Annual ReportRecapping our work in 2012 for our members

“Ever since Cabot Oil & Gas started fracking for gas a few hundred yards from Pat Farnelli’s home in Dimock, Pa., the water from her family’s tap hadn’t smelled or tasted right.”

To our members

A growing number of activists and supporters have joined our efforts to keep our forests, rivers, communities and families safe from fracking, the controversial form of gas drilling technically known as hydraulic fracturing.

It’s a movement spurred in part by the experiences of people like Pat Farnelli of western Pennsylvania.

At first, Pat thought one of her kids had picked up a bug at school. Then she noticed that her kids’ stomach cramps, diarrhea and nausea didn’t start until they got home from school each day and had a drink of water. Ever since Cabot Oil & Gas started fracking for gas a few hundred yards from Pat’s home in Dimock, Pa., the water from their tap hadn’t smelled or tasted right.

Pat was not what you’d call an activist. Yet today, she can take some credit for helping to win a $4.1 million settlement from Cabot.

Just as important, her story has helped inspire our members, supporters and other allies to take action—not just in Pennsylvania, but also in New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and other states where energy companies are rushing to expand fracking.

We’re proud of Pat’s and our work to keep our communities and environment safe from fracking. And we’re grateful that there are people like Pat all across America—activists, donors and other supporters who are joining forces with the staff of our state affiliates to keep plastic trash out of our oceans, to protect our parks against threats from budget cuts to mining and drilling, to curb the runoff from factory farms that’s creating dead zones in our waterways, and, last but not least, to reduce the pollution that’s warming our planet and destabilizing our climate.

In this line of work, the odds are always steep and no victory is ever final, because clean air, clean water, open spaces and a healthy future will always need a champion.

But if we bring enough people like Pat together, we can and we will prevail. And as Pat knows, there is no work more important and none more rewarding.

Thank you for being part of it.

Margie Alt, Executive Director

On the cover: Middle Prong of the Little River in Great Smoky Mountain National Park

“The carbon emissions that are fueling global warming are on the decline in America. Now we need to achieve even bigger reductions on a faster timeline.“

From the board chair

Superstorm Sandy’s damaging blow to the East Coast last October once again focused attention on the urgent need to reduce the pollution that is warming the planet and changing the climate.

The good news is that the carbon emissions that fuel global warming are on the decline in America. Now we need to achieve even bigger reductions on a faster timeline.

Fortunately, clean energy is more abundant than ever. Wind now powers the equivalent of 13 million American homes, thanks in part to state renewable energy standards we championed. Solar energy production has grown four-fold in the last four years, and even faster in states like California, Minnesota, New Jersey and Massachusetts, where our advocates have won pro-solar initiatives. New federal auto fuel economy standards, modeled after state-level rules that we spearheaded, will by 2025 reduce our oil consumption by more than the amount we import today from Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, the big energy companies are not going to walk away and leave billions of dollars of oil and coal in the ground. They’ve intensified their attacks on clean energy, most recently by opposing tax credits that encourage more wind power.

In response, we’re doubling down. In Colorado, where I live, we’re gaining new allies as ranchers and farmers erect wind turbines on their land. In Texas, where I grew up, we’re building bipartisan support, as Republicans realize that most wind power is being generated in districts they represent. In California, our study finds companies saving money by going green as the state enacts the first economy-wide carbon cap.

Organizing this kind of broad support for clean energy is necessary if we’re going to avert catastrophic climate change. As people notice and benefit from these changes, support for clean energy and other pro-environment policies will continue to grow.

Over the years, our work to foster solar power, wind power and energy efficiency has produced some real progress. But it’s not enough. With your support, we’re determined to do our part to help achieve greater progress, and to do it faster. The stakes are simply too high to do anything less.

Douglas H. Phelps Board of Directors, ChairmanEnvironment America

Environment America 2Photo credits: (cover) iStockphoto, (pages 1 & 2, top) Hemera.

Protect America’s WatersEnvironment America helped fend off nearly 40 congressional attacks on the Clean Water Act. Our research found polluters dumping 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals into our water, fouling 14,000 miles of rivers and 220,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries. Armed with these facts, we helped mobilize more than 170,000 Americans, including 438 mayors and other local officials, to call on Congress to restore, not weaken, clean water protections.

