NRDC Annual Report 2010

2010 Annual Report

Natural Resources Defense Council

Safeguarding the EARTH Since 1970

Table of contents Partnership for the Earth NRDC’s most ambitious fundraising campaign ever is a success—and we set new sights.

E stablishing a Clean Energy Future That Curbs Climate Change From Chicago to China, NRDC is moving clean energy forward.

Reviving Our Oceans NRDC helped put America’s first national oceans policy in place and defends a melting Arctic.

D efending Endangered Wildlife and Wild Places Assuring a healthy future for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Protecting Our Health by Preventing Pollution NRDC’s Clean by Design project helps green the global textile industry.

Ensuring Safe and Sufficient Water NRDC is replacing unsustainable development policies with green infrastructure.

Fostering Sustainable Communities From overhauling America’s transportation network to planning smart growth, NRDC is building better communities.

NRDC Action Fund California voters resoundingly rejected a move by oil companies to roll back clean energy and climate law.

M edal of Freedom Awarded to John Adams Founding Director John H. Adams received the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. In announcing his selection of Adams, President Obama cited a tenure “unparalleled by the leader of any other environmental organization” and quoted Rolling Stone : “If the planet has a lawyer, it’s John Adams.” NRDC President Frances Beinecke said of the award, “President Obama recognized John Adams as the man who had the vision and fortitude to launch and build one of the world’s most prominent and effective environmental advocacy organizations.”

from the chairman of the board

RDC marked its 40th anniversary in 2010. Four decades is a powerful testament to NRDC’s staying power, but what is more extraordinary is what we have accomplished in that time. Our work has made the air safer, water cleaner, and landscapes better protected. This is the measure of our success.

NRDC’s focus on concrete achievement started early. We opened our doors in 1970 when John Adams and a group of students from Yale Law School (James Gustave Speth, Richard Ayres, Edward Strohbehn Jr., and John Bryson are still actively advancing environmental issues today) decided to pursue an untested idea: holding polluters accountable in court.

Within a matter of years, this young organization had won the nation’s first lawsuit to curb acid rain, sued the Army Corps of Engineers until it agreed to protect more of the nation’s waterways, and helped remove lead from gasoline by amending the Clean Air Act. NRDC’s victories continued throughout the decades. Some came after long-fought battles, such as protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling and, just this year, enacting a visionary national policy for reviving our oceans. But through it all, NRDC has persisted in its fight to secure stronger safeguards.

As I’ve watched the organization grow, I have been struck by something NRDC does remarkably well: We stay true to our original mission, but we embrace change as well.

Very few groups can say that, 40 years later, they are still surrounded by their founders and that the founding vision is just as present as it was in 1970. NRDC has the benefit of that continuity. We also have the benefit of innovation.

We started as a small group of lawyers. But when circumstance called for it, we added scientists, legislative advocates, engineers, and economists. We emerged out of a fight on the Hudson River. But we went wherever we could make a difference, from San Francisco to Beijing to Mumbai. Now we are a membership organization representing 1.3 million people who share our dedication to the environment.

NRDC’s ability to seize new opportunities and adopt new tools ensures that the next 40 years will bring as many victories as the first 40 did.

With the guidance of NRDC’s Board of Trustees, the expertise of its staff, and the passion of its members and supporters, we can build on this legacy.

We can draft the next generation of laws and win the next generation of lawsuits that will usher in a cleaner, more sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

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Daniel R. Tishman Chairman of the Board

A Force for Nature Tells the Story of NRDC—Celebrating 40 Years—and Our Fight to Save the Planet When John H. Adams and a group of fellow lawyers founded NRDC in 1970, no one was entirely sure the organization would survive its first year. Today NRDC is one of the unquestioned leaders of the environmental movement. In their new book, A Force for Nature, John and Patricia Adams write about how we got here, chronicling 40 years of courtroom battles, legislative triumphs, natural wonders, and personal memories. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said of the book, “John Adams was in the thick of all the major environmental battles of the past 40 years, and his account of how the movement grew from a small group of visionaries into a powerful force for change is nothing short of inspiring.” And Norman Lear, producer, writer, and founder of People for the American Way, says “If you can use a tonic to help sustain your hope for the future, try A Force for Nature. Here is the amazing story of John Adams and his wife and life partner, Patricia Adams, who, through the powers of persuasion in offices and living rooms across the nation, and the years of litigation and legislation that followed, pioneered the modern era of environmental conservation.”

n November President Obama announced that NRDC Founder John Adams would receive the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is America’s highest civilian honor and a fitting tribute to a man who has done so much to safeguard the health and natural riches of the American people.

But in his characteristic generosity, John insists his accomplishments are a testament to NRDC’s extraordinary team. “When I step into the White House and receive this American honor,” John wrote to the staff, “you know my thoughts will be of you—the NRDC team that will always be the world champions of our environment.”

Thanks to these talented staffers, NRDC is ready to take on the toughest problems, even in difficult political times. The midterm elections washed in a wave of new lawmakers—many of whom will try to undermine our nation’s bedrock environmental protections.

NRDC has faced similar upheavals in Washington before, and we know what it takes to prevail. Congress may present a roadblock, but other avenues for restoring the environment remain wide open.

Our first priority is to ensure that we defend the laws already on the books. We are determined, for instance, to preserve the integrity of the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to protect our health and reduce climate-changing pollution.

Our second priority is to work with willing partners who are moving ahead with environmental solutions right now. We are advising the Obama administration on energy efficiency, wildlife protections, and clean water guidelines. We are also working in states where leaders are helping push America into a clean energy future. And we are working with business, labor, and other important stakeholder groups.

As we pursue these opportunities, NRDC will be guided by a clear and compelling road map. In 2010 we updated our strategic plan. We identified the six issues we will focus on in the next five years and the capacities we will use to achieve our goals. The plan allows NRDC to remain nimble and responsive to the current political landscape, but it also enables us to build toward our long-term aim: creating a cleaner, more sustainable future.

In the end, this is the work of all Americans—of all those who believe we share a common duty to protect the air, water, and landscapes that sustain us. As John Adams said when he learned of his Presidential honor, “This is how we keep faith with future generations.” We are confident that NRDC and our extraordinary team can help guide the way.

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Frances Beinecke President

Peter Lehner Executive Director

New Book on Why the BP Blowout Occurred and What We Can Learn From It What happened on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig to create the catastrophic spill? What drove its engineers to cut corners and make bad design decisions? And how did our nation arrive at a point where recklessness in pursuit of oil is condoned and rewarded? NRDC Executive Director Peter Lehner explores these questions in a new book, In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and How to End Our Oil Addiction. He wrote the book, along with NRDC colleague Bob Deans, because the country has paid a high price for the mistakes that led to the disaster, and we must learn the lessons that have come at such a grievous cost. In the book, the authors show how America can make offshore drilling less perilous by investing in the safeguards we need, the institutions required to enforce those safeguards, and the professionals we can count on to protect our safety, health, and environment. They also examine how American ingenuity can break our addiction to oil and begin moving this country to safer, cleaner, more sustainable sources of power and fuel.

letter

from the president and executive director

Our groundbreaking five-year fundraising campaign comes to a close RDC’s tenacity and adaptability—driven by our committed board of trustees, exceptional staff, and growing ranks of generous supporters—have long been the hallmarks of our success. No single effort in our history has better exemplified and enhanced these core strengths than our Partnership for the Earth campaign. By the close of this unparalleled fundraising initiative in December 2010, dedicated NRDC donors with a shared concern for the fate our planet and its precious resources had contributed more than $500 million, surpassing our goal.

