Citizens' Daily Lobby

Health Care for America Now and Organizing for America are hosting a joint press conference at the State Capitol Rotunda tomorrow, January 18 at 1:00pm to voice support for health care reform.  Sen. Boozman is a cosponsor of the bill to repeal the health care reform act, and all 4 of our Congressmen have indicated that they will vote for repeal.    Please come out if you can, and let them know that health care reform must stand! 

Arkansas Consumers Ask Congressional Delegation
To Side With Hard-Working Families,
Not Big Insurance Companies
 
Little Rock, AR –  Health Care For America Now (HCAN), Organizing for America, labor unions, community groups and faith based organizations, will hold a press conference calling on Tim Griffin and Arkansas’ Congressional delegation to vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act which protects consumers from the worst insurance company abuses.  The leadership of the US House of Representatives postponed an earlier vote on the repeal measure because of the tragic events in Arizona.  The vote has now been scheduled for this coming week.
 
Arkansas consumers who will benefit from the numerous protections in the new law will urge Arkansas’ three new Representatives to take the side of consumers who are struggling to keep their families insured and healthy instead of the big insurance companies that want to roll back the ACA provisions requiring fair treatment of their customers.
 
WHO:  Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America and other organizations
 
WHAT:  Press Conference in Support of the Affordable Care Act
 
WHEN:  Tuesday, January 18, 1:00 PM
 
WHERE:  Rotunda, Arkansas State Capitol
 
###
 
Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots coalition of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.
 
Organizing for America (OFA) is a grassroots project of the Democratic National Committee.  OFA’s network of volunteers and staff is actively working in all 50 states to promote the President’s proposals to strengthen America’s middle class by creating jobs, passing health insurance reform, building a clean energy economy, improving education, and reining in the excesses of Wall Street.

It’s Christmas Eve, and I know everyone is thinking about family and gifts and the good stuff in life.  And rightly so.    This Holiday season, I hope you will also take a few moments to speak out for public and environmental health here in the Natural State.

Southwestern Electric Power Company has asked for a permit to put a coal ash landfill at the already hotly contested Turk plant site.   The state already has two such dumps, at Flint Creek and Independence Stream.  Currently, the EPA does not regulate water pollution caused by toxic coal ash, although the agency is reviewing its position.  This means that if a permit is approved, SWEPCO will dump an unregulated pollutant next to sensitive wetlands.  Coal ash leaches toxins such as arsenic and lead into nearby water sources.  Recently, a joint report by several organizations, including the Sierra Club, documented contamination of water near both existing Arkansas ash dumps (In Harm’s Way).  The proposed dump would have a lifespan of 34.3 years, and would involve over 6 million tons of coal ash deposited within 300 feet of valuable wetlands.  There’s a high probability of storm overflow in this sensitive location.

The Sierra Club has made it easy to comment.  Please edit and personalize the letter provided (It’s very important to personalize!) and send it on its way to Teresa Marks and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.  The deadline for comments is Dec. 27th, so please act today!

I don’t know about you, but I pay for my internet access.  The fee gives me access to bandwidth.  At the moment I am free to do things with that bandwidth like watch movies online from a provider that competes with my internet provider.  I pay for the movies, and I pay for the access.  It is, as they say, all good.  Except that some companies are not happy about the arrangement.   Comcast, for example, recently attempted to block Netflix movie streaming and only relented when the company that handles the streaming, Level 3 Communications, agreed to pay a fee whenever users request this content.  This means that I pay for movies and I pay for access and now Level 3  will also have to pay for access for the same bandwidth.   Ultimately, this will mean that I will pay more for movies and Comcast will pocket the difference.

But the problem is deeper. It’s not just about blocking competition.  Once internet providers are allowed to make decisions about content, including what to allow and how to prioritize content delivery, internet neutrality will be lost.    CREDO action has this to say:

This is about more than getting movies via Netflix instead of Comcast. It’s about the ability of media monopolies to decide what information we can access via the Internet. Will Fox News stories be carried in the fast lane while Democracy Now! is relegated to slow lane or perhaps blocked altogether?

