[WATERFORALL] Action Alert: Ask your senators to support clean and safe water!

[Guest guest]

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:11:31 -0500

" Maj Fiil-Flynn " <mfiil

 

 

[WATERFORALL] Action Alert: Ask your senators to support

clean and safe water!

 

 

 

 

News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign

**********

 

The Bush administration's fiscal 2006 budget would proposes $850

million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the program that

provides federal financial assistance for wastewater infrastructure

that

protects human health and the environment. Senators Sarbanes, Chafee

and

Jeffords are circulating a letter to the Senate Budget Committee

requesting $1.35 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

 

Call your senators (1-800-839-5276) and ask them to sign on to the

Sarbanes-Chafee-Jeffords letter.

 

Some quick points:

 

* The Northeast-Midwest Institute calculates the state-by-state

impact of the Bush budget compared to the $1.35 billion request.

 

* Federal support for clean water infrastructure has steadily

dwindled in recent decades. Local governments pay for about 95 percent

of the cost of wastewater system treatment, operations, maintenance and

capital needs, according to a July 2003 Environmental Protection Agency

report to Congress.

 

* Local communities are increasingly being forced to cut services as

they scramble to deal with budget shortfalls of their own.

 

* EPA's most recent Clean Water and Drinking Infrastructure Gap

Analysis estimates the difference between projected needs and current

spending levels at perhaps as much as $500 billion over the next 20

years.

 

Now is not the time to reduce federal support for clean water. However,

it is important, now more than ever, that budget decisions reflect

priorities that serve the public interest. Few, if any, priorities rank

higher than clean and safe water.

 

Ask your senators, on behalf of their constituents, to please fight

efforts to cut federal funding for these vital services, and champion

the nation's commitment to clean and safe water by supporting adequate

federal funding.

 

For more details: www.wateractivist.org and

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/congress/us/articles.cfm?ID=13023

 

**********

To to Water For All, send an email to

listserv with " Waterforall " in the

message.

 

To from Water For All, send an email to

listserv with " Un Waterforall " in the

message.

 

For more information on the Water For All Campaign please visit

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/