NRDC Annual Report 2011

2011 annual report

NRDC

v i cto ry

Excerpts from NRDC President Frances Beinecke’s switchboard blog, posted December 21, 2011 Obama Administration Announces Standards to Keep Our Families Safe from Mercury and Other Pollutants

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henever I talk with parents of young children about my work, they often ask me about mercury pollution. They know it can harm children and pregnant women and they know it is pervasive, but they are unsure how to keep their families safe.

Today that job just got easier. President Obama announced new standards to reduce mercury, lead, and other dangerous pollution from power plants.

Now dirty coal-fired plants that fought standards for decades will finally have to clean up their act.

This is a major breakthrough for American families. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that damages developing brains in children and fetuses… According to the Environmental Protection Agency, coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of industrial mercury pollution. Much The magnitude of these of that mercury gets deposited in waterways, where health benefits could make fish absorb it, and when we eat the fish, we absorb it too. this rule one of the biggest environmental accomplishments This pollution is so ubiquitous that all 50 states advise people—especially women in childbearing of the Obama administration. years and young children—to avoid eating fish from certain contaminated waters. As of 2008, 38 states had statewide advisories. Yet despite the widespread nature of this hazard, power plants have been dodging mercury and other air toxics rules for years.

Read more on this issue and other environmental concerns on NRDC’s vibrant staff blog at switchboard.nrdc.org.

p age 4 Establishing a Clean Energy Future From tailpipes to fighting tar sands, NRDC is advancing clean energy.

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page 8 Reviving Our Oceans NRDC sees landmark treaty protect oceans from destructive practices.

page 10 Defending Wildlife and Wild Places 11 million acres of North America’s forests are safer.

p age 12 Protecting Health by Preventing Pollution NRDC files lawsuit to make our food safer.

page 14 Ensuring Safe and Sufficient Water NRDC ratchets up water victories month by month.

page 16 Fostering Sustainable Communities New standards promote greener development.

page 19 Our Capacity for Reaching Our Goals A broad range of advocacy tools, legal acumen, robust science, and topnotch communications sets NRDC apart.

page 22 Donors and Event Highlights page 47 Bequests page 48 Financial Statement page 50 Board of Trustees page 51 Officers

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n the 15 years that I’ve been on NRDC’s Board, I have noticed people are drawn to the environmental movement for a host of reasons. I got involved because I wanted to preserve wild landscapes. Others join because they want to safeguard their children’s health, protect beloved animals, or promote sustainable technologies.

Recently, polluting industries have tried to marginalize our issues. But NRDC is working hard to demonstrate that public support for environmental protection runs deep and wide in American society.

Our influential members and partners have been especially effective in this effort. When the solar firm Solyndra defaulted on a federal loan guarantee last September, fossil fuel industries and their allies in Congress tried to renounce the entire clean energy sector. NRDC hit back hard. Our experts presented lawmakers with data about clean energy’s explosive growth and reminded journalists Solyndra was one of more than 5,500 solar companies in the United States.

We also had another weapon in our arsenal: NRDC’s sister organization Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). This national group of leading business voices—representing more than 850 companies and 500,000 jobs in 41 states— believes economic prosperity and environmental protection go hand in hand.

When the Solyndra debate flared up, E2 started releasing a weekly online job listing titled “What clean energy jobs? These clean energy jobs!” The bulletins show that in just six weeks more than 100 clean energy companies announced plans to create tens of thousands of American jobs.

E2 brought a much-needed business perspective to a polarized political conversation. This wasn’t tree huggers talking about clean energy; it was executives and manufacturers. On other issues, our Los Angeles Leadership Council tapped the entertainment and media industries to call for greater ocean protections this year. And our Global Leadership Council of influential ambassadors urged lawmakers to act as well.

NRDC’s sister organizations complement the work our advocates do with outside groups, including labor unions, physicians and nurses, Latino community associations, and concerned parents.

Together we are building a revitalized movement and showing lawmakers that environmental safeguards reflect fundamental American values of conservation, efficiency, security, and innovation. With that as our foundation, we can continue to achieve remarkable success.