The FCC is considering strong rules for net neutrality.  You can take action now by signing the petition with CREDO.

The FDA is taking public comments on the issue of labeling genetically modified organism (GMO) salmon.  The docket number is FDA-2010-N-0385.  It’s easy to comment via the regulations.gov website.  Simply go to the site for this docket and click on “submit comment”.

Why should you care about GMO salmon?

The salmon, produced by AquaBounty USA contain a xenobiotic growth hormone from an eel that will cause them to grow much faster than wildtype salmon.   The company argues that the salmon are not materially different than wild salmon.  Unfortunately, the FDA will not require the salmon to be labeled as genetically modified unless there is evidence that the fish are materially different.

Critics counter that the company has not performed adequate environmental and health impact studies of the fish.  Regardless of the health effects, it is difficult to see how these salmon would not hurt the wild population if they were introduced (and they almost certainly will be accidentally or maliciously introduced to the wild at some point).  In many other countries, it is the burden of the producer to prove a product is safe for consumers and the environment.  Here in the US, we operate under the buyer beware principle, and it’s up to either the government or consumer groups to demonstrate that a product is unsafe.

Consumers who want to know how their food is produced and what is in it face a black hole when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) thanks to extensive lobbying by the corporate giants that produce them.  Although this fish will be the first GM animal to be approved, several others, including cows and pigs, are in the works.

from Citizensdailylobby, September 20, 2010.

The EPA is currently taking public comments on the classification of wastes.   Currently, coal ash is not regulated as a special waste, and, as a result, coal plants have been able to put it in unlined ponds and directly into landfills.  This has resulted in leakage into waterways.   Most recently, 5.4  million cubic yards of coal ash flooded part of Tennessee, releasing lead and thallium into nearby rivers (NYT).

The National Wildlife Federation has provided the following sample comment.  As always, it is very important that you edit this comment and put it in your own words.

Coal combustion waste, or coal ash, is a highly dangerous toxic material that should be regulated as a “special waste” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In your June 21 proposed federal regulation on coal ash, you offered two options for regulating this waste: 1) designating it as a “special waste” and setting strong, federally enforceable safeguards that protect public health and the environment, or 2) maintaining the status quo and regulating coal ash under the much weaker standard of “non-hazardous waste.”

I strongly support regulating coal ash as a “special waste” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

For decades, coal-fired power plants have dumped their coal ash into unlined ponds and landfills, resulting in dozens of polluted drinking water supplies and spills into our rivers and streams. Coal ash pollution by the toxin selenium has wiped out entire fish populations and caused long-term ecosystem damage.  Communities across the country are routinely put at an elevated risk of cancer, organ damage and neurological developments due to coal ash contamination. It is time this policy ends and the EPA institutes strong, federally enforceable safeguards that protect our waters and our wildlife from coal ash contamination.

Do the right thing for the people and wildlife living near coal ash surface impoundments and landfills. Set strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal.

The comment period ends this Thursday, November 18.  Comment via NWF or directly through Regulations.gov.  Docket number is EPA-HQ-RCRA-2009-0640.

If you don’t like the results of the mid-term elections,  by all means, grieve, but don’t despair.  This is no time to accept defeat as a foregone conclusion.   You may not have much clout with your (unfortunately) duly elected GOP or Blue Dog Congressmen or with Sen. Boozman, but your voice carries a great deal of weight with your state legislators.    When the new session begins, this blog will keep you updated on introduced legislation and important votes.

Citizens First Congress has made it simple to contact your state officials.  Check out the 2011 legislative guide for all the information you will need.   The advocacy group promises to update the directory soon with lists of committee members.   Hopefully, they will also update the document with active email address hotlinks.   Don’t let professional lobbyists be the only voice elected officials hear.  Speak out loudly and often.

Financial reform legislation has passed, but the details of regulation and enforcement are still being hammered out.  You can bet the 1500 plus bank lobbyists in Washington are doing their best to get all the loopholes and exceptions they can squeeze in.   Right now, federal regulators are taking public comments on the Volcker rule.   In a nut shell, the Volcker rule aims to keep the banks from extremely risky practices like proprietary trading and sponsoring hedge funds.    Americans for Financial Reform has sample comments for you to edit.  You may copy and paste, but your comments will have more impact if you put them into your own words.   Comments are only being accepted through Nov. 5, 2010, so get them in.

