Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160601 :

CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings June 1, 2016

Alone, for sure, we got 80,000 signatures saying we dont experiment on our children and pregnant women in america. This is america. [ applause ] as a result, not only was the study canceled, and by the way, those who got their 750,000 got to keep it. Not only was the study canceled, by senator boxer led the fight on the hill short time after and actually won legislation that went through the house and the senate to stop experiment on children in this country. And im thinking like, yeah, right . Why would we ever do that . Why do we need law that says the Pesticide Industry cannot sit next to and join with the Environmental Protection agency and poison our children . Why do we need a law . But we do. So where are we today . Today, we are in flint, michigan. Where 100,000 people, 100,000 estimated, i think its much more than that. 100,000 people were poisoned by their own government. 100,000 people drank lead contaminated water. 100,000 people, by our own government. Gm, by the way, when the water was switched from the lake water, lake huron, to the flint river water, gm complained because it was corroding their parts for their automobile. And so the state of michigan changed the water for them. And the state of michigan paid for the water to be changed to their plant so that their automobile parts would not be corroded while the children were being poisoned and the families. We received our first phone call in february of 2015. How did flint happen . Well, we know the government part. We know the water part. Its been in every paper and media out there. But how did flint come to the surface . How did people learn about it . Melissa mayes is a mom whos sick and her children are sick. When she turned on the tap and found the water was brown and ugly and tasted awful, she and her neighbors spent out of their own wallets money to do 65 samples in their neighborhood of the water. And then they sent those results, not only to chej, to our center and our scientists, but sent them to mark edwards and said, tell me what this means. And mark did some other sampling. It was Melissa Mayes who got mark edwards to ring the sirens like we saw on that advertisement not too long ago for the legislation or the ballot initiative, to ring those bells to get the government to go in and check it. How did we know the children were being poisoned . Melissa mayes and her neighbor, Melissa Mayes is not a College Graduate like me, shes just a mom who really wants to fight hard to rebuild flint. So she went to the pediatrician and said check the lead levels of the children coming in here, theres something wrong. And mona did and she goes, oh my gosh, somethings wrong. You know, when we talk about this, ralph says this often, all of these people who have ph. D. S and who has, you knows, different sort of, i dont know, professional credentials all are in the news, all talking about this but really its Melissa Mayes, its the Flint Coalition who raised the flag who take out of their pocket every single day to do sampling. And our government, well, what they did is put filters on peoples homes and they said, dont worry about it except their hot water heaters are full of lead and arsenic and lord knows what else is in there. This is 35 years after love canal and were still poisoning people. How dare we as a country. And its not just flint, michigan. In st. Louis, missouri, two landfills, or one super fund site. There are two landfills. One is burning beneath the ground. Its an old garbage dump. They cant put it out for four to six years, it will burn out. The other one is radioactive waste from the manhattan project. The fire is moving toward the radioactive waste. Its 500 feet from the radioactive waste site and the attorney general for the state of missouri said that when they meet, it will be a chernobyllike event. Who lives across the street from this chernobyllike event . Spanish village, a mobile park. Because people are poor, because people are of color, they are often forgotten, ignored, or poisoned by our own government. The Environmental Protection agency has chosen to do nothing in that situation. It has been on the superfund list since 1990. Under this particular administration, gina mccarthy, i know a lot of people love her because she did great work around climate change. And i give her that. But under gina mccarthy, the head of epas administration, since shes taken office, you might remember the freedom spill into the river in West Virginia that poisoned hundreds of thousands of people with pesticides, chemicals. Hundreds of thousands of people. In february. Then you would think that epa would watch over what they were doing, right . In july, that same company dumped more into the elk river poisoning people all over again. Gina mccarthy was in charge when the dam broke that released all that coal ash into North Carolina river where people were Drinking Water from that river. People were fishing in that river. Jina mccarthy was wasnt charged and responsible for the river in colorado that turned orange and people could not feed their livestock and they were on well water. Gina mccarthys people were in part responsible for flint. Whats going on now . There is a cozy relationship between the Environmental Protection agency and industry. And we need to break that cozy relationship. [ applause ] im tired 10,000 people, just name a fight from pig manure to pesticide, weve done them all. But we need more. We are winning these battles. We are winning in the field. We win more than we lose. And i will tell you flint will be taken care of because it is the local people who are going to ensure that flint is taken care of. [ applause ] but winning these battles doesnt help us win the war. And it is really all of us at this conference and conferences like this that we really need to join together and say theres really one enemy, if you will, or opponent if youre opposed bad words like enemy. The opponent is big industry. Its corporate money in our politics. Corporate money in our epa. Corporate money in food and drug. Corporate money in everything. I am an american and i am proud of being an american. And this government needs to treat me and my friends and neighbors and colleagues and everyone else like an american. And that means the freedoms that we should enjoy, the human rights that we deserve. We just went to the united nations, and we took the case of the st. Louis people to the human rights. And we asked them to talk to the secretary general about suing the United States before a chernobyllike event occurs. If they cant do it, then im not sure where to go. But we need to use these out of the box ideas. You know, someone was saying we cant compromise, we cant play playing out of the box. They dont know what to do with us in epa now and in the white house because we went to the united nations. Holy moly, what do you do with that . Right . So thinking out of the box is how were winning the battles in the field but we really need as a whole to think out of the box of how do you get Corporate America out of politics, how to get Corporate America out of the very agencies that were put together for the soul purpose of protecting the American People. Thank you. [ applause ] imagine when we gets other her shyness and reticence. Powerhouse. Up to the penultimate presentation here this afternoon. Long thought as many environmentalists do that one of the great missing qualities in our Public Policy is we dont have a precautionary principle. Anybody can put any kchemical ot there as long as it does no harm. Rather we have the crew you principle in our country. They can produce anything they want and we have to somehow or other as the public just come up with solutions. So, you know, any Chemical Company can put any concoction they want basically out there. And i think this the results of that are obviously horrible. But it was expressed pretty well by bruce king whos a pretty good democratic governor over in new mexico a few years ago. Bruce had a little problem with his metaphors and literary references and his staff would come in with some bill that some company wanted him to support and i said, i dont know, boy, im afraid its going to open up some big box of pandoras. And sure enough, the pandoras are loose on the land. But jay feldman has taken a totally different, very constructive and healthy approach to our pesticide problem, not just opposing the pesticides themselves, but also proposing and trying to impose across the country a regimen of organic production and certification. And he served on the committee that helped put together the organic standards at the u. S. Department of agriculture. We were just talking backstage about thats one of the few laws that has actually worked in terms of using chemicals. The reason it worked is because its got principles and ethics built into it. The reason of that is because the people, themselves, created the organic standards. It didnt come from a lobbyist and didnt come from a member of congress. The people, themselves, put it forward. Now we have to defend it again because the powers that be are trying to undo it. Jay, for 35 or so years has been head of beyond pesticides working to eliminate poisons by extending organic production. Jay feldman. [ applause ] thanks, jim, and thank you, ralph nader. I am so honored to be a part of this illustrious group of people and organizations. What i would like to do in my 20 minutes is take you on the journey that ive been on because its been an extraordinary one. Ralph has asked that we all tell our story, so ill share that journey with you going back 40 years. We are were now facing a sustainabili sustainability, survivorability issue in this country when it comes to Public Health and the environment. I always like to take an upbeat approach to that question as we sit on the precipice of worsening environmental Public Health problems, we can see the solutions in sight. Beyond pesticides was set up to take advantage, leverage those solutions and empower people to act. You know, a lot of us grew up with ddt. And these are the kinds of ads you could see in magazines at the time. Ddt is good for me. And the advertisers were telling us that not only did it kill destructive pests, but it was a benefactor to all of humanity. Thats in the small print on the slide. Thankfully Rachel Carson came along in 1962 and wrote silent spring. In silent spring, she said that we could not lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life. I personally had the opportunity to travel through florida, texas, and california, meet with farmworkers in labor camps. They looked me in the eye and said, were not being protected, were being poisoned every day we go out into the fields. The growers dont care, regulatory agencies dont care and something needs to be done about this. The program i was working on was actually this was before beyond pesticides. Funded by epa than quickly defunded by epa. That gave me the motivation to begin working with folks to develop a farm Worker Protection standard. That previous slide was the report that we published to advance that Worker Protection standard which took ten years after the publication of the report to become law. In the interim epa put out a publication telling farm workers what they needed to do to protect themselves and of course they had no power or ability to do that. Then we formed beyond pesticides. With a diverse board of directors. At that time, we called it the National Coalition of against the misuse of pesticides. We brought together all kinds of exciting people. This is our board president currently. Routt reigart, pediatrician. Representing the medical community. We brought together Public Health scientist, now deceased, many of you know andrea