Legislature Gets Mixed Reviews On Environment
Washington state's environmental community delivered its analysis of the 2010 Washington State Legislative session today. Their message to lawmakers: You could have done better, especially on clean water.
Washington state's environmental community delivered its analysis of the 2010 Washington State Legislative session today. Their message to lawmakers: You should have done better, especially on clean water.
The Environmental Priorities Coalition put forward three priorities for consideration during the 2010 legislative session:
- Working for Clean Water, which aimed to prevent toxic runoff from polluting state waterways through an increase in the tax on hazardous substances;
- Sustain Environmental Protections in the Budget to protect funding for critical environmental programs;
- The Safe Baby Bottle Act, a bill to ban toxic bisphenol A (BPA) in children's dishware and sports bottles.
While the Legislature passed the Safe Baby Bottle Act and reinstated funding for some core environmental programs, it failed to pass the Working for Clean Water priority.
Kurt Fritts, executive director of Washington Conservation Voters said:
While we credit them for taking action in some areas, they didn’t step up to address the state’s biggest water pollution problem, and now that issue only becomes more urgent next year.
You can read the Coalition's press release here.
