Friends of the Earth continued its tradition of hard-hitting, results-oriented advocacy in 2010. In Congress, in the courtroom, on the streets and through the media, our diverse and cutting-edge campaigns have produced key strides forward in the fight for a healthy and just world, empowering real solutions to global warming, putting our tax dollars to better work for people and the planet, and holding corporations accountable to the social and environmental impacts of their practices.
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Friends of the Earth launched the "BP Ten" campaign aimed at holding members of congress accountable to dirty oil's corruptive influence in politics. This corruption has inhibited the transition to clean energy and produced the dangerous drilling policies that led to the Gulf Coast tragedy.The campaign focused on senators and representatives who took large campaign contributions from BP in the last two election cycles and called them out for letting big oil influence their decision-making. To call attention to this issue in two states, Florida and Virginia, where offshore drilling is hotly debated we placed “Drill baby drill” TV ads. These efforts were aimed at pressuring our leaders to lead us to a clean energy future, one without the influence of dirty oil.
This year Friends of the Earth has fought hard against these fuels, which are some of the dirtiest available. Our main focus has been to halt big oil's plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil to refineries in Texas. Our activists sent more than 60,000 emails to the Obama administration and joined protests in New York City and Chicago, asking the president to stop the pipeline. We've successfully garned extensive media coverage on a coalition letter calling Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to recuse herself from the approval process of the pipeline due to leading remarks that she was inclined to approve the project before the environmental assessment was completed. We were also able to stir up press coverage when wikileaks revealed State Department acknowledgement of the environmental harms of the pipeline. We continue to gain ground to stop the development of the pipeline. Some of our other victories on these fuels include our defeat of the extension for a tax credit for liquid coal for 2010.
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This year we continued to fight against the use of dirty coal. We joined Appalachia Rising’s mobilization in Washington D.C. to call on the EPA and President Obama to stop destructive mountaintop removal mining practices. Our activists also attended EPA hearings on coal ash, testifying to its toxicity and urging for strong regulations. Following our successful lawsuit against the U.S. Export-Import Bank, we’ve continued to fight against loans that fund climate destruction and especially ones that finance dirty coal.
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Our biofuels campaign has pushed to halt federal incentives for corn ethanol production through the Renewable Fuel Standard and biofuels tax credits. We coordinated an unusual coaltion's opposition to the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), a $6 billion per year subsidies for blending ethanol into gasoline. This diverse sign-on group gained attention as an odd bedfellows coalition, as it was supported by both environmentalist, progressive, and tea party groups. Our activists sent more than 20,000 emails to congressional offices opposing the biofuels tax credits. We also held a demonstration, “Billionaires for Biofuels,” condemning the USDA for continuing to support ethanol production and infrastructure. Internationally, we partnered with Friends of the Earth-El Salvador to educate lawmakers on the effects of the biofuels industry on the global south. Additionally, we sued the EPA for its failure to properly account for the global warming impacts of biofuel production in regulations.
We worked hard to stop the Obama administration from bailing out the failing nuclear industry with billions in taxpayer backed loan guarantees to help construct the first new reactor in 30 years. We launched TV ads in both South Carolina and Georgia where the reactors were planned. We also got our "not another bailout" message out to the public through coverage in Time, The New York Times, USA Today, and many other outlets. We continue to work to ensure that taxpayer money is not wasted funding this dangerous and expensive enterprise.
Our movement is dedicated to finding solutions to climate change, and with that in mind we co-founded Climate Reality Check, a coalition of more than 20 groups focused on finding progressive solutions to climate change. The coalition advocates for strong and just climate policies that protect people and the planet not polluters. Specifically this year we organized in-district meetings to call on Senators to protect the Clean Air Act.
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This past October and December representatives from Friends of the Earth traveled to Tianjin, China and Cancun, Mexico to attend the UN climate negotiations. We successfully won support for the creation of a climate fund in Cancun. This fund garners financial support from developed countries to protect less developed countries from the impacts of climate change, within the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC). Though the World Bank is a trustee of this fund, we consider this a major victory in helping those unequitably presented with climate impacts have adaquate financial compensation to deal with these challenge. We will continue to fight for a just climate treaty in future negotiations.
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This past year Friends of the Earth worked hard to protect waters from spills, sewage, and other forms of toxic pollutants. In California, we successfully pushed the EPA to create regulations on water pollution, also known as a No Discharge Zone. Friends of the Earth has been working on this issue since 2006 when the 96 page application to request for regulation was formally issued -- and the pressure has finally paid off! This protective zone restricts cruise ships and other large vessels from dumping sewage sludge into the ocean. In March, Friends of the Earth achieved another hard earned victory. Ten years after launching our campaign on air pollutants from shipping, the international body governing shipping set regulations to limit harmful air pollutants from ships in most U.S. and Canadian waters. The rules which take effect in 2012, will prevent up to 31,000 premature deaths, 1.5 million work days lost, and more than 5 million cases of acute respiratory symptoms by 2030. These victories will dramatically improve the health of marine ecosystems and of communities living near the coastline.
