Message -----Original Message----- From: Eric Uram [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 7:25 AM To: Tarah Heinzen; Angel Kruzen; Bruce Hoeft; Gayle Miller; Jennifer Lenhart; Joe Burzynski; Matt Little; 'Susan Knight'; 'Alison Horton'; 'Aloma Dew'; 'Anne Woiwode'; 'Bill Redding '; 'Brett Hulsey'; 'Bruce Nilles'; 'Bryan Clark'; 'Carla Klein'; 'Caryl Terrell'; 'Cindy Skrukrud'; 'Colleen Sarna'; 'Emily Green'; 'Glen Brand'; 'Heather Cusick'; 'Heather Mayfield'; 'Jack Darin'; 'Jennifer Feyerherm'; 'Jennifer Hensley'; 'Jill Miller'; 'Joshua Davis'; 'Lyle Krewson'; 'Marvin Roberson'; 'Michelle Rosier'; 'Ned Ford'; 'Rhonda Anderson'; 'Rita Jack'; 'Rosemary Wehnes'; 'Scott Dye'; 'Scott Elkins'; 'Stephanie Montgomery' Subject: from REP - Rabbi Wakow's testimony at mercury hearings Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 7:32 AM Subject: something worth reading... from REP (Republicans for Environmental Protection) Fellow REPs (and other friends), The following came to me as an email this morning, and I just have to share it with you all. This is a powerful statement about the need to rid our air and water of poisons like mercury. I encourage you to read it and pass it on to others. Martha Martha Marks, Ph.D. - President REP America (Republicans for Environmental Protection) 3200 Carlisle Blvd., NE; Suite 228 Albuquerque, NM 87110 505-690-9601 [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask] www.repamerica.org or www.rep.org ********************************************* Dear friends, The Bush Administration has proposed new mercury emission standards that will invite much more mercury, a known brain-damaging poison, to be poured into our air and water. EPA is holding hearings about these proposals - in a grand total of three cities. One was Philadelphia, today. This was my testimony, on behalf of The Shalom Center. Shalom, Arthur *** February 26, 2004 Hearing officers for the EPA: Good afternoon, and in the traditional words of Jewish greeting, shalom aleichem - peace be with you. I am Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center, a 20-year-old nation-wide network of Jews and others who draw on Jewish wisdom of the past and present to seek justice and healing of the earth. We have 2,000 members. Our Email lists reach more than 21,000 people. The Bible, in Exodus I:16-21, tells this story: Pharaoh, king of Egypt, ordered midwives to kill the newborn babies of the Hebrew women. But the midwives held God in awe, and did not do as Pharaoh had commanded them. This is both the oldest story we have in which a government sentences innocent children to death, and the oldest story we have of nonviolent civil disobedience. The present proposal to increase the amount of mercury that industries are allowed to pour into our air and water is an act of Pharaoh, an act of depraved indifference to human life and especially depraved indifference to children. For the economic advantage of some and the political advantage of their fr iends, the proposed new standards will kill children and cause them brain damage. How do we know this? -- The EPA and forty-three states have now issued advisories warning people, especially women and children, to avoid or limit eating local fish because of mercury. Even with these warnings, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 1 out of 12 U.S. women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood due to fish consumption. The best way to protect women and children from mercury is to eliminate it from its largest source: power plants. But the electricity and coal industries are pressing hard to avoid limiting their mercury emissions, and the Bush Administration has now proposed to weaken those standards. More than 600,000 newborns are at risk of brain damage and learning disabilities every year because their mothers have been exposed to mercury pollution. Instead of using already existing technology to reduce mercury emissions by as much as 90%, as is required by the Clean Air Act, the new plan would postpone any significant controls for mercury until 2018, and in doing so would unnecessarily endanger the lives of an entire generation of children. The proposal also would give polluters at least 15 years to make the reduction s rather than the three years required by law. When plants are not forced to curb pollution but can buy pollution credits, it increases the chances that there will be communities where mercury pollution is more prevalent. If it is not to fall into the path of Pharaoh, the Bush Administration must protect children's health by reducing power plant mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2008 and ensuring that these reductions occur at each and every power plant. The Clean Air Act requires these reductions. Human decency requires these reductions. God's demand that we choose life and protect children requires these reductions. The midwives held God in awe and refused to obey the Pharaoh's murderous orders. Even Pharaoh's own daughter took action to save a child - Moses -- who had been condemned to death by her own father's command, her own government's laws. I look into your faces, and I see people who perhaps have children, as I do; who perhaps have grandchildren, as I do; who perhaps have nieces and nephews, a s I do. I urge you -- like the midwives and like Pharaoh's daughter -- to stand up against whatever pressures are being exerted on you by your superior officials in this government, ordering you or leaning on you to make decisions that could bring on the death and mental ruination of thousands of children. I urge you to see in the faces of these brain-damaged children the Face of God, to hear in the wailing of these children the Voice of God. Shalom, Rabbi Arthur Waskow [At the end there was a long silence. I'm not sure, but the usual etiquette may be that the witness says "thank you" for being accorded the "privilege" of a hearing. If so, that was not the way I was feeling about my citizenly role before the hearing. After the silence, as I simply watched the Board with awareness, one of them finally said "Thank you." That felt right.] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp