ACTION ALERT
CURB Act Senate Hearing!
Your hard work is paying off. Thanks to all of you who took action in the last couple of weeks, House Bill 2070 (the CURB Pollution Act) is scheduled for a committee vote on Monday. On top of that, we’ve just heard that the Senate version of the bill is going to get a hearing!
Senate Bill 5990 will be heard this Tuesday, Jan. 30, by the Senate Environment, Energy, and Technology Committee.
Our bill will not get the chance to be voted on by the full Senate unless this committee moves it forward. That means we need you help us to move our bill forward by signing in PRO for the CURB Pollution Act!
(What does it mean to sign in PRO? It means you enter your name and contact information into a form, where you will also mark your position as PRO to show you support our bill!)
Take action in less than a minute by signing in PRO for CURB:
staff pose together after a committee hearing for the CURB Pollution Act
Mid-session Update:
We’ve seen tremendous support for the Cumulative Risk Burden (CURB) Pollution Act. Besides the twenty-eight partners and member organizations who formally endorsed our campaign, we saw many other organizations show their support, and crucially, we are so thankful to the thousands of you who took action by contacting lawmakers and signing in PRO for CURB.
Unfortunately, with the fiscal cutoff now behind us, it looks like we are going to have to bring the CURB Pollution Act back next year. It’s usually very hard to get a bill out of committee the first year that it is introduced, especially during a short session, but thanks to your overwhelming support, the momentum behind the CURB Act will be significant as we head into the next legislative session!
No matter who you are or where you live, we all deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and be safe from toxic pollution. But across Washington State, communities of color and Indigenous peoples carry the greatest burden when it comes to environmental pollution, affecting their health, well-being, and life expectancy.
Why do our frontline communities face these challenges? It’s because of decades of racist practices that placed polluting facilities in our neighborhoods. It’s because of big businesses who were given permits to pollute by our state government.
Communities that have historically borne the worst effects of pollution due to redlining and institutional racism shouldn’t continue to bear the ongoing harm being inflicted on their health, well-being, and even life expectancy today. Yet under current laws, the process that permits businesses to pollute is not required to consider the effects of our history of environmental racism and the cumulative health risk and burden the most impacted communities face.
We all suffer when we allow these environmental injustices to continue, but we can do something about it! Join us in supporting the CURB Pollution Act.
Come to our virtual briefing to help us kick off the legislative session!
Key Priorities of the CURB Act
The CURB Act: Background and Brief Summary
Endorsements
Do you represent an organization that would like to join us in curbing pollution? Complete this form to endorse the CURB Act and join our campaign listserv for email updates! Your participation is meaningful and strengthens our campaign to allow everyone in Washington to live in a healthy and safe environment no matter who they are, what language they speak, or where they live. Thank you!
Curbing Pollution: Policy Briefing
Thank you so much for the enthusiastic response to our first policy briefing on CURB! Those who joined us learned about the next phase of ensuring that cumulative impacts analysis is a core part of our state’s environmental justice strategies.
Attendees heard from environmental justice trailblazer Charles Lee and Just Solutions Collective’s Zully Juarez, who provided a national perspective. We were also joined by Dr. Todd Wildermuth, Director of the UW Environmental Law Program, as well as Front and Centered coalition members and staff who laid out challenges and opportunities for policy change in Washington State.
“A testimonial could go here.”
— Firstname, a Front and Centered member in Citytown