Wisconsin Environment called on the state’s leaders to protect their lakes against the “algae monster” (see person at back) referring to the algae blooms that grow on polluted lakes.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota

Environment America 4Photo credits: (page 3, clockwise from top) Tim Schleicher/Creative Commons, Staff, Flickr user: TCDavis/Creative Commons; (page 4, from top) Staff, Staff, MPBN.

Above: Our canvassers in New York and other states educated thousands of Americans about threats to clean water. Middle: Clean Water Advocate Shelley Vinyard released an Environment America Research & Policy Center report.” Below: Environment Maine’s Emily Figdor (right) discussed the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, how activism got us the original act, and how we need to organize to strengthen the now-weakened legislation.

Polluters and their allies in Congress took aim at the Clean Water ActFrom the Great Lakes to the Chesapeake Bay, the Colorado River to Long Island Sound, our waters are an essential part of what makes this country great. But today, more than half of America’s streams, and millions of acres of wetlands, are vulnerable to pollution and overdevelopment. In too many cases, polluters can dump into streams, developers can pave over wetlands to build strip malls, and the Environmental Protection Agency can’t do a thing about it. And it’s not just small streams and wetlands that will suffer—these waterways are the very ones that feed our great waters and keep them clean.

Fortunately, we have laws like the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act in place to protect these waterways and our health, and we have the U.S. EPA to enforce them.

But now America’s waterways face a risk unparalleled in history. Polluter-driven court decisions have left wetlands and half the nation’s streams at risk of pollution and development.

170,000 called for restored protectionsBig polluters, including the oil and gas industry, big factory farms, and developers are emboldened by their victories weakening these laws.

These special interests are forming new front groups, like the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, with the intention of striking down more of our critical environmental safeguards, in addition to simply weakening them. In fact, some of the big polluters’ allies in Congress have even vowed to completely eliminate the EPA.

• We delivered more than 170,000 petitions to the EPA to restore protections for the creeks and streams that provide drinking water for 117 million Americans.

• Our work helped fend off nearly 40 attacks on the Clean Water Act, and we moved forward the agenda for fixing the Clean Water Act.

Nearly 200 farmers stood up for clean waterLast year, the American Farm Bureau launched a misleading campaign further attacking our country’s clean water protections. Convinced that they were not representing the view of many farmers across the country who recognize their livelihoods’ dependence on clean water, Environment America organizers recruited almost 200 farmers from 11 different states to stand up for the clean water their farms, their livelihoods, their families and our food depend on. Together they called on the president to finalize proposed guidelines to restore Clean Water Act protections to many of the country’s rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota

Conservation AmericaAcross America, some of our most beloved forests, mountains and parks are better protected thanks to victories our state affiliates won in 2012. Funds for a key Pennsylvania conservation program were restored. Plans to close state parks in California, Missouri and other states were shelved. Mount Rainier National Park was expanded to protect a rare rainforest. A move to open Maine’s North Woods to development was blocked, and Colorado’s Chimney Rock was declared a national monument.

Acadia National Park, Maine.Old Man’s Cave, Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio.

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

Environment America 6Photo credits: (page 5, clockwise from top) iStockphoto, James Clear/Creative Commons; (page 6, from top) Staff, Flickr user: ezz eddy/Creative Commons, Staff.

Environment Missouri supporters showed officials they want to keep their state parks open. Middle: Slide Rock State Park in Arizona. Below: Environment California staff lobby Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Victories won for parks, forests and other special places across the country Each of us has a favorite place—maybe a forest, river or beach—we’ve explored, enjoyed and want to protect. In recent years, many of our favorite places have come under stress due to budget cuts or the threat of development, logging, mining or drilling. In 2012, Environment America and our state affiliates came to their defense, combining research, advocacy and organizing to build support and win victories for conserving the best of America.

State, local parks protected in California, Pennsylvania, Maine, elsewhereThey might not enjoy the iconic status of a Grand Canyon or Yosemite, but our state and local parks enrich the daily lives of millions of Americans. In 2012, steep budget cuts would have closed or weakened protections for these local treasures.