Daniel R. Tishman Chairman of the Board

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letter from the Chairman

letter from the president and executive director

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wo years ago, President Obama said he would release new fuel efficiency standards in 2011. NRDC wanted these standards to generate transformative change, not incremental improvement. We knew America could build better cars. And we knew we had to in order to slash dangerous pollution, confront climate change, and reduce dependence on foreign oil.

NRDC launched the Go 60 campaign to build support for bold action. Our experts negotiated with the administration and automakers to craft ambitious standards. At the same time, we blasted the benefits of clean car standards to key audiences, including labor unions, car manufacturing states, auto shows, car bloggers, and national press outlets.

Our strategy worked. In July 2011, President Obama proposed raising fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon, more than double the current average. Within 20 years, these standards will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump and cut vehicle carbon pollution in half compared to today.

We deployed a similar approach when the Environmental Protection Agency said it would release the first-ever national standards to limit mercury from power plants. Our experts fought for the toughest standards while our advocates built support among medical groups and concerned parents.

In December, the EPA released a standard what will save thousands of lives and prevent more than 100,000 heart and asthma attacks every year.

This was another great victory for NRDC and our allies.

Once again we demonstrated the power of joining policy expertise and citizen support.

We need this potent combination now more than ever: we are witnessing the most coordinated attack on the environment in four decades. The House of Representatives voted more than 190 times this year to block environmental and public health protections. Deep-pocketed polluters have used their influence to disparage the clean energy transformation. And GOP candidates for president have made climate denial a requirement for the position.

NRDC has prevailed in difficult times before—from the Mideast oil crisis to the Gingrich revolution and beyond— and we did it by adapting and innovating. As we face another pivotal moment, NRDC has identified bold new strategies to achieve far-reaching success.

We will build greater political influence to support elected officials who safeguard the environment and to challenge those who do not. We will use targeted communications to connect environmental issues with the basic concerns of American families, especially their health, their homes, and the air they breathe. And we will reach out to strategic partners, including those in the business community who create prosperity and protect the environment at the same time.

These strategies will help us galvanize an army of people demanding environmental protections.

Together with the expertise of our staff, the dedication of our Board of Trustees, and the passion of our members, our energized supporters will help us promote innovation above pollution, conservation over destruction, and a clean future instead of the dirty past.

Frances Beinecke President

Peter Lehner Executive Director

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establishing a clean energy future From soot to carbon dioxide, the cars, trucks, and ships crowding our roads and waterways spew dozens of toxic chemicals into the air we breathe.

Engines of Change: NRDC is Fighting For Cleaner AIR

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ransportation is the single largest source of air pollution in the United States and accounts for more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. That pollution is taking a serious toll on our health, its effects ranging from asthma and heart attacks to stroke and cancer. Diesel pollution alone leads to some 35,000 premature deaths per year nationally. Meanwhile, climate change from the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere is one of the most serious public health threats facing our nation, according to a new analysis by NRDC. We battled successfully at the state, national, and international levels this year to strengthen pollution standards for our vehicle and shipping fleets, steering American toward a clean energy future.

Holding—AND BREAKING— Ground in California California has long led the nation in slashing harmful vehicle emissions.

This year we went to court and successfully defended a program, adopted in 2008 at our urging, to rein in diesel pollution from thousands of trucks that service the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with us and

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upheld the core provisions of the Port of Los Angeles’s clean trucks program, including measures that ensure trucks meet environmental standards for the long run. Meanwhile, we won a federal district court ruling that the Long Beach Harbor Commission had violated California’s environmental laws when it weakened its program without first performing the required environmental review.

At the regional level, we played a lead role in the development and adoption of a policy by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority that requires that all equipment, vehicles, and generators used for the construction of its projects meet strict air pollution standards. We also helped drive the implementation of California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, a 2008 law cosponsored by NRDC, by persuading the California Air Resources Board to adopt ambitious regional targets to reduce global warming pollution from cars and light trucks. Finally, targeting the shipping industry, we secured a unanimous appeals court ruling that California has the authority to require oceangoing vessels that visit the state’s ports to use cleaner marine fuels.