kiddtaylor. An ecologist like terry from kansas. Paula with p. E. E. R. Thank you, p. E. E. R. Tremendous advocate and attorney. Farm worker advocates like im sorry. Chip osborne, a land manager, phenomenal horticulturalist. Nelson carrasquillo, farm worker advocate. Melinda hemmelgarn who runs a radio show, food sleuth, and wants to beat the system with vegetables. You all can stand up, please. Incredible group of people. [ applause ] so our thank you. Our goal is first and foremost to listen. We need to listen to peoples experiences. Thats what i first started doing when i visited farm workers in labor camps. We need to Research Science to establish scientificbase positions. We need to educate and create Public Awareness to engage broad public involvement. We need advocacy to ensure broad Public Awareness and Public Engagement on issues. We need policy advocacy and implementation. Weve heard today a lot about institutionalizing change. We need marketplace change to drive practical responses to identify problems. In collaboration with grassroots board that you just saw, it only took a desk and a phone that david brower from friends of the earth allowed me to sit at in his office in a crowded room, we began our work. Good afternoon, ncamp, how may i help you . National federation of the misuse of pesticides is a Grassroots Organization in washington, d. C. Thats a pretty crowded room. Then we changed our name to beyond pesticides to better reflect the fact that continued reliance on toxic pesticides in our communities, our schools, our hospitals and Food Production system was unacceptable and unnecessary. We began and continued listening to victims. And this is where we heard the stories of clordane, you might remember, a termite insecticide in the same family as ddt. And despite the fact it was supposed to attach itself to organic material and not invade peoples homes, was, in fact, invading peoples homes. We raised the story. We got media attention. If youre a homeowner or thinking of buying a home, our next story is for you and your family. And then got bigger name attention. The truth could be far more startling, not just for ali, but for the millions of americans who have come into contact with a group of powerful domestic pesticides that this doctor has found to have existed in mohammed alis blood. At nearly 50 times the expected average levels of toxicity. Muhammad alis story is only the most visible. Millions of American Homes have been treated with a termite antipesticide called chloradane. Were talking about liver and kidney problems. However, clordane, because of a federal Court Decision was removed from the shelves this past april 15th. Yes. So we eliminated a pesticide. A great victory. A long story behind that. But again, media amplified our voice. We recognize that we were not just focusing on particular individual residues in our food, but theres there was a regulatory system out there that was not adequately protected. Whether were talking about food or whether were talking about our homes. President bush today proposed legislation to make it easier to remove pesticides thought harmful from the market. He referred to widespread public concern over stories about the cancercausing chemical, alar, on apples and fungicide ebdc on fruits and vegetables. It is true that some of the publics perception is based on valid concerns about the governments slow and cumbersome process for removing pesticides from the market. And thats why were here today to announce a major new initiative. Environmentalists attacked the plan. Criticism also came from another environmental group. The National Coalition against misuse of pesticides. The president is more interested in calming public fears about pesticide than actually doing something substantive about it. In fact, the proposals, if implemented, for the most part would mean business as usual when in fact the public is calling for a dramatic change in safety of food in the Grocery Stores. But we bring people together. We bring scientists, policymakers and activists together and we discuss issues that go beyond food safety. Board member nelson. As consumers become aware in discerning about the Meeting Health impact of food in their diet, awareness of the impact on food workers and in particular farm workers becomes imperative. So its not just about the residues in our food. Its about who produces our food. How its harvested. Who produces the chemicals used in our Food Production system. And its about environmental justice. Here we have the father some call the father of environmental justice, pat brian, from louisiana talking about the connection back to the communities in cancer alley, louisiana. On these chemicals, if theres a risk of poisoning the environment, then we we were the risk takers. Poor people, people of color. Were the risk takers. It was an acceptable risk. What im saying is that we who are conscious have to look at the phenomenon of racism. So we look at the pesticides as an example. Its okay to kill the bugs. Its going to increase the crop yield. So what . If we got to produce it in a community someplace. So what if the workers at monsanto who get covered with stuff all the time carry it home on their clothes. Wash with the rest of the family. Clothing. Everybody gets sick. Cancers all over the place. So what . Thats an acceptable risk to increase the yield. For whom we will increase the yield . We had a 1958 law federal food drug and cosmetic act provision called the delanie clause which was repealed by congress. And we went from an unacceptable carcinogen to determining acceptable rates of exposure to carcinogens. This is lois gibbs with her child and my family that came out to join a rally before a hearing outside congress. Thank you. My kids are here and my wife as well. Lois, i dont know if your sons here. But then we moved onto lawn care. When we come back, well be joined

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