• When Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Corbett proposed eliminating the Keystone Fund, a critical program for preserving the state’s stunning parks, we went to work to maintain the fund. We mobilized nearly 20,000 Pennsylvanians to speak out for their beloved parks. In response, during the summer of 2012, the governor announced he’d keep the fund.

• In 2011, California announced plans to close 70 state parks, one quarter of the state’s total. Environment California strongly objected, making our case to Gov. Jerry Brown, state legislators, the media and others. Over the year, more than 12,000 people joined our call to keep the parks open. In 2012, the state largely reversed course.

• Maine’s North Woods covers about 10 million acres of mostly undeveloped land. When Gov. Paul LePage pushed to open the North Woods to reckless development, Environment Maine brought dozens of Mainers to Augusta to testify and lobby against the proposal. The plan was scrapped, at least for now.

Mt. Rainier expanded, Chimney Rock protectedOur national parks, national monuments and other federal lands have been called America’s “best idea:” places that we, the people, have set aside so that generations to come can experience the same natural wonders that bring so many of us so much joy.

• In Washington State, federal officials expanded Mt. Rainier National Park, extending its protection to a rare rainforest just outside the park’s boundaries. Environment Washington organized support for the expansion by talking to thousands of Washingtonians.

• In Colorado, President Obama declared Chimney Rock a national monument, offering a place of cultural and historical significance added protection. Environment Colorado called for the designation.

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

Don’t Frack Our FutureThe gas drilling known as “fracking,” poses a staggering array of threats to our drinking water, public health and environment. We’ve documented the threats, exposed the harm and organized citizens to push to ban this dangerous drilling. In 2012, PennEnvironment trained an army of more than 1,000 anti-fracking activists to stop these threats in their local communities. Across the nation, 15,000 Americans joined us in calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to keep our health and environment safe from “fracking.”

Our workshops trained over 1,000 activists. Below: PennEnvironment’s Erika Staff releasing “The Cost of Fracking” report.

We trained more than 1,000 activistsFrom statehouses to town halls, the EPA to the Department of the Interior, Environment America advocates have been working to protect our families and our environment from destructive gas drilling:

• In Pennsylvania, fracking has sickened residents and threatened the drinking water for thousands. We documented their stories and have recruited and trained more than 1,000 activists to protect their families and the places they hold dear.

• In New Mexico and Ohio, we fought to stop fracking from destroying natural areas like Otero Mesa and the Hocking Hills. We delivered 15,000 comments to the Obama administration to keep these and other places off limits to dirty drilling.

• And in New York, Maryland and North Carolina, we are fighting to keep fracking from happening at all.

Our report tallied the true costs of frackingFracking’s environmental damage is bad enough, but we found that dirty drilling imposes heavy costs when it comes to dollars and cents as well. Environment America Research & Policy Center researched and released “The Costs of Fracking” to expose the facts. Just one example: In Dimock, Pa., fracking contaminated the local well water. For three years 14 families were provided with $100,000 worth of temporary water. A permanent solution would have cost an estimated $11.8 million.

Protecting Our OceansNothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our oceans for hundreds of years. That’s why Environment California, Environment Oregon and Environment Washington expanded their efforts to ban single-use bags in dozens of communities in their states. And Environment Rhode Island brought the plastic bag battle to the Atlantic Coast, winning the Ocean State’s first local bag ban in 2012. So far, we’ve helped ban plastic bags in more than 50 communities in California, and dozens more across the nation.

50+ California communities ban plastic bags Californians throw away 123,000 tons of plastic bags each year, and too many of them end up as litter in our ocean.

Over the past two years we’ve helped ban disposable plastic bags in 50 California communities, from San Jose to Monterey and Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Across the country, more municipalities banned the bag, and after three years of advocacy and organizing:

• In Washington State, Seattle’s ban on plastic bags took effect at the end of last year, with Edmonds, Bellingham, Mukilteo and Bainbridge taking similar action to keep plastic out of Puget Sound.

• After Portland, Ore., banned the bag in 2011, Environment Oregon and a coalition of groups won a bag ban in Corvallis. And at the end of 2012, Eugene became the third city in Oregon to ban plastic bags.

