ALEC in Congress - Great Example

Found this on PRWatch this morning.

This is what ALEC in Congress looks like.

This is why American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)  ALUMNI are just as dangerous as state legislators – ALEC Alumni just don’t get as much press.

A few snips from the article:

Opponents to the House bill, and implicitly to the ALEC resolution, call it one of the biggest giveaways to the coal industry in decades.

 “[Its]an outrageous giveaway to the utilities that treat a toxic waste with the same environmental requirements that we treat household garbage," said Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

ALEC’s Vision of Pre-empting EPA Coal Ash Regs Passes the House

by Sara Jerving — April 24, 2012 - 8:21am

The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment on April 18 to the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012 (HR 4348) that would effectively pre-empt the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating coal ash, the waste from coal burning plants. About 140 million tons of coal ash is produced by power plants in the United States each year. There are about 1,000 active coal ash storage sites across the country.

As reported by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) as part of its ALECexposed project, House Majority Leader and ALEC alumnus Eric Cantor has pushed ALEC's federal agenda, including opposition to coal ash regulation, as part of an effort to weaken the EPA.

As described in ALEC’s EPA "Train Wreck" publication, ALEC passed a resolution in early 2010 that supports a decade-old "EPA determination that coal combustion residuals do not warrant federal regulation as hazardous waste and concludes that states are best positioned to serve as the principal regulatory authority for CCRs as non-hazardous waste.”

Opposition to EPA regulation of coal ash has also been on the agenda of several ALEC meetings. This resolution is among a host of ALEC initiatives aimed at environmental deregulation, which also includes efforts to prevent the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.

One of ALEC's major corporate underwriters is Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal company in the world

And that is why it is just as important

to make sure that Congressional ALEC ALUMNI

are NOT re-elected.

A list of Congressional members can be found at ALECExposed.