WINNING NATIONAL CLEAN AND FUEL EFFICIENT CAR STANDARDS Following a decade of powerful advocacy by NRDC, President Barack Obama announced an agreement with 13 automakers in July to strengthen pollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. The new standards will require these vehicles to deliver the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon and emit just 163 grams of carbon dioxide per mile by 2025. We began laying the groundwork for this victory back in 2002, when California passed an NRDCsponsored bill that would tighten vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards and raise fuel efficiency for cars sold in the state. Thirteen other states followed California, building strong political momentum for the adoption of more stringent rules at the federal level. As a charter member of the GO60mpg environmental coalition, NRDC worked closely with the United Auto Workers, consumer advocates, and business investors to secure this win. In addition to slashing harmful air pollution, the tougher standards will cut U.S. oil consumption by about 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030 and generate about $86 billion in consumer fuel savings by 2030.

India: A Global Powerhouse As we speed the shift to cleaner vehicles at home and abroad, we are exporting our climate and energy expertise to India, another great engine of the global economy.

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eaming up with local partners and leveraging NRDC’s know-how across several key program areas, our India Initiative on Climate Change and Clean Energy has made strides in improving energy efficiency in buildings, advancing U.S.-India cooperation on climate change, and helping India’s communities prepare for the most severe climate-related health threats.

As part of our efforts to advance energy efficiency, we brought together three key federal agencies along with local government officials, international technical experts, and leading academics for a national workshop on strengthening efficiency standards for buildings. Buildings already account for more than 30 percent of India’s electricity use, and two-thirds of the buildings that will exist in the country by 2030 have yet to be built. We produced a report, based on our own analysis of stakeholder meetings and research, that examines the energy efficiency potential of India’s building sector. Now, working with the country’s chief real estate developers, we are creating a professional network for sharing information and fostering support for building efficiency. Similarly, we are partnering with the cities of Hyderabad, Chennai (formerly Madras), and Gujarat to develop local energy efficiency building codes.

To facilitate cooperation between the United States and India on climate change, we held briefings with key policymakers from both governments and released a report reviewing climate-related actions by the two countries at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit. Meanwhile, we helped support joint research and development of clean energy solutions through multimedia projects and workshops in New York, New Delhi, and Hyderabad that brought together more than 100 scientific institutions and companies focused on energy efficiency, solar energy, and biofuels.

Meanwhile, we helped break new ground in cleaning up our nation’s larger trucks. In August 2011 the Obama administration finalized a joint proposal for the first-ever carbon pollution and fuel efficiency standards for new medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Working with our environmental partners, we helped shape the regulatory details of the program through numerous federal agency meetings. We also partnered with engine and vehicle manufacturers to push for regulatory improvements that encourage the deployment of new and innovative fuel-saving technologies. NRDC experts were widely quoted in the media when the standards were proposed, helping to pave the way for broad public support.

The standards, which include improvement for model years 2014 to 2018, will reduce oil consumption by a projected 530 million barrels and greenhouse gas pollution by approximately 270 million metric tons.

Taking aim at diesel pollution, we worked with a broad coalition of hundreds of environmental, public health, industry, and labor organizations to help pass the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010. The new national

law authorizes $500 million in diesel cleanup funds over the next five years for communities to retrofit or to replace the dirtiest engines, including old school buses, construction equipment, and the equipment used in busy ports around the nation. We now have the

The tougher standards will cut U.S. oil consumption by about 1.5 million barrels per day by 2030 and generate about $80 billion in consumer fuel savings by 2030. technology to eliminate more than 90 percent of this pollution with advanced controls that are standard equipment on new engines. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, every dollar spent by the program will yield between $13 and $28 in health benefits from reduced asthma emergencies, cancer, premature deaths, and other diesel-related health problems.

“There are no real macro solutions for the planet without high-impact initiatives in India. NRDC’s team, composed largely of IndoAmericans and highly effective and committed women, is well on its way to delivering real results.”

–NRDC Trustee Arjun Gupta

DRIVING GLOBAL PROGRESS In July 2010, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the firstever greenhouse gas regulations for new ships, becoming the first industry to regulate itself. We worked closely with the U.S. delegation to the IMO, industry leaders, and our environmental partners around the world to spur the adoption of this pioneering program. In real world terms, by 2020 ship operators will save $5 billion in fuel costs annually, and global warming pollution will be reduced by an estimated 45 million to 50 million tons per year.