1. Follow this link, and you will be directed to the page where you can submit a comment about the Volcker rule.

Or go to: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480b68f1c

2. Next, cut and paste the SAMPLE COMMENT that follows this message into the comment box. Fill out all the required information.

3. In the required field that asks for your “Organization Name” please write your own name.

4. Click “Submit.”

The banks have already submitted their regulatory comments. Now it’s our turn!

The Volcker rule will prevent banks from trying to make a quick buck by betting – and possibly losing – trillions of dollars and leaving all of us with the tab.

It’s our money that the regulators should be protecting, so make your voice heard.

Please copy and paste the SAMPLE COMMENT below. Feel free to edit it and add your perspective on the economic crisis:

RE: Docket ID: FSOC-2010-0002 – Public Input for the Study Regarding the Implementation of the Prohibition on Proprietary Trading and Certain Relationships With Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds.

Dear Members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council:

I am writing as a concerned member of the public who was affected by the financial meltdown and bailouts caused by Wall Street banks’ high-risk trading. I am submitting this comment pursuant to the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s request for comment on Sections 619-621 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

We demand a strong Volcker Rule that:

Question 4/9: Doesn’t Let the Exceptions Swallow the Rule: Bankers and their lobbyists are looking for ways to make exceptions into massive loopholes to maintain business as usual.  If banks are profiting from swings in price, that’s proprietary trading. If the hedging trade is itself a high-risk investment, that should be prohibited.

Question 7: Doesn’t Let Banks Bail Out Hedge Funds: Though the Rule limits banks’ involvement in risky buyout funds, it doesn’t end it completely.  We know that even a small bank investment in risky funds can lead to a big bank bailout that puts the system at risk: Bear Stearns ended up spending $3 billion bailing out a hedge fund it only had $35 million invested in. Regulators must write the anti-bailout provisions to force banks to warn anyone who does hedge fund business with them that they won’t be able to bail them out

Question 12: Doesn’t Let Banks Cheat Their Customers: The Volcker Rule bans certain specific conflicts of interest outright, but it also has a catch-all rule: regulators must ban any activity that creates a material conflict of interest between banks and their customers. Regulators should investigate the range of ways that Wall Street is profiting at the expense of the public, and use this power to crack down on abuses.

Thank you.

This week the FDA is holding a series of hearings regarding the approval and labeling of genetically modified salmon for the US market.   The salmon, produced by AquaBounty USA contain a xenobiotic growth hormone from an eel that will cause them to grow much faster than wildtype salmon.   The company argues that the salmon are not materially different than wild salmon.  Unfortunately, the FDA will not require the salmon to be labeled as genetically modified unless there is evidence that the fish are materially different.

Critics counter that the company has not performed adequate environmental and health impact studies of the fish.  Regardless of the health effects, it is difficult to see how these salmon would not hurt the wild population if they were introduced (and they almost certainly will be accidentally or maliciously introduced to the wild at some point).  In many other countries, it is the burden of the producer to prove a product is safe for consumers and the environment.  Here in the US, we operate under the buyer beware principle, and it’s up to either the government or consumer groups to demonstrate that a product is unsafe.

Consumers who want to know how their food is produced and what is in it face a black hole when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) thanks to extensive lobbying by the corporate giants that produce them.  Although this fish will be the first GM animal to be approved, several others, including cows and pigs, are in the works.

You can take action by submitting a comment to the FDA on this issue.  Simply go to the Rulemaking portal  and enter the information below where requested.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket No. FDA–2010–N–0385]
Food Labeling; Labeling of Food Made
From AquAdvantage Salmon; Public
Hearing; Request for Comments
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration,
HHS.

The Feds don’t make it particularly easy, but this should take 1/2 hour, absolute maximum.  You have until November 22, 2010 to submit your comments.

For more information about the hearings, see the FDA here and here.