This surge of funding provided critical core support that sharply focused our work in addressing our biggest environmental challenges. Here are some of the key investments made possible by the campaign. Through the support of NRDC’s donors we have:

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n assembled

the largest and most comprehensive energy staff of any nonprofit group to identify and advance the best opportunities for achieving an 80 percent reduction in America’s global warming pollution by 2050;

n launched

the Center for Market Innovation, which has quickly become a leading voice in documenting and demonstrating the economic potential of clean energy and efficiency, and in advancing effective financing methods;

n established

a new office in the Midwest that has helped combat invasive species in the Great Lakes, as well as secure pioneering energy efficiency rules and renewable energy standards in the region;

n opened

an office in Beijing that is collaborating closely with local partners in government and the private sector on a range of cost-effective energy efficiency programs, and a series of initiatives to help China build stronger environmental laws, greater transparency, and better mechanisms for enforcement. This new office has also helped position us as the leading nongovernmental player in facilitating international climate negotiations between the U.S. and China;

n created

the Science Center to expand significantly NRDC’s overall scientific authority by bringing key technical expertise to our litigation and advocacy work on a range of issues; and

n harnessed

opportunities presented by new social and digital media platforms—such as Facebook, Twitter, and staff blogs—to engage new activists and expand our influence.

The Partnership for the Earth campaign has enabled NRDC to score numerous on-the-ground victories across six priority areas: establishing a clean energy future that curbs climate change, reviving our oceans, defending wildlife and wild places, protecting our health by preventing pollution, ensuring safe and sufficient water, and fostering sustainable communities. You will see the achievements of the campaign throughout this annual report. But many of our planet’s most daunting environmental challenges will take decades to address. With this in mind, we will continue to partner with our supporters to advance the kinds of bold, crosscutting strategies that drive transformative change. On behalf of the full Steering Committee of the Partnership for the Earth campaign, we offer our deep thanks to all of the dedicated NRDC donors who contributed to this landmark campaign.

John H. Adams, Wendy Schmidt, Wendy Neu, and Philip B. Korsant, co-chairs, NRDC’s Partnership for the Earth campaign.

Partnership for the Earth Steering Committee John H. Adams, co-chair Philip B. Korsant, co-chair Wendy Neu, co-chair Wendy Schmidt, co-chair Patricia Adams Adam Albright Patricia Bauman Frances Beinecke

Robert J. Fisher Cindy Harrell-Horn Josephine A. Merck Robert Redford Sam Rose Max Stone Patricia F. Sullivan Daniel R. Tishman

NRDC’s Strategic Plan 2011–2015 Year in and year out, NRDC strives to maintain an institutional vision that is both made for the times and flexible enough to allow us to respond quickly to changing local and global forces. We take risks when opportunities arise, and when necessary, we re-examined our strategies.

The result is a revised strategic plan for the next five years that will position us to excel in today’s political and economic climate and achieve our long-term goal of building a cleaner, more ecologically and economically sustainable future. We have named six institutional policy priorities to advance these goals: establish a clean energy future that curbs climate change, revive our oceans, defend endangered wild places and wildlife, protect our health by preventing pollution, ensure safe and sufficient water, and foster sustainable communities. We have made important progress in these areas over the past five years, but we must continue to hone our effectiveness across these fields to influence not only the decisionmakers, but those who influence them.

partnership for the earth

What’s Next:

Advancing the Clean Energy Economy

NRDC’s blue-ribbon team working on clean energy issues is more than 100 strong and one of the best in the nation, including experts such as those pictured below (from left): Dale Bryk, Director, Air and Energy Program; Uchenna Bright, administrative assistant; Kit Kennedy, Counsel, Air and Energy Program, and Roland Hwang, Transportation Program Director; and Luke Tonachel, Vehicles Analyst, and Nathanael Greene, Director of Renewable Energy Policy.

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Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Shannon Fisk Senior Attorney, Chicago Posted Aug. 10, 2010 NRDC has been challenging permits for a $6.9 billion liquid coal facility because it fails to satisfy the requirements of environmental laws and because the facility would have twice the CO2 emissions of conventional fuel production. We have appealed the Clean Air Act permit issued to the facility by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on the grounds that the permit fails to regulate CO2 emissions, require the maximum reduction in emissions of other pollutants that is cost-effectively achievable, or address serious concerns about emissions spikes during process upsets or malfunctions at the facility.

Comment from Nachy K — Sep 1 2010 12:06 PM The longer we keep clinging to this shadow project and others like it, the more we lose out on real economic development that has a proven record of bringing back good Ohio jobs.

Establishing a Clean Energy Future that Curbs Climate Change

ow more than ever, America needs a concrete plan for kick-starting the clean energy future. This past year revealed in vivid detail the high price we pay for our continued reliance on fossil fuels. A coal mine accident in West Virginia killed 29 people. The BP disaster killed 11 men and devastated the Gulf of Mexico’s marine life and coastal communities. The hottest summer on record reminded us that disruptive climate change has begun.

And yet the Senate failed to take up the comprehensive climate legislation that would have put us on a safer, cleaner course.

Fortunately, outdated energy technologies are being replaced with clean, safe alternatives: utilities from Arizona to Illinois are making massive investments in energy efficiency; the U.S. auto industry is scaling up production of the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles; and new factories are cropping up across the country to deliver wind turbines, LED lighting, and advanced batteries.

NRDC is at the forefront of these and other efforts to fully realize a clean energy economy. We have a strategy to achieve this vision by transforming the electricity, natural gas, transportation, and industrial sectors into cleaner, more efficient, and more competitive businesses and systems.

Pioneering Energy Efficiency Strategies

Proving Cleaner Is Better With Facts

Mobilizing the Power of Federal Agencies

For more than 35 years, NRDC has been the undisputed leader in designing efficiency standards, demonstrating time and again that more efficient products save money and cut pollution. In fact, energy efficiency has the potential to reduce the nation’s energy bill by $1.2 trillion over the next decade and create almost a million new jobs.

In 2006, only eight states had embarked on the regulatory reform needed to put efficiency on a level playing field with power plants. Today, we have persuaded half the states to go down this road. As a result, utility investments in efficiency have more than doubled from $1.9 billion to $5.4 billion. In 2010, we also helped negotiate efficiency agreements that will save ComEd customers in Illinois almost $500 million while avoiding the need for nine coal-fired power plants. In Arizona, we worked with local partners to help persuade a bipartisan commission to adopt an efficiency plan that will save consumers $9 billion, transforming the state into a national leader on efficiency.

NRDC is especially adept at illustrating the cumulative power of making everyday appliances more efficient. Many products are surprising energy hogs. A flat-screen TV, for instance, can consume more electricity than a new refrigerator. NRDC experts knew we could fix that. In 2009 we helped California draft and approve new standards that will cut the power use of new flat-screen TVs by as much as 50 percent and save Californians almost $1 billion a year in the form of lower electricity bills.

