Our Mid-Year Harvest
Dear Friends,
June is a time of early harvest in my garden. The tomatoes aren’t ripe yet, but here in the heartland we’ve been eating nourishing greens and radishes for a few weeks. So too, we have some exciting mid-year harvests to report from our work at SEHN.
🌽 Federal pipeline regulator agrees to hold public meeting in Des Moines!
For two years we’ve been working to stop the build-out of CO2 pipelines, which are essentially the fossil fuel industry’s sewer system. The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into these pipelines and the rest of the infrastructure necessary for carbon capture and storage, a false climate solution. But the regulations necessary to guarantee safety for these pipelines are just now being drafted and won’t be complete until 2024. We formed a working group to target the pipeline-regulating authority, PHMSA. We wrote a letter to PHMSA urging the agency to hold a public meeting on the regulations and to tell states to refrain from giving permits to CO2 pipeline companies until the PHMSA rules are complete.
PHMSA agreed to the public meeting! PHMSA held a first-of-its-kind public meeting in Des Moines, Iowa on May 31 - June 1, 2023 to address the CO2 pipeline rule it is drafting. The regulators, who normally only hear from industry, listened to the groundswell of concerns from the public in this real opportunity for community participation that we engendered. Many of us who have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of these pipelines spoke at the meeting.
This is a big win. But it is just one step, one win in a long struggle. Your support enabled us to get this far and bring a federal agency to the table. We need your help to take the next steps. If carbon capture and storage along with their CO2 pipelines is allowed to proceed, we will delay real climate solutions until it is too late.
🫑 New York becomes the first state in the country to ban gas hook-ups in new buildings through passage of the All Electric Buildings Act!
Our program, Concerned Health Professionals of New York, has been lending its voice at every turn calling for policies that address the twin hazards of fossil fuel-powered buildings: the exposure to contaminants with profound health effects that they create, as well as their large contribution to overall greenhouse gas emissions. We write data-filled but accessible educational pieces, we make health-focused statements to the media, we add the health professional voice to coalition-led campaigns.
We are thrilled that beginning in 2026, new buildings less than seven stories high in the state will need to be all electric, and this will apply to larger buildings in 2029. This is the healthy and climate-focused way to move forward. This win caused the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board to ask, “New York banned gas from new buildings. Why not California?” With your help, we stand ready to use the public health evidence in support of healthy buildings to ensure New York meets this deadline, and in service to developing campaigns nationwide.
🥕 Intensive collaborative effort results in a paper that sounds the alarm on compounds linked to human and ecological health effects and antimicrobial resistance.
Disinfectant use spiked over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before that, we were long overdue for increased understanding of—and action to lessen!— exposure to these chemicals. Our science director Ted Schettler has been deeply involved with a team of over two dozen multidisciplinary, multi-institutional colleagues working to elucidate the impact of “quaternary ammonium compounds” (QACs), chemicals commonly used in disinfectants and personal care products.
Their work ultimately resulted in a paper published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology documenting the state of the science on QACs, the data gaps, and detailed recommendations that we will urge policymakers to run with.
The paper says, “… identifying and removing unnecessary uses of QACs, pointing to existing safer alternatives for essential uses, and incentivizing innovation of safer alternatives can prevent harm. We believe the research presented in this review supports such actions to preserve human and ecological health.” We will add our voice to those follow-through actions, now that Ted has helped complete this monumental work.
“Drastically reducing many uses of QACs won’t spread COVID-19… In fact, it will make our homes, classrooms, offices, and other shared spaces healthier,” as one of Ted’s co-authors said.
With your support, our staff will stay engaged with these ambitious, potentially policy-shifting collaborations that can—and will!—prevent harm and suffering.
