URGENT Take Action NOW to Protect Our Air and Water!

Use this link (https://actionnetwork.org/letters/oppose-sb-657?source=direct_link&referrer=group-network-nova-2) to contact your STATE senator (note: you only have one and it isn’t US Senator Tim Kaine or US Senator Mark Warner) to OPPOSE SB 657 NOW!

SB 657, the Air and Water Pollution Bill (” Limits the authority of the Air Pollution Control Board and the State Water Control Board to issuance of regulations and transfers the Boards’ existing authority to issue permits and orders to the Department of Environmental Quality”), has passed out of the Senate committee and will be headed to the full Senate soon. Share this social media post to create a groundswell of opposition.

Based on lies by Mountain Valley Pipeline’s partner, Equitrans Midstream, the Senate committee voted to pass the bill on to the full Senate. SB 657 would take the regulatory and permitting authority away from the citizen boards and give it to the DEQ, an agency which has been failing to protect our environment.
 
State Code already requires the Air Pollution Control and the State Water Control citizen boards to pass permit recommendations by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) staff, unless there are specific reasons not to. When the Air Pollution Control Board (APCB) asked specific questions during the permit hearing for MVP Southgate, the DEQ hadn’t done the research to be able to answer their questions. The APCB listened to the many scientists who presented data that substantiated that issuing the MVP permit wouldn’t be in compliance with Environmental Justice (EJ) state and federal laws. The Fourth Circuit Court had invalidated the APCB’s permit for the Union Hill air compressor station for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as being arbitrary and capricious based on EJ state and federal laws.

Recently, the 4th Circuit Court vacated permits for the MVP because the government agencies failed to protect environmental laws. Want to know more about how the DEQ has been failing to protect our water and needs citizen board oversight? Check out this Virginia Mercury article abouthow the DEQ is still failing to protect water from MVP, and this slide presentation with video and GPS date and time stamped photographic evidence.

Want to do more to educate our legislators and public about how DEQ is failing to protect our air and water? Then write a letter to the editor of your daily or weekly newspaper. Use this letter writing resource to learn how to craft and submit your letter.

Defeating SB 657 is a priority for the Virginia Grassroots Coalition and SAVE Coalition.