How do we know that America can shift to clean energy and still keep the lights burning? We know because NRDC does the analysis to prove it. Our experts understand the industry’s challenges and limitations, as well as its promise, and we are unparalleled in our advocacy before the nation’s policy makers. In the waning hours of the last Congress, NRDC helped push through an extension of key incentives for wind and solar power. These incentives, known as treasury grants, are especially critical in the absence of a federal Renewable Energy Standard, which we continue to pursue. NRDC also achieved a truly groundbreaking level of collaboration between western land and wildlife communities and the solar industry. When six “fast track” largescale solar projects were proposed on federal lands, we worked with industry to develop siting principles and mitigation measures and won support or neutrality for four of the six projects. Also working with allies, NRDC contributed to two crucial victories in 2010 for the Cape Wind offshore wind project, proposed for federal waters in Nantucket Sound, which will produce enough clean renewable power to meet 75 percent of Cape Cod’s electricity demand.

NRDC’s experts and advocates are working to ensure that every agency uses its clout under existing law to deliver as much clean energy as possible. As a result of sound research and strong advocacy

by NRDC, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued more new energy efficiency standards in the last two years than any other administration in history. In 2010, for instance, with backing from NRDC and our allies, the Department of Energy issued a new federal standard for residential water heaters and other heating equipment that will cut water heater energy use in half, reducing carbon emissions by 160 million tons and saving consumers $10 billion over the next 30 years.

Also in 2010, NRDC and allies announced an agreement on energy and water efficiency standards for “white goods” appliances, such as dishwashers and refrigerators, that will save 5 trillion gallons of water and billions of consumer dollars over the next 30 years, reducing carbon emissions by 550 million metric tons. That’s enough energy to meet the total energy needs of 40 percent of American homes for one year.

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued its own rules to reduce harmful pollution from power plants and industrial facilities. The coal industry is trying to block this effort—a move that would benefit polluters, but not American families. Stopping the EPA would undermine the Clean Air Act, a law that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. NRDC won’t let that happen. We’ve beaten back previous attacks on the EPA both in court and in Congress, and we will succeed again by running a full-throttle campaign to preserve this tool and protect the integrity of the Clean Air Act.

Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Frances Beinecke, NRDC President Posted Jan 26, 2011 In State of the Union Address, President Obama presented a bold, confident plan for leading America into the future, and he placed clean energy solutions at its center. These technologies, he said, will help our nation “win the future.”

The president got it right: clean energy solutions will make our workers more competitive, our companies stronger, our country more secure, and all of us healthier.

Cutting Carbon Pollution at the State Level

Replicating Our Success Internationally

NRDC‘s energy team also has the resolve to fight the dirty relics of the past: coal, corn ethanol, fracking, tar sands, and mountaintop mining.

NRDC’s Midwest energy team won a significant victory in the heart of coal country when American Municipal Power-Ohio (AMP) decided to cancel its proposed $4 billion coal plant in southeast Ohio. The plant would have emitted 7 million tons of greenhouse gases and more than 10,000 tons of other harmful air pollutants over 40 years. NRDC successfully limited the extension of the main corn ethanol tax credit to one year— saving $25 billion—by helping build a coalition of unusual bedfellows ranging from the Tea Party’s FreedomWorks to MoveOn.org. Meanwhile, as potentially hazardous natural gas drilling spreads across the nation, NRDC is calling on Congress to close a loophole that exempts chemical-intensive fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Our Washington, D.C. team is deployed in the fight against the destruction of the Boreal forest by tar sands strip-mining and drilling, pushing the State Department to reject pipelines that would transport tar sands from Alberta through sensitive lands and major aquifers to refineries in alreadypolluted communities of the U.S. Gulf Coast, and working to block U.S. energy bills that promote tar sands. And with coal companies devouring Appalachia with mountaintop removal mining, NRDC reached out to new partners in country music, such as Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and Big Kenny, to speak out against this practice and perform at the “Music Saves Mountains” concert in Nashville.

NRDC’s groundbreaking work with statehouses around the nation gives the lie to naysayers in Washington who have yet to realize that economic and environmental prosperity go hand in hand. At the state level, the clean energy future is already becoming a reality. Our energy team has been working with utilities and state officials for decades, securing scores of efficiency and renewable energy policies, and ushering the next generation of clean energy technologies into the marketplace.

We’ve also tapped our on-the-ground presence to pioneer models for cutting carbon, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program we helped design that is reducing carbon emissions from power plants and driving investment in energy efficiency in 10 northeastern states. RGGI has saved consumers $900 million on their energy bills and allowed the states to cut carbon pollution by 30 percent.

In California, clean energy policies have created the largest bright spot in the state’s economy. By showcasing the real jobs and public health benefits that shifting to clean energy has delivered, we helped defeat a ballot measure heavily funded by oil companies. NRDC tapped our partners in California’s business, clean tech, and public health communities to show that fighting global warming is good for the state’s economy. Voters agreed and overwhelmingly voted to uphold California’s groundbreaking climate law in November.

At the same time NRDC is building a clean energy economy in America, we are also helping to push it forward in China and India. NRDC has been working in China for more than 15 years, and the influential experts in our 30-person Beijing office have successfully advocated for cuttingedge national and provincial energy policies. In 2009 NRDC launched a U.S.-India Initiative on Climate Change and Energy, and our experts are poised to become equally well regarded in India.

Our key international strategy is to take successful models and help adapt them to local circumstances. A program NRDC helped design in California to reduce electricity demand has now been adopted by China nationwide; a program we launched to accelerate building efficiency in California and New York was expanded to Hyderabad, India.

We also develop programs on the ground. In the Chinese province of Jiangsu, NRDC helped design energy efficiency measures that are saving 3.5 million MWh each year and are now being scaled up nationwide. But our collaboration is a two-way street.

As China and India invest heavily in clean energy, our experts bring those stories back to Washington lawmakers, reminding them why America needs to stake its place in the global clean energy market.

Our international experts also continue to engage in international climate negotiations. NRDC played a key role in advocating for more robust reporting and transparency on emissions and mitigation actions by China, India, and other developing countries, removing a key stumbling block to the international climate negotiations.

Establishing a Clean Energy Future that Curbs Climate Change

Stopping Dirty Fuel Sources in Their Tracks

NRDC President Frances Beinecke Appointed by President Obama to Serve on Commission Examining Oil Spill Disaster NRDC’s leadership has emerged as central to our national response to the BP oil spill disaster. Early on, President Obama tapped NRDC President Frances Beinecke to sit on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, a commission NRDC called for in the days after the blowout. Frances committed to conducting a rigorous investigation to carry out what President Obama asked in his executive order establishing the commission: “Examine the relevant facts and circumstances concerning the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster” and “develop options for guarding against, and mitigating the impact of, oil spills associated with offshore drilling.”

President Obama said, “These individuals [on the oil spill commission] bring tremendous expertise and experience to the critical work of this commission. I am grateful they have agreed to serve as we work to determine the causes of this catastrophe and implement the safety and environmental protections we need to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.”

The Gulf Catastrophe: he oil industry and federal regulators said it couldn’t happen. We knew it could.

So when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, unleashing one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation’s history, NRDC stood ready to channel all of our available resources into action.

We rapidly assembled a SWAT team of top NRDC experts on oceans, human health, communications, government affairs, and marine mammals to ensure a well-coordinated and effective response.

