 households each year while cutting climate pollution. Says NRDC Senior Policy Analyst Deron Lovass: “We hope other states will follow Maryland’s lead in ensuring that everyone has access to the many benefits of energy efficiency.”

C OV E R A RT I C L E

GRAY WOLVES WIN BACK PROTECTIONS

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n a major victory for some of our country’s most iconic and imperiled wildlife, a federal court has restored endangered species protections to gray wolves across most of the country, after those protections were eliminated in the waning days of the Trump adminis­tra­tion. The court’s resounding decision came after NRDC and our allies sued to return these wolves to the list of threat­ened and endangered species until they are fully recovered.

“Once again the courts have sided with science over politics,” says Sylvia Fallon, long­time Wildlife director at NRDC. Indeed, NRDC has repeatedly fought attempts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to remove endangered species protections for gray wolves, which once roamed across a majority of the continental United States. Although wolves were listed as threatened through­out the entire Lower 48 back in the early 1970s, FWS worked to recover only a few isolated populations. “It’s well past time for

the service to do what was required by law from the beginning and develop a science-based plan to re­­cover wolves nationwide,” says Fallon.

Meanwhile, our fight to stop the sense­less kill­ing of wolves continues in the Northern Rockies, where the animals were delisted by Congress in 2011 and put at the mercy of state management. Last year saw a horrifying escalation of anti-wolf attacks in the region, with Idaho and Montana loosening restrictions on killing wolves and allowing unethical and aggressive tactics to reduce the animals’ populations, including baiting them out of protected areas so they can be hunted and trapped. Tragically, around 20 percent of the wolves from Yellowstone National Park have been killed by just a handful of hunters and trappers. Tens of thousands of NRDC Members have rallied in support of our campaign calling on FWS to return federal protections to

wolves in the Northern Rockies. “Wolves are a critical keystone species,” says Fallon. “We’re going to keep fighting until wolves across the entire Lower 48 are given a fair chance for long-term survival.”

NRDC continues to fight for a national recovery plan for endangered gray wolves like this one in Montana.

S P E C I A L R E P O RT

New Era Dawns in Battle Over Dirty Pipelines The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support.

You can help NRDC defend the environment by making a special contribution.

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Years of hard-hitting NRDC advocacy have paid off: The federal agency charged with approving new natural gas pipelines has upended its polluter-friendly status quo and will finally put the “public” in public interest. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will no longer rubber-stamp new pipelines without first considering the projects’ impacts on the environment and local communities, as has long been required by law.

“For far too many years, FERC has allowed private pipeline developers to call the shots while cutting those affected by the projects out of the process,” says Gillian Giannetti, senior attorney with the Sustainable FERC

Project at NRDC, noting that the agency has approved a whopping 99 percent of all applications received since 1999. “Communities and landowners will now have a say before new pipelines cut across their land.”

At the same time, NRDC continues to stand with local communities fighting to stop individual destructive pipeline projects, such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would make more than 1,000 stream and wetland crossings, including in Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest. NRDC and our allies recently filed suit challenging state water-quality permits for what Giannetti calls an “unusually unJefferson National Forest, Virginia wise and unneeded” project.”

GRAY WOLF © MARTINA BIRNBAUM/GETTY IMAGES; JEFFERSON NATIONAL FOREST © JOSHUA MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

G O O D N EWS

CA M PA I G N U P DAT E

BEES ARE GETTING MORE LOVE, BUT IS IT ENOUGH TO SAVE THEM?

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“Bees are the canaries in the coal mine. If we can win protections for them, then we also win protections for many other things.”