In 2011 we celebrated another global milestone: Leaded gasoline has been eliminated in almost every country of the world, and more than 99 percent of the world’s gasoline is unleaded.

NRDC helped achieve this as a founding member of the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles with the United Nations Environment Programme, the U.S. EPA, and a wide range of government, industry, and environmental stakeholders. According to a recent peerreviewed study, the global phaseout of leaded gasoline will yield $2.4 trillion in health and economic benefits annually, including the elimination of 1.2 million premature deaths every year.

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establishing a clean energy future

PIPELINE PROTESTS: NRDC IS CURBING THE SPREAD OF DIRTY FUELS FROM LIQUID COAL TO OIL SHALE AND TAR SANDS

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s our leaders in Washington weigh America’s long-term energy future, NRDC’s Stop Dirty Fuels campaign is fighting to slow and ultimately halt the expansion of tar sands, liquid coal, and oil shale while promoting environmentally sustainable transportation alternatives that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Launching into large-scale production of these high-carbon “dirty fuels” would inflict irreversible damage on our environment. Not only would greenhouse gas emissions rise, but heavy capital expenditures for dirty fuels infrastructure would drain precious investment away from clean energy alternatives.

Combining our research and technical knowledge with campaigning and advocacy at the international, federal, state, and local levels, we

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NRDC is using a multi-faceted strategy—including outreach and education directed at the Obama administration and Congress, research and analysis, communications and media work, grassroots mobilization, and technical participation in the environmental review process—to make the strongest case possible against the spread of dirty fuels across the country.

are mounting pressure on the Obama administration and Congress to protect our climate, our environment, and our health by rejecting dirty fuels development.

NRDC made important headway in our three-year fight to block TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline—a sweeping proposal that has come to symbolize a place to draw

the line against dirty fuels.

The pipeline would carry up to 900,000 barrels of toxic tar sands fuel a day from Canada to oil refineries in Texas. Not only would a spill along the 2,000-mile pipeline route spell disaster for American rivers and other important freshwater resources, but the project would drive further expansion of destructive strip-mining and drilling

of tar sands bitumen from under Canada’s boreal forest and have far-reaching climate change impacts for the world. To block the proposal, NRDC is using a multi-faceted strategy— including outreach and education directed at the Obama administration and Congress, research and analysis, communications and media work, grassroots mobilization, and technical participation in the environmental review process—to make the strongest case possible against the pipeline. Our report, “Tar Sands Pipelines Safety Risks,” has brought significant media and public attention to the dangers of the pipeline to U.S. waters, changing the nature of the national debate and helping to garner bipartisan support from the U.S. heartland.

Our powerful advocacy efforts, including a flood of

Battling for Clean Air on Capitol Hill

RDC quickly sprang into action when lawmakers took aim at American’s bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In early April, NRDC launched a massive cross-institutional campaign and helped compel the Senate to vote down four amendments that

would have prevented the EPA from addressing carbon pollution. Our legislative and campaign teams orchestrated a rapid response in the days and hours leading up to the vote. Drawing on recent NRDC messaging research that showed that connecting the EPA’s air rules to public health risks such as asthma was the strongest possible

argument to use, we helped shape the winning message. Meanwhile, NRDC Trustee Leonardo DiCaprio broadcast our hard-hitting message to his 2 million Twitter and Facebook fans. As a result, the Senate rejected the proposal, leaving the House with an empty victory for the Republican leadership. Moreover, our win helped prevent bad climate riders from making it into the continuing resolution being negotiated at the same time.

In the late spring, scientific analysis and messaging guidance by NRDC helped shape an ad campaign by the League of Women Voters that tied votes by Senators Scott Brown (R-MA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to childhood asthma. The campaign had a significant impact on Senator Brown’s favorability ratings, demonstrating for the first time that ignoring this health concern can be a liability for politicians. In a related effort to hold members of Congress

petitions from our Members and online activists urging the State Department to complete an additional environmental impact statement, have helped achieve another review and improve the information under consideration during the permitting process for the proposed pipeline. Now it is up to President Obama to take a close look at the case we have built and decide whether the pipeline is in our national interest. If this reckless project moves forward, we will act to block additional permits for the pipeline at the federal and state level, and we will go to court if necessary to stop the proposal.