Throughout the spring and summer, our team battled on every major front of the Gulf crisis, from the Mississippi Delta to Capitol Hill, to advance four broad goals: protecting the health of workers, residents and wildlife in the Gulf region; holding BP accountable for the destruction that it had wrought; protecting our coasts against future oil spills by strengthening government agencies and oversight; and continuing the fight for clean energy policies that will significantly reduce our country’s dependence on oil.

Only days after the blowout, we dispatched scientists and communications

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experts to the Gulf to help protect local communities from immediate harm.

Our health team worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to improve the monitoring of air quality in the area and provided real-time information to local communities on the potential health effects of the spill and of the chemical dispersants that BP was using to try to fight it. Later our team worked with local leaders to strengthen the validity of the Food and Drug Administration’s seafood risk assessments—which determine when to reopen fisheries closed due to the oil disaster—fully protect the health of vulnerable communities from toxic oil contaminants.

Meanwhile, our communications team gathered images and stories of people from the region to document the mounting toll of the disaster, and we made sure that these local voices were heard in the national press. “It was very helpful for NRDC to get a first-hand look at what was happening in the Gulf. Our experts were able to determine where government most needed to be prodded to improve its response and just how much

Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Peter Lehner Executive Director, New York City Posted July 12, 2010 Michel Gagnier, a Louisiana resident, told the crowd that his close friend lives in Waveland, Mississippi, where the beaches were hit by a thick black tide of oil. He said, “I’ve walked these beaches all my life and now they’re ruined. I’m really angry about this oil spill, and I’m here to do something about it.” Our hope is that the Gulf Resource Center can help people like Gagnier connect with local efforts to recover from the spill. On Thursday, for instance, we were joined by our partners at the Gulf Coast Fund, as well as representatives from Bayou Grace Community Services, Grand Bayou Community United, Catholic Charities, and a handful of other community groups. The opening of the center marks the beginning of a dialogue. NRDC wants to hear from residents, and we want to share our advocacy muscle. Together we can help the Gulf community heal from the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

NRDC on the Front Lines the disaster seemed to be imperiling the environment. NRDC communications staff were very successful at using their on-the-ground presence to get the word out about what was at stake,” said David Goldston, NRDC’s Director of Government Affairs, who headed the SWAT team with Sarah Chasis, Director of our Oceans Initiative. “Our up-to-the-minute observations and insights, documented in daily blog posts and media interviews, were crucial to countering the oil industry’s PR machine and making the broader public aware of what was really happening down there.”

In July, NRDC and the Gulf Coast Fund established the Gulf Coast Resource Center in Buras, Louisiana, to facilitate communication among Gulf residents, local groups, and the media and provide open-door access to NRDC’s science, health, policy, advocacy, and communications expertise. Meanwhile, through our Gulf Coast Recovery Fund, NRDC members donated more than $125,000 directly to local nonprofit

groups that were helping to restore the hardest-hit communities, wildlife, and ecosystems.

As we worked to support thousands of Gulf residents facing the daunting challenge of recovery, we leveraged NRDC’s legal expertise and political clout to help guard against such a disaster in the future. When the oil industry argued that it could still safely drill in the deep waters of the Gulf, we joined the Obama administration in defending a moratorium on deepwater drilling in court. We also filed suit over the misuse of sonic exploration in the Gulf and prepared for additional legal action to ensure that endangered species receive adequate consideration in oil companies’ plans for new drilling operations. Our oceans team helped compel the White House to issue stricter requirements for drilling procedures, as we urged Congress to pass new legislation governing where and when drilling can occur. Meanwhile, we pressed the federal government to allow for greater scientific input in

determining the full environmental impact of the spill, and we fought to ensure that the $500 million BP promised for scientific research would be promptly and properly spent.

Over the summer our multimedia team produced more than 40 short videos featuring Gulf residents, NRDC experts, and high-profile supporters that were viewed by millions of people.

Our ongoing communication effort also included the publication of the first book on the Gulf oil spill, In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and How to End Our Oil Addiction, and a collaboration with StoryCorps and Bridge the Gulf to provide an important avenue for Gulf residents to tell their own stories.

Ultimately, our nation will always be at risk for massive oil spills as long we prolong our dependence on oil. With this in mind, we will continue to press Congress to increase fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and to pass comprehensive energy legislation.

When author David Gessner arrived on the Gulf Coast to report about the BP blowout, the first thing he did was take a swim in tarball-filled waters. The next thing he did was write about it for the website of OnEarth, NRDC’s award-winning magazine.

Gessner’s compelling dispatches represented a first for OnEarth : the ability to cover an unfolding environmental disaster in real time. Over the past year, OnEarth.org has expanded to help fill the void left by traditional news outlets that are cutting environmental coverage. The Web site has recruited award-winning journalists and published breaking news that local and national outlets have scrambled to follow.

On the other big oil disaster of the summer—a burst pipeline in Michigan—OnEarth.org hired former

OnEarth.org Digs Into Spills

story), and the CEO was eventually forced to come clean about his dirty fuel spill.

In August 2010, OnEarth.org’s transformation culminated with a redesign and expanded offerings, such as videos, photo galleries, and a new section for community contributors. Coverage of the Gulf spill was a major beneficiary of the new direction; OnEarth.org published more than 50 online stories, videos, and blog posts about the disaster. In the fall, a series of stories by journalist Barry Yeoman called “Losing Louisiana” took readers beyond BP, looking at the environmental, economic, and cultural crisis created by the state’s disappearing wetlands, which are vanishing at the rate of a football field every hour. OnEarth’s coverage of the Gulf’s plight and its people is far from over.

Washington Post correspondent Kari Lydersen, who asked tough questions about what spilled into the Kalamazoo River. The company’s CEO lied, telling the reporter his pipeline wasn’t carrying tar sands oil; OnEarth laid out the evidence, other news outlets piled on (prompted in part by NRDC’s Midwest media ace Josh Mogerman’s OnEarth.org pushing the

Establishing a Clean Energy Future that Curbs Climate Change

NRDC has been working with StoryCorps and Bridge the Gulf to record, share, and preserve the stories and experiences of Gulf residents as they talk, on their own terms, about lost livelihoods and family traditions and the environmental impacts of the BP oil disaster.

Listen and watch at www.nrdc.org/storycorps.

REVIVING our OCEANS:

America’s First National Oceans Policy

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managing day-to-day threats to our ocean ecosystems, as well as new approaches designed to protect sensitive areas from an environmental and economic catastrophe like the Gulf oil spill. Among the new policy’s reforms is a requirement that the more than 20 federal agencies that oversee activities affecting our ocean resources—and have historically operated with different goals and conflicting mandates—coordinate their efforts to ensure ocean protection.

Effective immediately, each of these agencies must consider decisions it makes in the context of their cumulative impacts on ocean health. Moving forward, an interagency National Ocean Council will help oversee the policy’s implementation, including the development of nine action plans to address priority ocean issues.

Over the coming year, NRDC will be working to promote and monitor the development of several of these action plans, covering urgent issues such as ocean acidification. Meanwhile, we will be making detailed recommendations as another key provision of the policy is implemented: the creation over the next several years of regional coastal and marine plans. These science-based plans, which will be developed for the different ocean regions of the country by joint federal/state planning bodies with public input, will provide a blueprint to guide ocean activities from unsuitable to suitable areas. This planning will provide greater certainty for developers. We will be working to ensure that these plans protect sensitive areas and the overall health of ocean ecosystem upon which we depend for food, medicines, climate regulation, and the very air we breathe.

Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Sarah Chasis Senior Attorney and Director, Ocean Initiative, New York Posted Sept. 7, 2010 Just as we have the Clean Water Act for our water and the Clean Air Act for our air, we now have a bedrock environmental policy like this for our oceans. We demand a lot from our oceans—from fishing to shipping to energy development—and we must develop better, more sustainable ways to manage the increasing amount of industrial pressure and “ocean sprawl” on our seas so that they can continue to provide the food, jobs, and recreation we rely on. The national ocean policy will help coordinate efforts to reduce pollution and protect marine life, so that beaches are clean and fish and wildlife abundant. It will help us combat traditional stresses like nutrient pollution and overfishing and face serious new challenges like ocean acidification.

Reviving Our Oceans

ears before the BP oil disaster, two major commissions warned that our oceans—including the Gulf of Mexico—were in a state of silent collapse. On top of long-standing stressors such as pollution, underwater noise, overfishing, and unsound coastal development, daunting new challenges are putting coastal ecosystems, marine life, and the economy at grave risk. Ocean acidification caused by mounting carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere has potentially serious implications for the entire ocean food chain, including commercially important seafood. But President Obama provided new hope for our ocean realm in July 2010 by issuing an executive order establishing a comprehensive national policy for our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. While the Gulf oil spill gave the president’s historic move a fresh sense of urgency, NRDC and our partners had long been promoting the adoption of a seminal environmental policy for protecting, maintaining, and restoring ocean health. After the president assembled an interagency task force in 2009 to develop an oceans policy and a plan to implement it, we helped lead the effort among national, regional, and local conservation groups to formulate and submit strong, science-based recommendations. The adoption of this key policy marks a critical shift in thinking about our seas, not as a bottomless treasure chest to be plundered, but as a critically endangered resource on which countless lives and livelihoods across the globe depend.

America’s first-ever oceans policy provides a coherent national vision for

Defending a Melting Arctic

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ce sheets around 12 feet thick have provided a protective natural barrier around some of our planet’s most pristine ocean ecosystems for millennia. But in recent years, the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice due to global warming has cleared a path to the heart of some of these formerly remote areas—and oil and gas companies are clamoring to stake their claim. In response, NRDC has raced to court repeatedly to block proposed drilling in sensitive habitat for polar bears, whales, and other imperiled wildlife.

We have waged a long-term campaign to block the Shell oil company from drilling off the sensitive coastline of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And, in a major NRDC court victory in July 2010, a federal court halted oil and gas companies from moving ahead with drilling operations in millions of acres spanning Alaska’s Chukchi Sea—one of our nation’s two “Polar Bear Seas”—until more studies are completed on the impacts and risks of drilling.

As the Gulf oil disaster made clear, even the best existing technology cannot eliminate the staggering risks of offshore oil and gas drilling, and a similar-size spill in the Arctic could have more profound consequences.

Canadian regulators recently warned that it would take at least three years to drill a relief well to cap an oil blowout in Arctic waters.

Moreover, oil companies have no technology for cleaning up oil in broken sea ice—one of the main places where polar bears search for food. As we continue to fight in court on behalf of Arctic wildlife, we are calling for a sevenyear moratorium on drilling in Arctic waters.

Internationally, we are working to promote protected areas and strong international rules on fishing, offshore oil development and other industrial development.

Putting Northern Rockies Wolves Back on the Endangered Species List n the summer of 2010, as a federal judge in a Missoula, Montana, courthouse presided over a hearing on whether wolves in Montana and Idaho should be granted the same protections as wolves in neighboring Wyoming, dozens of anti-wolf protesters marched outside with handwritten placards: “Got Wolves?

Shoot Them!” and “Save an Elk Herd. Kill a Wolf!”

But on August 5, 2010, the wolf prevailed. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy sided with NRDC, Earthjustice, and 13 other conservation groups and restored Endangered Species Act protection to wolves across the Northern Rockies.

Following the Obama administration’s decision to strip Montana and Idaho wolves of federal protection in 2009, more than 500 wolves were gunned down by hunters or government agents.

As we battled in court to turn back the administration’s reckless decision, we mobilized our members and online activists to demand that all 1,700 Northern Rockies wolves be protected until their population can fully recover.

Meanwhile, our team of wolf experts, led by veteran wildlife advocate Louisa Willcox in our Livingston, Montana, office, worked tirelessly to promote NRDC as a credible, science-based voice on every front where the battle over the wolf’s future was playing out— from rancher meetings to regional news outlets to the offices of wildlife agencies.

Thanks to online communication tools,

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including NRDC’s Switchboard blog and social media networks such as Twitter, our experts from the fields of advocacy, law, science, and communications were able to respond instantly to developments as they unfolded and build strong support for wolves in a tone that was both authoritative and personal. “Given our experience in the convoluted and torturous delisting process over the last four years,” wrote Willcox in a June 2010 blog post, “it is clear that the government has no good road map of how to get a recovery plan that … ensures a healthy wolf population in the long term. Is that too much to ask, for a species that so many of us have spent so much blood, sweat, and tears to recover?”

The federal court’s ruling put a halt to more public hunts that were planned for the fall, sparing the lives of perhaps hundreds of wolves. Not surprisingly, the age-old battle over the wolf’s fate continues. Officials are now scrambling for loopholes that, if approved by the Obama administration, would allow them to move forward with the mass killing of wolves. And, in Congress, bills have already been introduced that would strip wolves of all Endangered Species Act protections. Fortunately, NRDC is better positioned than ever to meet such threats head on—both in court and Congress. We will continue to mobilize our members and reach out to stakeholders on both sides of the debate until we secure a sound recovery plan that assures a healthy future for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Voices for the Wild: NRDC’s online activists, known as

BioGems Defenders, have sent nearly 1 million messages to key federal and state officials in defense of wolves in the Northern Rockies—and 14 million messages in total since January 2001!

“ I have never seen a wild wolf, I may never see a wild wolf, but that does not mean that I do not care passionately about their survival. Wolves are magnificent animals—graceful, intelligent, and with a complex and fascinating family structure. I take great pleasure thinking about wolves existing somewhere: roaming their territory, raising their pups. To me, wolves represent the majesty and beauty of our American landscape. It is my dream that someday I will be able to take my daughter to one of our great national parks, and to see a wolf in his or her natural habitat. That is why I work in whatever small ways I can to help protect not only wolves but all creatures and their priceless habitats.”

Maureen, CA “ Once wildlife such as wolves are lost they can never be brought back. This is to deny the benefits of them to future generations forever.”

Stephen, Cheshire, U.K. “ Man seems too quick to want to kill a species instead of working out ways for the wolves, etc. to live in harmony with other species. We need to restore balance in nature.”

Marjorie, Ga

In southwestern Alaska lies one of North America’s most spectacular wildlands: the Bristol Bay watershed.

An untouched paradise for grizzly bears, wolves and whales, Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

Yet the British mining giant Anglo American and its Canadian partner, Northern Dynasty Minerals, is moving forward with a scheme to dig a 2,000-foot-deep, two-mile-long gold and copper mine at the headwaters

of the bay. The project would generate some 10 billion tons of mining waste, laced with toxic chemicals, that would be stored forever in an active earthquake zone. A quake or industrial accident would spell disaster for Bristol Bay, its wildlife, and the Native communities that have subsisted there for thousands of years.

