Action Alert

We Need a Vote on Improving Food Safety

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

Food-safety advocates have been patient. You’ve sent emails, signed petitions, made phone calls and held events in your communities to bring attention to the broken condition of our national food-safety system. Yet, reform legislation that could help the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) move from reacting to foodborne illness outbreaks to preventing them remains on the U.S. Senate back-burner.

Time is running out. In order to get this important legislation enacted, President Obama must make it a priority. Tell President Obama we need him to send a message to the U. S. Senate that food safety legislation must be passed now!

In the first few months of his administration, President Obama told the nation that he intended to make improving the safety of our food supply a part of his legacy during his weekly address on March 14, 2009:

"We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can't do on our own. There are certain things that only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don't cause us harm.”

Tell President Obama we need the FDA to be the “cop on the beat” protecting our families from contaminated food products.

Haven’t we all witnessed what happens when companies are allowed to operate without any or limited government oversight? The disastrous results of Wall Street dealings almost toppled our economy and one company drilling for oil off our coasts may have jeopardized the environment millions of Americans have called home for generations.

Send a message to the President: We want the U.S. Senate to vote on food safety now!

Thank you for taking a stand for safe food!

Sincerely,

David Plunkett
Senior Staff Attorney, Food Safety Program
Center for Science in the Public Interest

We Need New Legislation to Make Chemicals in Consumer Products Kid-Safe

The Environmental Working Group has a petition you can sign telling Congress we need new laws regulating toxic chemicals now routinely found in the bloodstream of our kids. There are a number of bills in Congress now that need action.

Tell Congress to close the "Halliburton Loophole" to protect drinking water from contamination

(From the Natural Resources Defense Council) The "Halliburton Loophole" exempts hydraulic fracturing, an oil and gas production method that has been linked to water contamination, from Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. Urge your senators and representative to co-sponsor legislation to repeal the Halliburton Loophole. Send a letter.

You can read more hear about 'fracking' and its impact on local farms and beef in particular on Mark Bittman's blog or more generally on the Huffington Post's website.

Here in New York, the state senate just voted to ban fracking and the assembly will take up the issue in the fall.

Sara