Bay Daily

"The Most Anti-Environmental U.S. House in History"

By Tom Pelton

September 19, 2011

http://cbf.typepad.com/bay_daily/2011/09/since-the-leadership-of-the-us-house-of-representatives-changed-hands-last-novemberthe-house-has-voted-125-times-to-underm.html

Since the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives changed hands last November, the House has voted 125 times to undermine environmental laws -– including 50 votes to curb the authority of EPA, 16 votes to dismantle the federal Clean Water Act, and one vote to cut funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup, according to a new online database.

The votes have been led in part by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, a former real-estate developer.

"This is the most anti-environment House in history," said U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, ranking minority member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, whose office compiled the database.  "The House has voted to block action to address climate change, to stop actions to prevent air and water pollution, to undermine protections for public lands and coastal areas, and to weaken the protection of the environment in dozens of other ways."

These are your elected representatives at work, folks.  Are they doing what you sent them there to do?

Among the doozies in the online database was the 230-195 vote on Feb. 18, 2011, in favor of a budget amendment proposed by Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte. Goodlatte wanted to strip all federal funding this year for implementing EPA’s new Chesapeake Bay pollution “diet.” The "diet" is a pollution limit, also called the Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (or TMDL), meant to improve the health of the nation's largest estuary.

To see how your representative voted on the Goodlatte amendment, which would have hurt the Bay, click here. 

Another noteworthy anti-environmental vote this year: The  239-184 vote in the House’s on July 13, 2011, in favor of proposed legislation that would have limited EPA’s authority to enforce the Bay pollution diet and other water pollution limits nationally, by leaving such oversight to the states.  The votes are listed here.

Other legislation would, for example, weaken EPA oversight over air emissions from offshore drilling rigs (HR 2021) and block EPA from requiring permits for the spraying of pesticides into waterways (HR 872).

For a full listing of the votes, click here.

By Tom Pelton

Chesapeake Bay Foundation