Clockwise from top left: Neonic pesticides have been linked to the alarming decline of bees and other pollinators; neonic-treated corn seed is dyed to warn that it’s toxic; natural ecosystems such as native prairies depend on pollinators, as does one in every three bites of food we eat; farmworkers face higher risks from pesticide exposure.

underscores the tenacity it has taken to compel the EPA to act. By law, the agency is required to evaluate whether a pesticide is likely to harm threatened or endangered species before it green-lights use of the chemical. Yet it took four years of hard-hitting NRDC litigation before the EPA finally committed to assessing the impacts of two neonics—acetamiprid and dinotefuran—that have already been on the market for years. An analysis the agency released

last year, prompted by the same NRDC lawsuit, points to the alarmingly high stakes in this battle: The EPA deter­mined that more than 1,400 endangered and threatened species—from Karner blue but­ter­flies to whooping cranes and even grizzly bears—are likely harmed by another widely used neonic, imidacloprid.

“The EPA has been approving pesticide products containing imidacloprid for almost 30 years, all

the while ignoring its mandate under the law,” says Pollinator Initiative staff attorney Lucas Rhoads.

Getting the EPA to begin the process of consulting with federal wildlife agencies “could lead to big changes,” says Rhoads, including meaningful restrictions on the use of neonics to avoid jeopardizing imperiled species.

As Rhoads knows all too well, however, vigilance and determination are key. He and his team have been waging a separate legal campaign to save the rusty patched bumblebee, a native pollinator that has disappeared from a startling 87 percent of its historical range. It has taken four separate lawsuits (so far) to goad the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take action to protect the bumblebee: listing the species as endangered in the first place and, most recently, designating critical habitat essential to its survival.

Even as NRDC continues to hold federal agencies to account for their foot dragging in safeguarding struggling pollinators from the toxic pesticides that are wiping them out, an increasing number of states are cracking down on neonics— and they’re getting bolder. Following restrictions [Continued on next page.]

BEE © PETER LLOYD; CORN SEEDS © DREAMSTIME; PRAIRIE © DONNIE KNIGHT JR./USFWS; FARMWORKERS © LANCE CHEUNG/USDA

ould 2022 go down as the Year of the Bee? A little more than 12 months ago, NRDC called on our Members and online activists to stand up in defense of bees and other pollinators—and boy, have you delivered! More than 150,000 of you have joined us in calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to ban bee-killing uses of so-called neonics, the class of toxic pesticides whose skyrocketing use over the past 25 years has been linked to the devastating die-offs of bees and other vital pollinators.

“Our Members have responded in force because they understand what’s at stake,” says Dan Raichel, acting director of NRDC’s Pollinator Initiative. “They know that bees are really the canaries in the coal mine. If we can win protections for bees, then we also win protections for many other things: our food supply, other wildlife, native ecosystems. And the list goes on.”

Bees’ critical role in food production—they’re responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat—is reason enough to worry about neonics.

But as Raichel points out, the chemicals have been linked to mass losses of birds and fish as well, with ripple effects across the environment. And there is mounting concern over the risks neonics pose to human health.

Despite the growing body of damning scientific evidence, however, the EPA has allowed Big Ag’s neonic binge to continue virtually unchecked. The agency is cur­rently in the middle of its once-every15-years hazard review of the chemicals, which is why NRDC has been rallying public support for the EPA to heed the science and ban bee-killing uses of neonics. (There’s still time to make your own voice heard! See Take Action, on next page.)

On another front, NRDC’s pollinator team recently celebrated an important legal win that

Giving Trees: Forests Are Climate Champions

[Continued from previous page.]

TAKE ACTION

nrdc.org/savebees

A bold new initiative, spearheaded by NRDC and powered by a coalition of more than 70 partner groups, is rallying behind a surprisingly simple yet extraordinarily effective climate-fighting solution: letting older trees grow. The recently launched Climate Forests Campaign is calling on the Biden administration to adopt a new national policy to protect mature trees and forests on federal lands, which remove enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

“There is no other technology available today that can match forests for carbon removal at such scale,” says Garett Rose, staff attorney with the Nature Program at

Water- and stain-resistant clothing may contain PFAS.

Toxic PFAS Increasingly Are a Fashion Don’t Following advocacy by NRDC and our partners, a number of leading U.S. clothing brands have now committed to ridding their products of PFAS, a family of toxic “forever” chemicals that have been linked to serious health risks, from cancer to kidney disease.