NRDC has stood behind those communities and local fishermen by taking their fight to the national and international stage. We launched this newest BioGems campaign by running a full-page NRDC ad in The New York Times, helping to spark nationwide opposition to the Pebble Mine, and

a full-page ad in London’s Financial Times on Earth Day directed to Anglo American. At its annual shareholders’ meeting on Earth Day, Anglo American was presented with 100,000 signatures on a Petition of Protest from NRDC members and online activists. Then, in June 2010, at a closed-door meeting with high-level officials at Mitsubishi— one of the multinational companies backing the mine—we delivered another Petition of Protest with nearly 100,000 signatures.

Gaining entry to Mitsubishi’s corridors of power is no easy task, but this was not NRDC’s first face-off with the industrial giant. Ten years ago,

pressure from our members helped compel Mitsubishi to abandon plans for a massive saltworks in the world’s last pristine gray whale nursery at Mexico’s San Ignacio Lagoon. So far, Mitsubishi and Anglo American officials have acknowledged our concerns about the Pebble Mine’s impacts but have given no indication of walking away from the project. Like the saltworks at San Ignacio, the mine will likely take years to defeat. We will continue escalating pressure on the mine’s corporate backers until they realize that their venture is not worth the staggering environmental and financial risks.

Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Josh Mogerman Senior Media Associate, Chicago Posted Aug. 21, 2009 Idaho’s governor, Butch Otter, famously exclaimed that he’d be first in line for a tag in last year’s proposed wolf hunt.

So when the reporter asked about Otter’s plan for this year, the governor turned the tables and asked if the reporter would buy a wolf hunt tag too. He did not really answer the question—he noted his own conflict and quoted Aldo Leopold to imply that even if he bought a tag, he’d not shoot. There are plenty of scientists who hope that more hunters in Idaho will feel just as conflicted­—not just about fair chase, but about shooting wolves in general—the fate of the greatest wildlife conservation story may just hang in the balance...

Matt Skoglund Wildlife Advocate, Livingston, MT Posted Sept. 7, 2010 In an exciting and hard-fought victory today, Judge Donald Molloy ruled that Northern Rockies wolves must be returned to the endangered species list. This ruling in our favor, the latest in a long saga of legal battles, restores critical Endangered Species Act protections for all wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Comment from Craig — Aug. 6 2010 01:32 PM Thank you NRDC, one of the few charities that lobby that GET RESULTS! You'll have my support for the foreseeable future!

Comment from Helen — Aug. 11 2010 01:45 PM Hurrah for you and NRDC's Montana staff, Matt.

Without such commitment and hard work by you, the wolves would have lost their place in the ecological chain.

Comment from John — Aug. 6 2010 03:40 PM Best news of the day...Thanks for your efforts on this NRDC.

Defending Endangered Wildlife and Wild Places

Fighting Worldwide for Bristol Bay

Pioneering Green Strategies in the Global Textile Industry ost Americans could probably guess from a quick tour of their own closets that China is the world’s leading producer of textiles. In fact, half of the clothing that Americans buy is made in China. But what most people don’t know is that textile manufacturing is one of the most polluting industries in the world and one of the largest industrial sources of water pollution. The Chinese textile industry alone creates about 3 billion tons of soot each year, and a single mill can use about 200 tons of water for each ton of fabric it dyes.

Rivers literally run red—and every other shade of the rainbow— with toxic waste from the dyeing process. Until recently, only niche apparel brands that had built their name on sustainability paid close enough attention to environmental performance within their supply chains. But thanks to NRDC’s Clean by Design initiative, spearheaded by Linda Greer, NRDC’s health program director, multinational retail giants including Walmart and H&M are now pledging to begin work with their Chinese textile suppliers to dramatically reduce their water, energy, and chemical use.

As part of NRDC’s longstanding campaign to reduce the environmental and health impacts of runaway pollution and energy use in China, NRDC scientists teamed up with our provincial partners to conduct a study of the country’s most polluting industries.

We discovered that China’s textile sector is one of the two leading water polluters.

After conducting fact-finding missions to more than a dozen Chinese fabric mills and dye houses, we identified opportunities for low-cost, money-saving improvements that will dramatically reduce pollution and improve efficiency, including better

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NRDC board members Anna Scott Carter and Bob Fisher are instrumental partners in the Clean by Design project, providing strategic direction, expertise, and invaluable connections.

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China’s textile manufacturing industry emits 3 billion tons of soot each year and textile dyeing causes between 17 and 20 percent of industrial water pollution. insulation, improved steam management, and hot water recycling. Meanwhile, we teamed up with the Council of Fashion Designers of America and assembled an advisory council of world-class designers and industry leaders. Using hands-on studies of five mills, we created a 10 best practices guide to promote improvements in textile factory performance that will reduce the environmental footprint of the industry’s global supply chain without sacrificing the bottom line.

The Jiangsu Redbud Textile Company, a Chinese-owned mill that supplies Walmart and other leading retailers, put our best practices to the test—and the results were profound. After adopting just three of the ten best practices, Redbud began saving 740 tons of water per day and 9.4 tons of coal per day. The one-time cost of $72,000 for implementing the improvements was recouped in cost savings in just 32 days—and the mill is now saving nearly $840,000 annually. According to NRDC estimates, if just 100 small and medium-size textile mills implemented our 10 best practices, China would save more than 16 million metric tons of water annually, enough to provide 12.4 million people drinking water for a year. Moreover, it would eliminate 1 million metric tons of carbon pollution annually—the equivalent of taking 172,000 cars off the road for a year.

Walmart has committed to begin work with Chinese textile manufacturers to implement our best practices at select mills and to track water and energy savings. We have reached a similar agreement with H&M, which operates more than 2,000 stores worldwide. Moving forward, we will continue to promote our best practices guide with multinational retailers, brands, and designers and to work with officials and experts in China to ensure the widespread adoption of Clean by Design solutions in the textile industry.

onsider for a moment how much scientists have learned since 1976 about the effects of toxic chemicals on human health. Then, imagine that the federal law designed to protect the public from toxic chemicals had remained unchanged since 1976, despite these advances.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true: As recently as two years ago, America’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), our nation’s bedrock chemical control law, was moldering—all but forgotten by Washington policymakers since its adoption more than three decades ago.

NRDC and other groups toiled for more than a decade to pass statelevel bans on toxic chemicals, until 2009, when the Obama administration made overhauling TSCA one of its national environmental priorities.

Across Capitol Hill, our policy experts met with key congressional staffers and distributed fact sheets and other materials highlighting the need to address the potential health risks of tens of thousands of chemicals currently in use—and of the new chemicals entering the marketplace each year. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still lacks the authority it needs to ban the use of asbestos, a well-known carcinogen, in most consumer products.

Meanwhile, NRDC scientists testified at congressional hearings and contributed to a groundbreaking report cataloging the latest research on the links between chemical exposure and serious health problems including cancer, asthma, and birth defects. Thanks to our powerful campaign, a strong TSCA reform bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in July 2010. The Toxic Chemicals Safety Act will enhance the EPA’s authority (and responsibility) to regulate toxic chemicals, both those we already know are unsafe and those that require additional testing. It will also expand the public’s right to know about the health and environmental impacts of chemicals on the market, as well as where those chemicals are used and how people are likely to be exposed. Crucially, the bill shifts the burden of proof from the EPA to the chemical industry in demonstrating whether a chemical is safe to enter or remain on the market. As chemical industry proponents maneuver to block this long-overdue legislation, we will be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of concerned Americans to keep up the pressure on Congress until it takes meaningful action to rein in dangerous chemicals.