On a separate front, as the natural gas fracking debate widens across the country, NRDC is sending a strong message to lawmakers: We will not support fracking without the strictest possible

safeguards for health, the environment, and local communities. In New York, we launched an all-out campaign this year to challenge a state plan that could result in 1,600 drilling applications annually. We identified places of extraordinary environmental, ecological, or hydrological significance that should be placed off limits to drilling. We went to court to protect the “home rule” rights of communities to establish local comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances. We engaged in a detailed scientific, technical, and legal review of the state’s proposed environmental study on fracking. And at the national level, we advised the Environmental Protection Agency on regulations for fracking with diesel fuel.

We also proposed methods for handling toxic fracking waste, called for more scientific research to understand

the threat of fracking to drinking water supplies, and pushed for new rules to protect Americans from fracking-related air pollution. Meanwhile, fighting in and out of court, we built pressure on the Obama administration to protect sensitive wildlife habitat in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah from fracking and other destructive oil and gas drilling—and succeeded in removing some lands from the industry’s hit list.

We also reached a key milestone this year in our fight to curb the production of coal-derived liquid fuel. In October 2011, NRDC and our partners reached a settlement agreement with Baard Energy to end its pursuit of a proposed $6.9 billion coalto-liquid plant in eastern Ohio. While we do not support Baard’s plan to use natural gas as the feedstock for the proposed facility, our

Soon after the new Congress took office in January 2011, chief Republican lawmakers moved swiftly to unleash the most sweeping attack on America’s health and environment in 40 years.

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accountable, we launched DirtySecrets.org to track lawmakers who are voting against clean air and the impact of their actions on health in their home states.

The House is now weighing a suite of bills that would roll back safeguards for deadly air pollution such as mercury, soot, and smog.

In September 2011, as expected, the House passed the TRAIN Act, that would repeal the more protective smog and soot limits in the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and block adoption of mercury and air toxics standard for power plants.

But thanks to the hard work of NRDC and our partners, the bill passed under a cloud of controversy, garnering far less support than predicted and drawing a presidential veto threat. We will continue to stand behind the EPA and fight any congressional attempts to weaken our clean air protections.

agreement avoids the use of more than 9 million tons of coal, some 11.2 million tons of carbon emissions, and more than 2,000 tons of other harmful pollutants annually.

Earlier in the year, tackling the threat of dirty fuels development in our western wildlands, we reached two settlements with the Obama administration in lawsuits challenging the implementation of flawed rules for the leasing of oil shale and tar sands on public lands. As a result, the federal government must now establish environmental protection plans that will safeguard against destructive oil shale development. The government must also withdraw plans allowing the commercial leasing of oil shale and tar sands resources on more than 2 million acres of iconic wildlands in the western United States.

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reviving our oceans High-tech fishing trawlers and lethal sonar noise are just two of the grave threats putting many ocean species at risk, including sea turtles and whales.

NRDC Helps Secure Historic Treaty to Limit Bottom-Trawling Fishing

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n the 1990s, scientists conducting deep-sea dives discovered mounting evidence that the world’s high seas—a loosely regulated expanse of international waters spanning half of the Earth’s surface—are home to a vast array of previously undiscovered marine species. The divers witnessed something else, too. Massive areas of the ocean floor, the lifeblood of our deep-seas realm, had been scraped clean by a form of industrial fishing called bottom trawling. Bottom-trawling boats use weighted nets up to 200 feet long and 40 feet wide to go as far as 6,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. With a single pass, these nets wipe out everything in their path, from centuries-old coral forests to delicate sponge fields.

Shocked by the scientists’ reports, NRDC set out to sound the alarm in the world’s ultimate rule-making forum: the U.N. General Assembly. In 2011, following five years of steady pressure and rigorous oversight by NRDC and our partners, the world’s leading fishing nations signed a landmark treaty to protect more than 16 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean from unregulated, destructive bottom trawling.

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We began laying the groundwork for this historic victory back in 2006 when, armed with the best available scientific evidence, we helped convince the U.N. to pass a resolution calling on fishing nations to stop unregulated bottom trawling.