The wave of promises—from name brands like Patagonia, American Eagle, and Ralph Lauren—signals a major shift in the apparel industry to take meaningful action and tackle what has become a mounting public health threat. NRDC has been at the forefront sounding the alarm about the dangers of PFAS chemicals, which are notoriously pervasive, mobile, and

long lasting in the environment.

They are particularly prevalent in the clothing and textile industries, where they’re often used to make products—such as the outerwear favored by outdoor enthusiasts—resistant to water and stains. “U.S. clothing makers are increasingly demonstrating that quality apparel can still be made without harming human health or our environment,” says Sujatha Bergen, director of Health campaigns at NRDC, whose team recently released a consumer-friendly guide to PFAS in clothing (visit nrdc.org/pfas). “The public health risks are simply not worth owning a jacket with a PFAS coating.”

NRDC Fights for U.S. to “Get the Lead Out!” The Environmental Protection Agency has announced it is stepping up its efforts to tackle the crisis of lead contamination in the nation’s drinking water, which threatens the health of millions, particularly infants and children. The agency has pledged to significantly boost funding, encourage replacement of every lead pipe in the country, and prioritize action in disadvantaged communities that face the highest risk of lead exposure.

But the EPA’s proposals still fall far short of what’s needed to end this urgent crisis. Most notably, the agency is proposing to allow—for now—weak Trump-

era standards to go into effect, standards that include a decades-long time line for removing lead pipes.

NRDC is campaigning for more stringent protections, including a mandate that all lead lines be replaced within 10 years and a strict, enforceable maximum con­ taminant level for lead at the tap. “The EPA’s promise to take bold action to address lead-contaminated water­ and strengthen its rules are appre­ci­ated,” says Erik D. Olson, NRDC senior strategic director of Health, “but good intentions won’t be enough to get the job done.

Now is the time to finally fix this crisis.”

Forests on our public lands sequester a remarkable 35 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

NRDC. All told, forestland in the United States offsets more than 11 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions each year—and older trees and forests store far more carbon than young ones. What’s more, healthy mature forests provide critical habitat for scores of imperiled wildlife species, and their watersheds serve as our largest source of drinking water. Yet the U.S. Forest Service, which manages a majority of the 77 million hectares of federal forestland, continues to allow the timber industry to cut down many of these trees.

The Climate Forests Campaign seeks to fundamentally change that. “If we’re going to succeed in the fight against catastrophic climate change,” says Rose, “we simply can’t afford to log our remaining mature forests and big trees.”

HIKERS © TIMMY WESLEY; SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK © STEPHEN MOEHLE/DREAMSTIME

on neonic sales adopted by Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont, Maine enacted the toughest restrictions last June, only to be topped six months later by New Jersey, which passed legisla­tion to eliminate more than 70 percent of the neonics polluting the state’s environ­ment. Both California and New York are now weighing legislation that would dramatically curb neonic use, with New York poised to become the first to rein in the widespread agricultural use of neonic-treated crop seeds, likely the largest and most harmful use of neonics in the country.

Indeed, nearly all conventional corn and up to 50 percent of conventional soybeans begin with neonic-coated seeds. Yet on average, less than 5 percent of neonics on treated seeds are actually absorbed into the plant. As for the rest? The vast majority end up in the soil, where the chemicals can persist for years and move easily with rain or irrigation water to contaminate new soil, plants, and water supplies. This has led to increasing concerns about neonics’ impacts not only on wildlife but also on human health. Agricultural workers and those who come in direct contact with neonics face the highest risks, but it doesn’t stop there. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Preven­ tion has found that roughly half the U.S. population is exposed to at least one neonic chemical on a reg­ular basis. The link between neonic exposure and an elevated risk of developmental and neurological damage is particularly con­cerning when it comes to children. “Neonics are neurotoxic,” says NRDC Senior Scientist Jennifer Sass. “And as with other neurotoxic chemicals such as lead and mercury, there may be no safe level of exposure during pregnancy and early life development.”