Protecting Our Health by Preventing Pollution

NRDC Pushes to Reform National Toxics Law

Pocket Parks and Pollution Prevention:

Transformative Solutions for Ensuring Safe and sufficient Water NRDC is integrating its expertise in pollution prevention, water efficiency, and climate change to sustain America’s precious water resources. In addition to continued defense of the Clean Water Act and prosecution of polluters, we will add new focus on solutions that are practical and that can have transformative impacts, especially the use of green infrastructure. Not only does green infrastructure—such as pocket parks and green areas to channel runoff— dramatically reduce stormwater pollution and create new water sources in arid landscapes, but it has also been shown to generate more long-term job opportunities for local workers. ecades of unsustainable development have wrapped our cities and towns in a concrete cocoon of roads, parking lots, and sidewalks. When rain falls on these impermeable surfaces, it has nowhere to go but downhill, picking up everything in its path—from motor oil and road salt to litter and pesticides. Meanwhile, steady rains can overwhelm facilities designed to treat a mixture of stormwater and sewage, pouring toxic waste into rivers, lakes, or coastal waters. As a result, urban runoff is a leading cause of water pollution in the United States. To stem this threat, NRDC is working closely with cities and states from coast to coast to expand their use of green infrastructure. These low-impact, inexpensive solutions—including pocket parks, green roofs, cisterns, permeable pavement, and other techniques—retain and filter rainwater where it falls, rather than dumping it into waterways or sewage treatment systems.

Every five years, states, counties, and large cities are required to update a Clean Water Act permit for operating their municipal storm-sewer systems. As these runoff control plans are reissued, NRDC is working to establish enforceable green infrastructure requirements in every stormwater permit for development and redevelopment (including road retrofit and renovation projects) in America’s

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The top picture is of several city blocks in Philadelphia now. Below it is a simulation of what the same blocks would look like if they were fully retrofitted with green infrastructure.

Noah Garrison, a project attorney based in NRDC’s Santa Monica office, and Jon Devine, a senior attorney based in NRDC’s Washington, D.C. office, are protecting access to safe and clean water from coast to coast.

10 largest urban areas. On the West Coast, we scored two major victories in 2010 when we persuaded regional water boards in the San Francisco Bay area and in several counties in southern California—two of the nation’s most populated regions—to adopt strict plans for controlling urban runoff. Across the country in West Virginia, we worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to craft a similar plan for the entire state and defended it in court. Meanwhile, we are advancing green infrastructure as a cost-effective solution to sewer overflow problems in cities such as Philadelphia, which has proposed a groundbreaking 20-year plan for more than $1 billion in green infrastructure investments. In New York City, we are promoting a similar approach to address the city’s 27-billiongallon-per-year sewage overflow problem.

At the federal level, we are building support in Congress for a bill that would make green infrastructure and low-impact development techniques a national priority. If adopted, the legislation will establish institutional research centers for green infrastructure, as well as require the Environmental Protection Agency to incorporate green infrastructure principles more broadly into its permitting and other programs. Most important, the bill will provide communities with the financial and technical resources they need to implement green infrastructure projects on the ground. We are also advancing separate legislation that would authorize billions of dollars worth of critical assistance for various water-quality improvement projects, including the use of green infrastructure.

Ensuring Safe and Sufficient Water

cover image from ttw

Testing the Waters Turns 20

When we set out to compile our first Testing the Waters survey two decades ago, U.S. states and counties kept few records of pollution-related beach closures and the federal government kept none. There was no federal or regional coordination of water-testing protocols, data gathering, or beach closure practices.

Our groundbreaking report, based on data painstakingly gathered by phone and postal mail from just 10 coastal states, drew national attention to the lack of information available to the public on beachwater quality and the risks of waterborne illness to millions of beachgoers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state regulatory agencies, and the multibilliondollar coastal tourism industry were outraged.

Since then, NRDC’s annual Testing the Waters report has helped spur nationwide reforms on beachwater quality monitoring and standards, as well as public notification of testing results and closures. Despite these strides, work remains to be done to control urban runoff—a major threat to our nation’s beaches and beachgoers. According to data

collected from government Web sites and supplemented with phone calls and emails to beach management officials, nearly threequarters of the beach closings and advisories in 2009 resulted from bacteria levels exceeding health and safety standards. This year’s report, which included an online feature offering up-to-date coverage of Gulf of Mexico beach closings, advisories, and notices in the wake of the oil disaster, generated unprecedented coverage in national and local news outlets.

Moving forward, we will continue to push for better water-quality monitoring at America’s ocean, bay, and Great Lakes beaches as we promote green infrastructure and other strategies to control polluted runoff at its source.

Overhauling America’s Transportation Network merica is paying dearly for its oil addiction—in devastating spills, a changing climate, and hundreds of billions of dollars sent overseas to fund imported oil. A major part of the problem—and the solution—lies in the transportation sector, which now accounts for nearly 30 percent of our nation’s global warming pollution and 70 percent of our oil consumption.

In response, NRDC is helping to revolutionize America’s outmoded transportation system by boosting the fuel economy of our cars and trucks and promoting cleaner and more efficient alternatives for getting around.

Over the past three years, NRDC members and online activists helped win a long-overdue increase in federal fuelefficiency standards for cars to 35 miles per gallon by 2016. Now, a recently launched Go60mpg campaign is building public pressure on the Obama administration to adopt a strict fuel-efficiency standard of at least 60 miles per gallon, as well as a tough new tailpipe standard for global

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warming pollution, for new vehicles by model year 2025. These improvements would reduce America’s oil dependence by at least 44 billion gallons per year by 2030, cutting consumption by 37 percent, and slash carbon pollution by at least 465 million metric tons per year in the same time frame, the equivalent of taking 80 million cars off the road for a year.

But building cleaner vehicles is only part of the solution. We are also working to slash fuel consumption and global warming pollution by limiting the distances that our cars travel. Recently, NRDC partnered with a diverse group of stakeholders including transportation experts, industry leaders, and federal agencies, to analyze the effectiveness and costs of implementing nearly 50 different transportation strategies. Our groundbreaking Moving Cooler study found that a comprehensive set of measures—including mass transit, tolling of roads and more compact community development—could reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector

by as much as 24 percent by 2050 and save about 1.5 million barrels of oil per year by 2030—more than we currently import from Saudi Arabia. As Congress prepares to reauthorize the federal transportation bill for the first time in six years, the Moving Cooler report is helping to inform the debate. Meanwhile, we are leading a broad coalition of national, state, and local stakeholders—from housing, business, environmental, public health, transportation, and other organizations— to help ensure that the bill spurs dramatic cuts in our global warming pollution and oil consumption by creating a fast, clean transportation network that is easily accessible and saves taxpayers billions of dollars.