For the first time, the resolution restricted countries from authorizing bottom-trawling expeditions without first examining the impacts of this activity on corals and other ecological treasures,

and then adopting measures to prevent those impacts.

With this key milestone in place, we began the painstaking process of drawing up a treaty ensuring that fishing nations lived up to their commitments. As a member of the U.S. delegation, NRDC’s International Oceans Program Director Lisa Speer reviewed and commented on reams of government documents and enlisted the world’s leading scientists to help at crucial moments.

“It was midnight on the night before Thanksgiving 2006, and we were huddled, exhausted, in the basement of the United Nations, awaiting a decision. Finally, it came. Although they rejected a moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling, we won a key victory: For the first time ever, fishing nations would have to assess and report the environmental effects of their bottom-trawling expeditions.”

—Lisa Speer, Director, International Oceans Program

Given the mix of countries involved—Canada, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, and Taiwan—a strong U.S. position was essential. To achieve this, we worked closely with the State Department and other conservation groups to highlight the impacts of high-seas bottom trawling on U.S. fisheries and other domestic interests. Gradually, a strongly worded treaty began to take shape.

Finalized in February, the treaty prohibits any new bottom trawling unless its impacts on corals and deepsea fish are considered and controlled. The agreement also creates the North Pacific Fisheries Commission, which is charged with implementing and enforcing these restrictions. In the coming months and years, we will continue to work with our partners to win stricter requirements for assessing, monitoring, and controlling the impacts of bottom trawling and to extend protections to unregulated areas in the southern reaches of the North Pacific. In the meantime, this hard-won treaty is an important step toward ensuring that the mysteries of the sea amaze and inspire future generations.

The Gulf Oil Disaster Two years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew out, unleashing some 170 million gallons of toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, we are fighting to hold oil companies accountable and pushing Congress and the White House to adopt stronger and more comprehensive federal regulations to reduce the chances of another such disaster.

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ccording to the January 2011 report of President Obama’s independent, bipartisan oil spill commission, which included NRDC President Frances Beinecke, the risks of deepwater drilling have far outpaced the technology and safeguards we rely upon to keep our workers, our waters, and our wildlife safe. But Congress has yet to pass a single bill to strengthen the oversight of offshore oil and gas development. In fact, the House passed legislation in the spring that would expand offshore drilling off virtually every coast while weakening existing safety regulations.

Moving forward, we will continue to fight any attempts in Congress to allow drilling in sensitive areas, and we will advocate for increased protections for the workers, waters, and wildlife at risk from dangerous drilling practices. Our staff experts are urging the Department of the Interior and members of Congress to implement the recommendations of the president’s oil spill commission. In a parallel effort, we are fighting in federal court to block the Obama administration’s approval of proposed seismic exploration in the Gulf that poses a serious threat to whales and other sensitive marine mammals. We are also challenging the administration’s approval of a new exploratory well in the Gulf, in waters deeper than those plumbed

by BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. Meanwhile, to help advance the Obama administration’s efforts to identify the environmental damage caused by the BP blowout and to develop a recovery plan, our attorneys are reviewing documents, submitting comments, and talking with Gulf residents about the restoration remedies that they believe are necessary.

At the same time, our communications team continues to put all of its tools to work in keeping the Gulf story alive. On the one-year anniversary of the spill, Frances Beinecke, NRDC Executive Director Peter Lehner, and our staff experts broadcast our call for government action via television, radio, newspapers, and other media outlets across the United States and the world. Meanwhile, as China’s rapidly growing demand for oil promises to make it a bigger player in offshore drilling, our Beijing staff are promoting the Chinese edition of Lehner’s book, In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and How to End Our Oil Addiction. To help keep policymakers and the public informed of NRDC’s ongoing response to the spill, we launched The Dean’s List, an online blog by noted Washington journalist and NRDC staffer Bob Deans. Also, NRDC staffer Rocky Kistner’s ongoing coverage of the area led to his being selected in 2011 as one of the Huffington Post’s 100 Game Changers: innovators, visionaries, and leaders changing how we look at the world and the way we live in it.

Over the longer term, the single most important thing we can do to reduce the chances of this kind of tragedy is to reduce America’s demand for oil.

