Alumni Action Alert: When tropical storms meet toxic waste

Many alumni asked us over the years for more opportunities to get engaged in important issues. Now we send an Alumni Action Alert each month on a particular issue or campaign The Public Interest Network is working on, along with some actions that you can take to help protect the environment, public health or the public interest.

TL;DR action: Sign this petition calling on your legislators to prioritize cleaning up toxic waste in our communities by reinstating a Polluter Pays Tax in the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.

More details: One in six Americans lives within three miles of a toxic waste site that is so dangerous it has been proposed or approved for cleanup under the federal Superfund program. The chemicals at these sites may increase the risk of cancer, respiratory and heart disease, and other serious illnesses. Worse, as our climate changes, at least 800 of these sites are at risk of extreme flooding in the next 20 years, which could increase the risk of toxic pollution spreading into nearby communities. Instead of accelerating cleanup in the face of this new threat, the federal government has let cleanups lag because Congress has failed to renew the Polluter Pays Tax that funded the Superfund cleanup program.

To clean up the more than 1,300 toxic sites currently putting millions of Americans at risk, we need to secure steady funding that won’t fluctuate with the federal budget process. That funding should come from the polluting industries responsible for these messes: the chemical and petroleum industries.

It’s called the Polluter Pays Principle: those who produce pollution should be held accountable for its harm to human health and the environment. The chemical and petroleum industries create and profit off products that produce harmful pollutants that threaten the health and safety of millions of people and cause millions of dollars of damage to the environment. They should pay for the cost of cleaning up those contaminants through a Polluter Pays Tax.

As “National Hurricane Preparedness Week” kicks off, many communities across the United States are still dealing with the devastating effects of last year’s record-shattering Atlantic hurricane season. To help prepare for this year, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Environment America Research & Policy Center released a report entitled “A Perfect Storm” highlighting the serious threat posed by toxic waste sites in the paths of hurricanes and tropical storms during the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.

Actions you can take:

1. Sign this petition by U.S. PIRG calling on your legislators to prioritize cleaning up toxic waste in our communities by reinstating a Polluter Pays Tax in the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.

2. Share the "Perfect Storm" report and your thoughts on the topic on social media.

3. Write a personalized email to your U.S. representative and senators sharing your thoughts on why they should reinstate a Polluters Pays Tax in the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.

4. Write a letter to the editor (LTE) of your local paper. In case you need a refresher, here’s a how-to on LTE writing on page 51 of the Student PIRG’s Activist Toolkit. And if your LTE gets published, please be sure to let us know!