Help Stop the Coal Industry's Desperate Attempts to Thwart Change on Global Warming

This week’s blog post is co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.

This week, friends of big oil and coal fired one of their first shots across the bow of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the agency’s power to set limits on global warming pollution. The frenzy that followed in Washington and in the media should serve as a wake up call to anyone who has not yet weighed in to support EPA’s proposed finding that global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare.

By pulling one line out of an obscure government document and circulating it out of context, Republicans in Congress tried to make the case that they had found a “smoking gun” revealing that the Obama White House predicts economic collapse should the EPA regulate global warming pollution. The White House quickly issued a statement making it clear they had said no such thing, in a statement with the fitting title “Clearing the Air.”  A hat tip to David Roberts at Grist for unraveling how this non-story became national news.

Fortunately, you now have the chance to weigh in and counter the fear mongering by demonstrating that Americans want strong action on global warming.

Monday marks the first of two public hearings on EPA’s draft endangerment finding issued in mid-April, a historic finding by the agency that global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is a comprehensive science based review of expected threats that our nation faces from global warming, including more severe heat waves, disease epidemics, water shortages, and crop failures.