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DEFENDING ENDANGERED WILDLIFE AND WILD PLACES

Saving North America’s Last Wild Forests

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wo decades ago, as timber companies clamored to raze America’s mighty old-growth forests, NRDC set out to identify the best opportunities to protect our nation’s remaining forest frontier.

We fixed our sights on the 17-million-acre Tongass rainforest in southeast Alaska. The crown jewel of America’s national forest system, the Tongass is home to thriving populations of grizzly bears, salmon, bald eagles, and other wildlife.

Through the years, we have joined forces with our local partners again and again to keep the wild reaches of the Tongass safe from logging and road building while extending our battleground eastward to Canada’s vast boreal forest. In 2011, fighting on each of these fronts, we scored two landmark victories for North America’s last wild forests and the extraordinary wildlife that depends on them for survival.

In March, following a prolonged court battle made possible by the strong support of our Members, a federal judge in Alaska ruled in our favor and protected 9.5 million acres of pristine, roadless areas in the Tongass from destructive logging and road building. Our legal

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fight began in 2003, when we joined forces with Earthjustice, Alaskan natives, local businesses, and other groups to protect Tongass wildlands after the Bush administration illegally exempted the forest from the Roadless Rule. This landmark rule bars timber sales and logging roads in undisturbed areas of our national forests. Eight years later, we prevailed. The court rejected a series of claims concocted by Bush admin-

will continue to work toward accelerating the Obama administration’s plan to end all old-growth logging in the Tongass.

Our second success story centers on NRDC’s Heart of the Boreal Forest BioGem. Though most of the world’s original wild forests have been logged or developed, approximately 80 percent of the boreal forest in Canada is still undisturbed by roads.

In recent years, though, this

NRDC and our Members won protection for more than 11 million acres of North American forests— roughly the area of five Yellowstone National Parks —in southeast Alaska and in the Canadian boreal.

istration officials and agreed with us that there was no evidence that the Roadless Rule cost jobs in the Tongass region, interfered with plans to connect remote communities, or caused instability for local businesses. The judge struck down the Bush-era exemption and declared the Roadless Rule immediately reinstated. Moving forward, we are defending the court’s decision against any appeals by the state of Alaska and the timber industry. Finally, we

sprawling northern wildland has come under threat from industrial logging and hydropower, mining, and oil and gas development. Over the past seven years, NRDC Members and online activists have sent tens of thousands of messages urging Canadian officials to allow the Poplar River First Nation to keep unwanted industrialization out of its traditional territory on the eastern coast of Lake Winnipeg and to manage these lands along with the

wolves, woodland caribou, and songbird populations that live there. In June, the government of Manitoba heeded our call and granted permanent protection to nearly 2 million acres in this swath of the boreal, an area the size of Yellowstone National Park. We are now one step closer to our goal of creating a World Heritage Site that would safeguard a full 10 million acres of this spectacular BioGem. Despite these recent advances, our continent’s vast old-growth forests continue to face an uncertain fate. The Obama administration weighed a proposal to construct a 2,000-mile pipeline that would have transported toxic tar sands oil from under the boreal forest to refineries in Texas. To help protect the boreal forest and its abundant wildlife from the ravages of tar sands strip mining, we mobilized our Members and online activists to escalate pressure on the White House to reject this destructive proposal—which it did. Now NRDC is joining forces with the First Nations and other local groups to protect Canada’s Spirit Bear Coast, North America’s largest temperate rainforest, from threats by yet another tar sands oil project.

More Room to Roam: NRDC Helps Secure Winter Grazing Protection FOR BISON

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ollowing years of pressure from NRDC Members and online activists, the federal, state, and tribal agencies that manage Yellowstone’s bison announced a historic agreement that will permit the animals to graze on 75,000 acres of land in Montana’s Gardiner Basin during the winter and much of the spring. Moving forward, we will continue to press government agencies to allow these iconic animals access to other portions of their historic winter habitat.

Talking with Taryn Kiekow, Staff Attorney with NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project Spearheading our campaign to end Iceland’s illegal slaughter of whales, Taryn represented nongovernmental organizations as a member of the U.S. delegation at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Jersey, Channel Islands. For more news about whales, follow Taryn’s blog at www.nrdc.org/switchboard.

Why is this whale campaign so urgent?