On a related front, we are working with a bipartisan coalition of government, foundation, and industry partners to advance free-market strategies that increase competition among various transportation modes and give consumers a broader range of transportation choices, such as an insurance option that rewards drivers for driving fewer miles. Last, as we maintain pressure on Congress, we are working closely with the Obama administration to advocate for a series of smart-growth initiatives that deliver more transportation options, such as commuter rail, and that award federal funding to cities and states for transportation projects based on their energy-efficiency performance, rather than on outdated formulas or politics.

Staying Up to Speed with NRDC’s Staff Blog

Luke Tonachel Vehicles Analyst, New York City Posted March 16, 2010 Investing in cleaner and more efficient vehicle manufacturing is a win-win for our economy. It employs our workers and makes us less dependent on oil, protecting us from high and volatile prices at the pump. It’s an opportunity we should seize.

“Kaid Benfield of NRDC’s Switchboard is my favorite blogger of the year.”

- Lloyd Alter, Treehugger

Kaid Benfield Director of NRDC’s sustainable communities initiative

NRDC recently made sustainable communities and smart growth a top priority. Why now?

The initiative is the outcome of years of intense work on several fronts: smart-growth planning in California, the recently launched LEED certification program for neighborhood development, transportation reform, environmental justice, and community revitalization. Meanwhile, we have a window of opportunity right now to make significant progress: President Obama has created the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a very active interagency effort to provide federal support for localities that want to offer walkable neighborhoods and cleaner transportation options.

Regions and municipalities all over the country are much more engaged in smart-growth planning than they have been in the past.

What strategies are you pursuing?

I joined NRDC in the early 1980s as a litigator focusing on forestry and agriculture and later became the first director of the Land Program. In the 1990s I started focusing on transportation, which is ultimately about land use. Around the same time, other groups, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the state of Maryland and the National Trust, were getting interested in smarter land-use planning as well. A movement was born, and NRDC was at the center of it.

We’re urging Congress to pass a federal transportation bill that will dramatically cut global warming pollution and oil consumption and create millions of new jobs.

In California, we’re advancing the implementation of a groundbreaking bill that requires regional planning to incorporate transportation alternatives that minimize carbon emissions. Meanwhile, we’re working closely with the private sector—architects, planners, and developers—to incorporate smart-growth principles in a large-scale way. This collaboration led to the launch of LEED-Neighborhood Development in April 2010 and its acceptance as federal policy—arguably the biggest development in smart growth in a decade.

“ LEED-Neighborhood Design is arguably the biggest development in smart growth in a decade.”

Kaid Benfield Why are sustainable communities so vital?

They address several of our biggest environmental challenges at once: greenhouse gas emissions; land consumption; and the protection of open space, wildlife habitat, and watersheds. Studies show that half the built environment we will have in 25 years has yet to be built, so there is a lot of potential for sweeping change. Fundamentally, I believe in the concept of community and creating places where people can walk to things and have interactions along the way that will lead to a better life. To do that, we’ve got to provide people with more transportation choices.

What makes LEED-ND such a major milestone?

For the first time, we have a consensus-based set of standards to determine what is “smart” and “green” about smart green development, such as location, transportation, walkability, green buildings, and stormwater control. Already, LEED-ND is being picked up in influential ways by both the private sector and government. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced it is going to use LEED-ND location criteria in evaluating some $3.25 billion worth of grant proposals annually.

Sprawl has been the prevailing model for a long time, but we’re pioneering a new model for development.

Smart Growth: Our web tool can help you visualize the power of smart-growth principles to revitalize communities across the country. Visit www.nrdc.org/ smartgrowth/visions/default.asp

Fostering Sustainable Communities

A Conversation with

How did you get involved in these issues?

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NRDC Action Fund

Helps Clinch Clean

Energy Vote

NRDC Action Fund

he NRDC Action Fund used its political savvy and social media expertise in the lead-up to the 2010 midterm elections.

In California, the Action Fund helped seal the largest public referendum in history on climate and clean energy policy, as it affirmed overwhelming support for similar policies across the country.

Following an intensive campaign by the Action Fund, and many allies in the business, government, and environmental sectors, California voters resoundingly rejected Proposition 23, a move by Texas oil companies to roll back AB 32, the state’s landmark clean energy and climate law. Thanks to AB 32, which NRDC helped enact in 2006, California’s clean energy policies are already generating thousands of new jobs in the state while simultaneously improving public health and reducing carbon emissions. Nearly 4.5 million Californians turned out to vote against Prop 23, defeating it by a large margin.

The Action Fund’s winning strategy hinged on effective coordination, strong fund raising, rapid response, and strategic guidance. Soon after Action Fund leadership first learned of Prop 23, we

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build overwhelming opposition to Prop 23 through online videos, campaign updates, and blog posts.

At the federal level, the Action Fund’s pre-election campaign centered on demonstrating that support for clean energy and climate change legislation would not be a liability for candidates at the ballot box. The campaign engaged a range of direct mail, media outreach, donor advisement, and polling strategies.

On election day, Rep. Betty Sutton (OH13), who actively defended her vote for clean energy, cruised to reelection. An Action Fund poll confirmed that, in race after race, support for ACES was not a

The NRDC Action Fund’s mission is to achieve the passage of legislation that jump-starts the clean energy economy, reduces pollution, and sustains vibrant communities for all Americans.

The Action Fund lobbies and engages in ballot measures and elections directly.

Now is the time for leadership and action from our elected officials—our current goal is a comprehensive clean energy policy that will repower our economy and fuel our future. assembled a broad bipartisan coalition of environmental and public health advocates, businesses, high-tech giants and startups, unions, community groups, the NAACP, Latino leadership, utilities, consumers, and even some oil companies.

Working with these coalition partners, Action Fund Board Chair Bob Epstein led an unprecedented fundraising effort that brought in nearly $30 million. Backed by this generous support, the campaign used social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as viral email, to

deciding factor in the midterms.

In fact, polling across the country showed that Americans overwhelmingly support clean energy policies and comprehensive efforts to protect their air and water. An Action Fund poll conducted in 23 congressional districts nationwide, found that, on average, voters are almost 20 percentage points more likely to vote for someone who supports a clean energy bill. Moreover, a majority of voters (almost 53 percent on average) in tight

NRDC board member Bob Epstein chairs the NRDC Action Fund and is one of the cofounders of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). E2’s philosophy is simple: what is good for the environment can also be good for the economy. Bob joined NRDC’s board in 1999, when he was searching for the most effective partner among the major environmental organizations. He was looking for four things: legislative ability, litigation and enforcement skills, scientific expertise, and an understanding of business.

He found all of those at NRDC.

races around the country said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a climate bill.

Moving forward, the Action Fund will continue to build powerful support for clean energy legislation at the federal level by expanding social media efforts to reach out to new audiences and by joining forces with influential partners both inside and outside the environmental community.

Action Fund Board Wendy Abrams John H. Adams Anne Bartley Patricia Bauman Lucy Blake Dayna Bochco Sherwood Boehlert Hamilton (Hal) Candee George P. Denny III Ari Emanuel Bob Epstein Michael C. Finnegan William (Bill) Haney Barbarina Heyerdahl Cindy Harrell Horn Hamilton F. Kean Bob Kerrey Vernice Miller-Travis Mary Moran Jorge Mursuli Edward James Olmos John Podesta Patricia F. Sullivan Daniel R. Tishman Doug Varley Eric Wepsic

“...[T]his high honor is as much about you, and the work we all do each day, as about any one person or singular triumph.”

– John Adams