• Meanwhile, Environment Rhode Island wants to make the Ocean State the first on the East Coast to ban bags statewide. Our staff talked to 25,000 people and collected more than 5,000 postcards to local elected officials in support of a ban. Rhode Island saw its first local ban won in 2012, in Barrington, R.I., and we are looking for more local progress—leading to statewide action in the coming year.

Environment America 8Photo credits: (page 7, from top) Mike Schmerling, Staff, Staff; (page 8, from top) iStockphoto, Staff, Staff.

Environment California held a news conference outside City Hall in Los Angeles the day the City Council voted to ban plastic bags. The L.A. City Council voted 13 to 1 to keep plastic out of the Pacific Ocean.

Clean Air, Healthy FamiliesOur research shows that tens of thousands of our neighbors across the country die prematurely because of soot and mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants and other industrial polluters. We organized tens of thousands of voices to support stronger standards for soot pollution from vehicles and power plants proposed by the EPA in June 2012. We also generated hundreds of calls into key Senate offices and helped fend off an attack by polluters and their allies in Congress on new mercury standards that are projected to save 11,000 lives each year.

Above: Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger releasing our “Danger in the Air,” report. Below: Hayden Station Coal plant in Colorado.

EPA moves to limit soot pollutionCurrent air quality standards for soot pollution are too weak, costing tens of thousands of American lives every year. In June, the EPA moved to fix that by proposing stronger soot pollution standards for power plants and diesel trucks. Our staff went to work to ensure these new standards became a reality:

• We collected more than 26,000 comments in support of stronger standards.

• We testified and turned out dozens of citizens to public hearings in Philadelphia and Sacramento in July.

Senate rejects rollback of mercury pollution limitUnfortunately, what many have called “the most anti-environmental Congress in history” continued to attack these and other critical safeguards. We worked closely with our allies in the public health and environmental communities, lobbied key members of Congress, and rallied tens of thousands of activists online and off to defeat these attacks.

In June, the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have blocked the EPA’s historic mercury pollution standard for power plants—a standard that is projected to save 11,000 lives every year. To help secure this victory, we generated hundreds of calls into key Senate offices.

Getting America Off OilIn 2012, we saw our country take the single largest step to reduce our dependence on oil to date. In August, the Obama administration finalized national clean car standards that will dramatically reduce our dependence on oil. Our work helped build crucial groundwork for this victory , winning clean car standards in key states that paved the way for national action. By 2025, these standards will reduce our oil consumption by more than we import today from Saudi Arabia.

State action gets clean cars on the roadBefore President Obama took office, California and 13 other states led the way by developing and implementing their own state-level clean car standards. Environment America’s federation of state-based groups worked alongside local decision makers and other public interest and environmental advocacy organizations across the country to help make them a reality.

Beyond pollution reduction for those states, these standards also pushed automakers to begin developing the cleaner cars that we see on the road today. That paved the way for the first phase of federal carbon pollution standards for vehicles in model years 2012-2016, which were followed by today’s standards for model years 2017-2025.

Gas mileage standards reduce oil dependenceNew clean car standards will drastically reduce emissions of the carbon pollution that is fueling global warming and will cut oil use nationwide. By 2030, the standards will cut carbon pollution from vehicles in the United States by 270 million metric tons—the equivalent of the annual pollution of 40 million of today’s vehicles—and save 1.5 million barrels of oil every day.

Environment America 10Photo credits: (page 9, from top) Kevin Kovaleski, Staff, Flickr user: ioarchangel/Creative Commons; (page 10, from top) *egd, Staff, Staff.

Above: Environment Maine Field Associate Andrew Francis released the “Getting Off Oil” roadmap alongside state Rep. Alex Cornell du Houx. Below: Environment Ohio Advocate Julian Boggs at a clean car event with State Rep. Tracy Maxwell Heard.

Stopping Global WarmingWeather headlines from 2012 provided additional evidence that the impacts of global warming are moving even faster than previously predicted. To urge the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize the first-ever carbon pollution standards that they proposed, we worked with a coalition of our state affiliates and other environmental and public health groups to collect over 3 million public comments in support of the new rules. That number is more than twice as many public comments ever submitted to the EPA on any one issue.

