Act for Egrets and Clean Water

The streams and rivers that provide our nation’s water and crucial wildlife habitats are under attack. Congress is about to vote on a bill that would abandon essential safeguards provided by the Clean Water Act for decades. Tell your representative to keep the Clean Water Act strong.

This bill, called the PERMIT Act, will open up our waters to large-scale pollution and leave it up to the American people to pay for the clean-up. If it becomes law, the PERMIT Act will pollute our drinking water, compromise our health, put more communities at risk of floods, and ruin many of the places where we swim and fish.

urge your representative to vote NO on the PERMIT Act.

-Karla

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America is losing wetlands at an alarming rate. Over the last decade, an area of wetlands the size of Rhode Island has been wiped from our landscape. This decline is detrimental to vulnerable wildlife, with over 50% of threatened and endangered species relying on healthy wetlands and associated aquatic habitat to survive. Now, a new bill has been introduced that would weaken the Clean Water Act, threatening further loss, degradation, and pollution of rivers and wetlands across the country. The PERMIT Act would abandon key Clean Water Act safeguards—safeguards that protect waters that provide fish and wildlife habitat, help keep dangerous pollutants out of drinking water supplies, and mitigate damage from flooding and drought.  urge your representative to vote NO on the PERMIT Act.

YES, I’LL ACT FOR EGRETS AND CLEAN WATER

The great egret feeds on fish and other small animals in a variety of wetland ecosystems. As more wetlands are drained and filled, great egrets’ nesting and foraging areas will be destroyed. The increase of pollutants flowing into small streams and waterways will be deadly for this elegant species as they are exposed to more chemicals, pesticides, and heavy metals such as mercury. Protect great egrets and all wetland wildlife by telling your representative to vote NO on the PERMIT Act. The newly introduced bill contains several dangerous provisions that would put the interests of developers and industrial dischargers above our right to clean, healthy waters, including provisions that: Prevent effective judicial review of projects that fill in and destroy wetlands and other waters; Make it easier for industrial operations to dump “forever chemicals” like PFAS and other contaminants into our waters without accountability; Eliminate protections for people and wildlife from harmful pesticide discharges into our waters; Reduce the longstanding authority of states and Tribes to protect local waters under provisions of the Clean Water Act; And drastically restrict the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to stop highly damaging projects like Pebble Mine from destroying fisheries and wetlands. Birds, fish, and so much of our nation’s wildlife depend on healthy, clean water in our rivers, wetlands, and streams. Tell your representative: do not further weaken the Clean Water Act. Vote NO on the PERMIT Act. Thank you for all you do for wildlife and our natural world.

Sincerely, Karla Raettig Executive Director National Wildlife Federation Action Fund

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Join with others, speak out & inform yourself!

This is nnot solely about a single issue, but rather undermining ALL Environmental Statutes inteded to protect our lands & environment.

NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION ACTION FUND offered this:

I am writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 3898, the PERMIT Act, which would weaken commonsense Clean Water Act safeguards and jeopardize the waters that I – and communities and wildlife across the country – rely on. These waters are not only essential to our drinking water supplies, they also help keep communities safe in the face of flooding and drought, and serve as fish and wildlife habitat.

This legislation abandons key Clean Water Act safeguards that aim to protect our waters – an ability that is already weakened in light of a 2023 Supreme Court decision. H.R. 3898 contains several damaging provisions that would put the interests of developers and industrial dischargers above our right to clean, healthy waters, including provisions that:

● Prevent effective judicial review of projects that fill in and destroy wetlands and other waters;

● Make it easier for industrial operations to dump “forever chemicals” like PFAS and other contaminants into our waters without accountability;

● Slow down EPA’s process for updating water quality criteria;

● Reduce the longstanding authority of states and Tribes to protect local waters under section 401 of the Clean Water Act;

● Drastically restrict the EPA’s authority to stop highly damaging projects like Pebble Mine from destroying fisheries and wetlands;

● Grant authority to the Army Corps of Engineers to create new exclusions for any kind of waterbody from being afforded Clean Water Act protections, despite this being EPA’s authority;

● Eliminate protections for people and wildlife from harmful pesticide discharges into our waters, upending the existing system in place to allow pesticide use while minimizing harm caused by pesticides entering our surface waters;

● Weaken the Army Corps of Engineers’ nationwide permitting program.

At a time when agency and budget cuts, aging water infrastructure, and changing precipitation patterns as a result of climate change threaten to worsen water quality challenges, Congress should heed the public and protect Clean Water Act safeguards, not weaken them.

Please vote no on H.R. 3898.

Act for Egrets and Clean Water

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