Says Raichel: “We’re counting on our Members to continue to stand with us as we fight every step of the way to make sure bees—and the rest of us— finally get a break from neonics.”

Residents of Chicago’s Southeast Side had spent more than three years fighting one polluter’s attempt to relocate an industrial metal-shredding facility to their community from the city’s rapidly gentrifying North Side. Now it seemed like the moment of truth. In defiance of an intense grassroots opposition campaign that had included a monthlong hunger strike, a federal civil rights investigation, a frigid “die-in” outside the home of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and countless hours of community activism, the city appeared poised to green-light the project.

But what organizers planned on the steps of City Hall as yet another protest against environmental injustice unexpectedly turned into a celebration: The city announced it was denying the permit.

“Elation” is how Gina Ramirez, Midwest outreach manager for NRDC, describes the thrill of that moment. Ramirez is a third-generation resident of the Southeast Side and helped organize local opposition to the project, which threatened to add to the toxic burden borne by the working-class Latino and Black community that is already battling a legacy of environ­ mental racism and some of the worst pollution in the country.

Since 2014 alone, more than 75

polluters in the area have been investigated for violations of the Clean Air Act. “I grew up smelling the sulfur in the air as I passed every toxic facility in my neighborhood, and I’ve spent half my son’s life fighting for his right to breathe clean air,” says Ramirez. “This victory has given me hope.”

Now the winning coalition, which includes groups such as the Southeast Environmental Task Force and the Chicago

Environmental Justice Network, is working to leverage its his­ toric victory into more action.

This includes advocating for a city ordinance requiring a more com­prehensive environmental analysis as part of the local permitting process and work­ing toward a state-level environ­men­ tal justice bill.

“I hope this fight can inspire communities like mine,” Ramirez says. “People power can—and does—prevail.”

More Oil and Gas Drilling Won’t Stop Tyranny

By Manish Bapna, NRDC President As I write this, Vladimir Putin’s brutal and un­ justified war on Ukraine has exacted a horrific toll, and like people everywhere, we at NRDC have been appalled by Russia’s­violence. At the same time, we’ve been work­ing tirelessly to counter the all-toopredictable response of the oil and gas industry, which is to exploit such crises to protect and grow their profits. Just one day after Putin’s invasion, they began pushing for more drilling on our public lands and off our shores. And they’re working overtime to roll back commonsense actions to tackle our growing climate crisis and the safeguards we all depend on to protect the environment and public health.

That is exactly the wrong response. Russia is an autocratic petro-state using oil and gas money to finance military aggression. Its weaponization of its

energy exports is yet another reason to speed the shift to cleaner, smarter energy sources that won’t condemn us to endless cycles of suffering and war while driving us headlong toward climate catastrophe.

Mere days after Russia launched its war on Ukraine, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report that only underscores the exigency of this moment: Climate change is causing grievous harm and growing costs to people and nature. Millions of people face acute food and water insecurity, and disease and death are rising.

And those suffering most are in low-income communities—as many as 3.6 billion people worldwide—on the jagged front lines of climate harm. It’s time for urgent action.

Oil industry attempts to lock future generations into decades of more dependence on fossil fuels will do nothing to help the people of Ukraine today.

But it will help to doom all of us to the worst consequences of climate change tomorrow. As we stand with Ukrainians and all people working to safeguard peace, we remain equally committed to securing true energy independence through the swift, equitable transition to a 100 percent clean energy economy.

T O P R AT E D B Y C H A R I T Y N AV I G AT O R . O R G N AT U R A L R E S O U R C E S D E F E N S E C O U N C I L 40 WEST 20TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011 NRDC’s Gina Ramirez at the protest-turned-celebration in front of Chicago’s City Hall

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People Power! Environmental Justice Wins on Chicago’s Southeast Side

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