This is an important issue, and I’ll quote directly from Move On rather than trying to paraphrase.

Big news: according to reports, Google is about to cut a terrible deal with Verizon that would end the fair, open Internet as we know it.¹

The reported Google-Verizon deal would allow giant corporations to control which websites load quickly and easily on the Internet and dump everyone else onto an Internet slow lane. This is exactly the kind of unequal playing field that Google itself has opposed in the past.²

We only have a few days to stop it, so we’re launching a grassroots protest calling on Google to scuttle the deal. Will you sign our emergency petition to Google? Click here to sign:

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-17217716-aeXBmWx&t=4

The petition says: “Google: Say no to the reported agreement with Verizon to kill Net Neutrality and the open Internet.”

The Internet was founded on the principle that all data is equal—and that no corporation should be able to decide whose data goes faster or slower. It’s this principle, called Net Neutrality, that has made the Internet such an amazing platform for individual speech, democratic action, and entrepreneurial creativity.³

And until now, Google—which uses the corporate motto “Don’t Be Evil”—has been a staunch defender of Net Neutrality.⁴ But now, Google is threatening to turn the Internet into a closed, pay-to-play, cash cow for large corporations. This move is evil, and Google knows it.

Here’s why this is a big deal. President Obama’s new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair initially came out strong for Net Neutrality, in line with the President’s campaign promises.⁵ But the big telecom companies launched a lobbying frenzy, and soon the FCC was meeting with them behind closed doors.

Because Google and Verizon are two powerhouse corporations that have historically been on opposite sides of this issue, an agreement between them will put enormous pressure on the FCC to go along with their recommendations. Essentially, two giant corporations may be deciding the future of the Internet—if the Obama administration goes along, and if the public doesn’t push back right away. Click here to help stop them now:

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-17217716-aeXBmWx&t=5

Google was once a champion on this issue—Google chief executive Eric Schmidt once attacked “phone and cable monopolies” who “want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest.”⁶

But today’s news stories report that under the new deal, Verizon could be allowed to give some sites preferential treatment. Even more ominously, it appears that Verizon would have free rein to discriminate on the mobile Internet (smartphones, cell phones, etc). Since that’s where most people will access the Net going forward, this would essentially spell the end of Net Neutrality.

Google has issued a short, carefully worded statement challenging some of the details in The New York Times story, but it hasn’t denied that it is going along with this agreement to kill Net Neutrality.⁷ So much for “Don’t be evil.” Will you sign our petition today and tell Google not to be evil on Net Neutrality?

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-17217716-aeXBmWx&t=6

Thanks for all you do.

–Kat, Justin, Carrie, Steven, and the rest of the team

1. “Google and Verizon Near Deal on Web Pay Tiers,” The New York Times, August 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/technology/05secret.html

2. “Google Just Killed Net Neutrality,” Gizmodo, August 5, 2010
http://gizmodo.com/5605310/google-just-killed-net-neutrality

3. “Network Neutrality Fact Sheet,” Common Cause, April 6, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87794&id=22383-17217716-aeXBmWx&t=7

4. Google Investor Relations: Code of Conduct, accessed August 5, 2010
http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html

5. “FCC Chair Proposes Net Neutrality Rules,” Digital Daily, September 21, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87795&id=22383-17217716-aeXBmWx&t=8

6. “Google Just Killed Net Neutrality,” Gizmodo, August 5, 2010
http://gizmodo.com/5605310/google-just-killed-net-neutrality

7. “Google Denies Priority Internet Access Deal With Verizon,” PC Magazine, August 5, 2010
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367436,00.asp

If you think politics should be for people (the old fashioned, biologically embodied kind, that is) add a few more corporations to your boycott list.   Other corporate donors to Minnesota Forward, the conservative PAC making headlines for its support of Tom Emmer,  are the Regis Corporation (mall salons), Best Buy, and Securian Insurance.

I think those of us boycotting these corporate donors need to make our position very clear.  We are not boycotting to protest corporations buying conservative candidates.  We are boycotting because we do not believe corporations should buy ANY candidate in any election.  Period.