But Republican Senate candidates around the country, some of whom are multi-millionaires, have said that the minimum wage should be lowered, or even eliminated. Republican policies have already caused a great recession; now Republicans want to turn back the clock to the Great Depression.
Americans can’t afford the GOP’s dangerous ideas. Sign this petition urging your senators to defend the minimum wage from Republican attacks.
Don’t Let Republicans Abolish the Minimum Wage!

Recently, Senator Leahy introduced a bill that would give the Federal Government more power to threaten, silence and penalize the small makers and distributors of natural foods and supplements.

If this legislation passes, these small natural food and supplement makers and distributors, who have harmed no one, could be sentenced for up to ten years in prison simply for telling a customer how a supplement or vitamin might help her.

Urge your senators to oppose this misguided bill and to leave small natural food and supplement makers, and consumers, alone!
Stand Up For Natural Foods and Supplements

Currently, the agency is accepting public comments on whether or not it should finally regulate coal ash as the hazardous substance that it obviously is. (Sign our petition to tell EPA that coal ash is hazardous.) But before it could do that, EPA had to quit promoting a permissive coal ash recycling program, which a hazardous designation could in part end.

Earlier this month, the EPA took down a web page an industry partnership program that promoted the reuse of coal ash in products ranging from consumer goods and building materials to soil treatments for farms. On the one hand, recycling makes sense: Coal ash is the nation’s second largest waste stream (right behind the waste generated by coal mining itself, actually.) If we have to do something with all that waste then some of the recycling options, for instance as a replacement for cement in concrete, are good ways to safely lock away the toxins.

On the other hand, many other reuses make no sense whatsoever and can lead to severe health and environmental problems. Ash, for example, is being used in drywall in people’s homes, for example, and as fill dirt in construction projects, where it can contaminate groundwater.

And just as plenty of soda bottle end up in landfills, not all coal ash gets recycled. Only about 44 percent of the 140 million tons of coal ash we generated 2008 got  reused. Coal burners dumped much of the rest in giant, unlined slurry ponds, where the toxins  can easily leech into groundwater and local waterways. Back in December 2008, a retaining wall in one of these ponds failed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Harriman plant, catastrophically releasing as much as 2.6 million cubic yards of ash slurry into a tributary of the Tennessee River.

You can use this handy petition to submit your own public comment and tell both EPA and King Coal that Americans refuse to be poisoned by dirty energy any longer.

We need lots of comments submitted to the EPA, so if you only have time to sign one petition, that’s the one to sign. But if you want to do even more to help, you’re in luck.

Predictably, the coal industry’s allies in Congress are fighting back. Senators Brownback and Conrad are trying to pressure the EPA into rejecting federal coal ash disposal standards. You can sign a petition calling on your Senators to oppose any effort to undermine the EPA’s authority.

Photo credit: Wade Payne/Greenpeace

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Speak Up And Tell The EPA To Regulate Coal Ash As A Hazardous Substance

The time has come, my fellow Americans, for another Declaration of Independence. But this time it’s not some distant king jeopardizing our future, it’s the dirty energy sources of the past. Fossil fuel companies have a tyrannical stranglehold on our national energy policy. So this Independence Day, let’s declare our independence from fossil fuels.

It just so happens Green For All has a handy petition online so you can do just that. Their website has tools for you to call on your Senators to do their patriotic duty and take action to get us off the dirty stuff. You can also sign a pledge to go dirty energy-free yourself and spread the word about the Dirty Energy Independence pledge.

Of course, it’s not enough for us all to just declare our independence. We need a revolution to assert that independence once and for all — an energy revolution.

For years, however, fossil fuel companies have been telling us it can’t be done: Getting off of coal and oil, they say, would cost us too many jobs and wreak havoc on the economy. They’ve been feeding us the lie that we can’t live without them, and we’ve been swallowing it like sugar.

But it is possible to generate 96 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2050 and create over a million jobs in an American renewable energy sector in the next 20 years, all while phasing out the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Greenpeace put out a report a few weeks ago — Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable USA Energy Outlook — that shows how it can be done.

Why a [r]evolution? Because moving from the dirty fossil fuels of the past and onto the clean, green renewable energy sources of the future requires an evolution and a revolution.

We need a [r]evolution because business-as-usual is not going to stop the tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling into our waters, scores of workers around the world losing their lives in coal mines, or the countless other disasters we are all facing due to our dirty energy reliance.

Declare your energy independence and help launch the energy revolution. It’s what real American patriots will be doing today (plus grilling and shooting off fireworks, of course).

Photo Credit: Beverly & Pack

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Declare Your Energy Independence And Start A Revolution

It’s time to bring the last outdated plants into the 21st century! The dangerous mercury pollution that these antique plants release is fouling our oceans, threatening public health, and harming wildlife, including tuna, whales, swordfish and polar bears.

The Mercury Pollution Reduction Act will ensure that all chlorine plants use new, mercury-free technology. It’ll protect our oceans and wildlife, promote clean-energy, and help make our seafood safe. Tell your Senators mercury pollution from chlorine plants can — and should — be a thing of the past.

Make Mercury Pollution A Thing Of The Past

Everyone who supplies our neighborhood grocery stores — whether from the Asian highlands or the Mississippi bottomlands — should be subjected to reasonable standards, including regular inspections and testing for contamination. Right now, that’s not happening.

If you think it is time Washington passes common-sense rules to prevent deadly food outbreaks — rather than spend taxpayer dollars trying to track them down after the fact — tell your Senators to vote YES for S. 510 with no loopholes.

Pass a Strong Food Safety Bill

Fortunately, the possibility of the USDA giving Monsanto the green light has caught the attention of two leading members of Congress, who are pressuring Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to maintain the ban on GMO alfalfa in order to protect farmers, the environment and the organic industry.

But we only have until Wednesday, June 16! Please sign the petition to your senators and representative today and urge them to sign the letter and join their colleagues in asking Secretary Vilsack to maintain the ban on Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa.

Stop Monsanto’s GMO Alfalfa!

Now, an oil spill on pace to be worse than Exxon Valdez is pumping at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day — that’s over 200,000 gallons — into the biologically diverse and commercially productive Gulf of Mexico.

Thousands of sea birds, dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and other animals are threatened by the ever growing plume of toxic sludge.

As the massive oil spill continues to grow, it exposes the dangers of offshore drilling. We need to send a message to President Obama and your senators to ban new offshore drilling and support clean energy alternatives.

Offshore drilling will NEVER be safe. Sign the petition to end new offshore drilling now.

SIGN THE PETITION:
Ban New Offshore Drilling