Sara Jerving's News Articles

The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment on April 18 to the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012 (HR 4348) that would effectively pre-empt the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating coal ash, the waste from coal burning plants, as a hazardous waste. About 140 million tons of coal ash are produced by power plants in the United States each year. There are about 1,000 active coal ash storage sites across the country.

According to the EPA, the ash contains concentrations of arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and other metals, but the coal industry has claimed there is less mercury in the ash than in a fluorescent light bulb. However, the EPA found in 2010 that the cancer risk from arsenic near some unlined coal ash ponds was one in 50 -- 2,000 times the agency's regulatory goal. Additionally, researchers from the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice, and Sierra Club have documented water contamination from coal ash sites in 186 locations. The new bill would strip the EPA's authority to regulate the ash and hand it over to the states.

In the face of a successful relay race of corporations dropping their membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Fox News contributor has called for her own campaign against these same corporations. Michelle Malkin asked her readers in the Washington Examiner to not "do business with progressive appeasers" and to boycott businesses that have decided to sever their relationship with ALEC.

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has generated widespread media attention this year. The process, which injects water and chemicals into the ground to release "natural" gas and oil from shale bedrock, has been shown to contribute significantly to air and water pollution and has even been linked to earthquakes. But little has been reported on the ways in which fracking may have unique impacts on women. Chemicals used in fracking have been linked to breast cancer and reproductive health problems and there have been reports of rises in crimes against women in some fracking "boom" towns, which have attracted itinerant workers with few ties to the community.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) joined with United Republic, Rebuild the Dream and ColorofChange.org in a letter to the 20 members of the "Private Enterprise Board" of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The letter asks the corporations to sever ties with ALEC and end their financial support of the organization. The request is made out of respect for Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year old who was shot and killed in Florida last month. Trayvon's killer could be protected from justice under a Florida "Stand Your Ground" law that became a template for an ALEC model bill introduced and adopted in over 20 states.