U.S. Congress and State Offices

Clean Water Action endorsed 155 candidates for federal and state offices in 2008, with 80 percent of them winning their elections. Below are the winning candidates plus a few still too close to call as of November 6.

For too long, American power plants have been freely polluting our atmosphere with climate-changing carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution. This is about to change. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a coalition of 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states who are working together to put a price on pollution.

Clean Water Action has endorsed a candidate in both the Presidential race and in Congressional races around the country.  
Update (November 7, 2008: Find out which of our endorsed candidates on the state and federal levels won their elections.)

The June, 2008 issue discusses the upcoming conversion to all-digital television, legislative victories in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and our expanding presence in New Hampshire. There is also a story on the EPA Merit Award received by Rhode Island CWA Director Sheila Dormody.

Our May/June 2007 newsletter focuses on our global warming efforts across New England, a Connecticut school bus pollution art exhibit, and progress on the mercury ban in New Hampshire.

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Our July-September 2007 newsletter contains articles on reducing diesel pollution in Massachusetts, New Hampshire's passage of the mercury ban and energy bills, cleaning up school buses and taking action on climate in Rhode Island, energy victories in Connecticut, and more.

The January 2008 issue looks at New England States grades on Climate Action Plans, how we can put a lid on the bottled water habit, reveals one Massachusetts Senator's fight to reduce diesel pollution and gives an update on the increasingly active toxics campaigns.

The New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers adopted a Climate Change Action Plan in August of 2001. The plan combats global warming by committing to near-term reductions of human-made greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the next two decades, as well as long-term reductions to 75-85% below current levels at some point.

Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin that has contaminated the fish that we eat, resulting in a statewide freshwater fish advisory (pdf) in New Hampshire since 1994, warning pregnant women, women of childbearing age, and children under 7 to limit their fish consumption. Our Zero Mercury Campaign was launched in 2000 to pressure the New England Governors to virtually eliminate the use of, release of, and exposure to mercury in New Hampshire and the region by the year 2010.

by Harry Vogel, Executive Director, Loon Preservation Committee
of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire

Background

Methyl mercury is one of the most toxic and biologically active forms of mercury and is readily taken up by fish, loons, other wildlife, and humans. Significant exposure of wildlife to mercury is almost exclusively from the consumption of methyl mercury in fish. On many lakes in New Hampshire, fish mercury levels are higher than those thought to cause impaired reproduction in loons (Barr 1986).