To help cut global warming at the source, we worked with a coalition of groups to collect more than 3 million public comments in support of the first-ever carbon pollution standard for power plants. This is the greatest number of public comments ever delivered to the EPA on any one issue. This is our staff and coalition delivering the first 2.1 million comments.

Hurricane Sandy

Environment America 12Photo credits: (page 11, from top) NASA Goddard Photo and Video/Creative Commons, Josh Lopez; (page 12, from top) National Guard/Creative Commons, Jonathan LaChance Photography, Staff.

To help cut global warming at the source, we worked with a coalition of groups to collect more than 3 million public comments in support of the first-ever carbon pollution standard for power plants. This is the greatest number of public comments ever delivered to the EPA on any one issue. This is our staff and coalition delivering the first 2.1 million comments.

Recent weather-related disasters in America

Number of weather-related disasters (2006-2011)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+

Historic action taken to reduce carbon pollutionCarbon pollution spewing from power plants threatens Americans’ health. Doctors, nurses and scientists warn that it fuels global warming, which triggers poor air quality, contributes to thousands of asthma attacks, heart attacks and other fatal diseases. Scientists also warn that global warming is expected to lead to more devastating floods, deadly heat waves and many other threats.

More than 3 million took actionWhen the Obama administration proposed the first-ever carbon pollution standards for new power plants in March, we went to work to make sure the standards became a reality.

• Canvassing door-to-door and at busy public places, and by reaching out to our activists online and on the phone, we collected 20 percent of the 3 million public comments submitted on this rule.

• We mobilized more than 200 mayors and other opinion leaders in support of EPA action on carbon pollution.

• We wrote two new reports on global warming and extreme weather and released them at dozens of news conferences nationwide.

Hurricane Sandy

In 2012, many parts of the country were hit by weather-related disasters, from scorching heat and drought, to severe storms and floods. High Park, Colorado, saw devastating fires in June (pictured at top-right), and in Texas, severe drought dried up Lake Travis (pictured middle-right). Our report, “Path of the Storm: Global Warming, Extreme Weather, and the Impacts of Weather-Related Disasters in the United States,” documented how global warming could lead to extreme weather events becoming even more common or more severe in the future. This report was released in cities across the country, including Boston, Mass., by Environment Massachusetts Field Associate MacKenzie Clark (pictured bottom-right).

The report found that, four out of five Americans live in counties affected by federally declared weather-related disasters since 2006. Hurricane Irene, which resulted in the death of 45 people in the 13 states hit by the storm, and an estimated $7.3 billion in damage, is one of the extreme weather events highlighted in the report. Hurricane Sandy’s toll was still being calculated as this report went to print, but was undeniably one of the worst storms of the century.

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Environment America Staff (partial list)

Margie AltExecutive Director

Anna AurilioDirector, America, D.C. office

Nathan Willcox Global Warming Program Director

Dan Gatti Environmental Policy Analyst

Elizabeth OuztsEnvironment North Carolina

David MasurPennEnvironment

Shelley VinyardClean Water Advocate

Luke MetzgerEnvironment Texas

Dan KohlerRegional Director

John RumplerSenior Environmental Attorney

Rob SargentEnergy Program Director

Dan JacobsonEnvironment California

Bernadette Del ChiaroEnvironment California

Environment America State Affiliate Staff (partial list)

Max MullerEnvironment Illinois

Tommy Landers Environment Maryland

Ben WrightEnvironment Massachusetts

Ken Bradley Environment Minnesota

Courtney Abrams Clean Energy Advocate

MeganSeversonWisconsin Environment

Christy LeavittField Director

Ivan FrishbergPolitical Director

Alyssa Schuren Development Director

Bret Fanshaw Environment Arizona

Jennette GayerEnvironment Georgia

Ted Mathys Environment Missouri

Emily Figdor Environment Maine

Doug O’MalleyEnvironment New Jersey

Jess O’Hare Environment New Hampshire

Sanders Moore Environment New Mexico

David Van LuvenEnvironment New York

Julian Boggs Environment Ohio

Johanna NeumannRegional Director

Jeanne BassettEnvironment Colorado

Dave WymanDonor Development Director

John CrossFederal Transportation Advocate

Nancy PynePreservation Advocate