We released the 2010 Cruise Ship Report Card, which compares the environmental footprint of 11 cruise lines. It grades them on sewage treatment, air pollution reduction, and water quality compliance allowing vacationers to choose a cruise based on its environmental and human health impacts. This report card has successfully inspired the cruise industry to clean up its act and it has received high profile media coverage on AOL Travel, Washington Post, and USA Today Travel.
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We successfully netted close to 15,000 comments to the FDA urguing that genetically modified salmon, or frankenfish, be kept off our plates until furter study of its dangers to environment and human health are conducted. If approved, frankenfish would be the first genetically engineered animal to be approved for human consumption. These fish could endanger the Atlantic salmon and the health of surrounding ecosystems. We held a protest in front of the White House and testified before the FDA asking the agency to agree to complete a more thorough environmental assessment generating coverage in top media outlets, including the Washington Post, NBC Nightly News, and USA Today.
In the wake of the announcement on the regulation for the creation of the first fully synthetic organism, Friends of the Earth has been a leading voice calling for strong government oversight of this risky emerging technology. We successfully brought a coalition together of over 58 groups to submit comments for consideration to the Presidential Commission on Synthetic Biology. These groups jointly rejected the commission's recommendations for self regulations as deeply flawed, generating extensive media coverage -- New York Times, Washington Post, and ABC News.
We launched a summer advertising and public education campaign to expose the risks of nanosunscreen. Studies show that manufactured nanoparticles may damage cells and have harmful health repercussions. We pressured sunscreen manufacturers to avoid using manufactured nanoparticles in sunscreens and called on federal officials to require that sunscreens containing manufactured nanoparticles be labeled. We also advocated that BP avoid using nano in their clean-up efforts on the Gulf Coast, to avoid exacerbating environmental problems.
We rallied Congress to introduce the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 that gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to ensure that personal care products are free of chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities and other illnesses. The legislation includes a provision for labeling nanomaterials in cosmetics and personal care products. This was a success of Friends of the Earth's tireless work for the past seven years in a coalition focused on educating the public about serious toxins in cosmetics and personal care products.
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Releasing the report “Ten Ways to Game the Carbon Market,” we critiqued carbon offsets as a viable solution to curb climate change. Carbon offsets are a way for corporations to "pass the buck" -- allowing them to send money overseas for projects that promise to reduce emissions so they can continue to pollute in the United States. This report was only part of the work we've done to stop the implementation of offset programs. We also participated in a carbon trading and fraud conference, met with the FBI on carbon fraud, participated in radio interviews on the subject, and presented to an Interpol environmental crimes working group on carbon fraud and gaming. Additionally, by keeping on top of Senate appropriators, we managed to shift $20 million from the World Bank’s Pilot Program on Climate Resilience to the UNFCCC’s Least Developed Country Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund in the full Senate Appropriations Committee mark-up of the FY11 Foreign Ops bill. This was a major victory on just financing for climate.
We rallied behind Rep. Pete Stark and his bill that levies a tax on foreign currency exchange market. This tiny levy that effectively taxes when one currency is exchanged for another, would raise funds for those impacted by climate change and for health programs in impoverished countries. Although it’s a drop in the behemoth bucket of Wall Street’s profits, this could generate billions to solve some of the most pressing global crises.This bill would help millions of people, putting people ahead of corporate profit.
We’ve worked extensively in China on sustainable investment,spearheading public advocacy campaigns and educating Chinese policymakers about the environmental and social impacts of overseas transactions as they develop environmental guidelines for overseas investing. We’ve also built an international network of NGOs to collaboratively campaign on Chinese investment projects. The results have been tremendous; already the 11 Chinese NGOs who attended Friends of the Earth-sponsored financial advocacy trainings have sent an open letter to the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges calling for improved information disclosure regulation of Chinese listed companies.
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The "Green Scissors 2010" report, compiled by Friends of the Earth and other environmental and taxpayer groups, targets more than $200 billion in wasteful and environmentally harmful spending for budget cuts. We’ve made gains in this area already; Sen. Menendez and Rep. Blumenauer introduced bills that eliminate subsidies and tax credits for oil and gas. In 2009, Obama also entered into an agreement to end fossil fuel subsides, including tax credits, at the G20 meeting. This year we fought to push these cuts through congress, holding leaders accountable to sensible spending.
