FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 19, 2011

Contact: Maggie Kao, 202-675-2384

  House Vote Kicks Americans While They’re Down

235-189 Vote Approves Handouts to Polluters, Guts Air and Water Protections

Washington, D.C. – Today the House of Representatives passed a funding bill, or Continuing Resolution, that rolls back bedrock government programs that protect Americans’ health and environment while doling out giveaways to corporate polluters.  The bill, H.R. 1, which passed by a vote of 235-189, will go to the Senate for approval.

In response, Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club released the following statement:

“Today’s House passage of the Continuing Resolution (H.R. 1) kicks American families and workers while they’re down – this bill puts the health of millions of Americans at risk while doing nothing to create jobs or grow the economy.  Adding insult to injury, the House voted to continue government handouts to wealthy corporate polluters, a move that would cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. 

The bill also made drastic cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, severely limiting the agency’s ability to protect the health and safety of Americans.  For example, H.R. 1 blocks EPA from protecting communities from mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from cement plants, leaving thousands of children exposed and at risk of slowed brain development and asthma. The EPA’s blocked safeguard would have reduced mercury pollution by more than 90 percent, and would have saved 2,500 people each year.

We urge the Senate to reject the House’s short-sighted Continuing Resolution, which jeopardizes our health, our clean air and water, and our nation’s economic growth.”

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