Since 2006 Iceland has killed hundreds of whales, in defiance of the global ban on commercial whaling. They have shown time and again that they will not stop for anything short of sanctions.

Fortunately, working closely with actor and marine mammal activist Pierce Brosnan, we’ve been able to mobilize our Members and online activists to escalate pressure on the Obama administration at several critical junctures. President Obama took a key first step by imposing diplomatic sanctions, but we’re still urging him to impose tough economic sanctions on Icelandic seafood companies with direct ties to the whaling industry.

What was the most exciting aspect of the IWC meeting?

I got a behind-the-scenes look as U.S. officials were finalizing their decision to recommend sanctions against Iceland under conservation legislation known as the Pelly Amendment. The final wording of their decision clearly states that Iceland’s whaling practices are unacceptable. In addition, we were able to pass a resolution, put forth by the United Kingdom, aimed at strengthening transparency and the overall effectiveness of the IWC. Why are whales so captivating to you?

Whales are extremely powerful and intelligent, and yet so vulnerable.

They were decimated by commercial whaling. Plus, I grew up in the

1970s with that famous slogan “Save the Whales.” When the international moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986, many whale populations rebounded. But now, it’s as if we’re in a second phase of the Save the Whales campaign. Iceland, Japan, and Norway continue to kill whales. Meanwhile, entanglements, underwater noise, seismic activities, and marine debris are on the rise. Together, these hazards are taking a serious toll.

NRDC Members and online activists have sent almost 175,000 messages in our whale campaign.

Watch our whale video featuring Pierce Brosnan at NRDC Flix on YouTube.com

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Protecting Our Health by Preventing Pollution

Foiling Superbugs with Safe, Wholesome Food

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ore than a generation has passed since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first recognized that feeding livestock low doses of certain antibiotics could promote “superbugs”—antibioticresistant bacteria capable of infecting people. Yet the FDA, bowing to pressure from the livestock and pharmaceutical industries, has failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that antibiotics continue to work when we need them most: when our families are ill. This year, backed by the conclusions of the world’s leading medical, scientific, and public health organizations, NRDC and our

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partners filed a lawsuit to force the FDA to follow its own safety findings and withdraw approval for most nontherapeutic uses of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed.

Science has warned that if antibiotic resistance is not addressed, “the specter of untreatable infections—a regression to the pre-antibiotic era—is looming just around the corner.”

70 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used on livestock that are not even sick.

A staggering 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are consumed by livestock animals. The antibiotics, which are mixed into feed or water for pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys to promote faster weight gain and compensate for unsanitary living conditions, are used at levels too low to treat disease, making bacteria more resistant to medical treatment.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of

The FDA has shut its eyes to this horrifying scenario.

Following a lawsuit that challenged the FDA’s lack of action, the agency responded to citizen petitions on this critical issue—the first of which was filed in 1999.

Even then it moved only to recommend that livestock operations voluntarily stop the unnecessary use of antibiotics. In September 2011, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Senior Attorney Avinash Kar and and other leading health Koob Litigation Fellow Jen Sorenson groups sent a letter urging

Congress, the White House, and the FDA to take immediate action in light of clear scientific evidence linking the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in food animals and the spread of antibiotic resistance. The same month, a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that federal agencies, including the FDA, have made only “limited progress” in addressing antibiotic use in animals.

By focusing on good hygiene and improved management practices, a facility can dramatically reduce illness among livestock and, in turn, the need for antibiotics. In fact, all 27 countries in the European Union have already stopped using antibiotics to promote growth and increase production, thereby reducing the incidence of antibioticresistant bacteria in meat.

NRDC is making sure that America is next in line.

Challenging the Chemical Industry to Clean Up Everyday Toxic Hazards

Climate Change Threatens Health

When Congress passed America’s bedrock chemical control law back in 1976, some 62,000 chemicals were allowed to remain on the market without safety testing. Of those, only 300 have since been tested and just 5 have been regulated.

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ccording to recent polls commissioned by NRDC and our partners, an overwhelming majority of Americans view chemicals as a serious health threat and support stronger controls. Yet Washington lawmakers and the White House, siding with the chemical industry, have failed to adopt a host of common-sense measures to protect our families from toxic dangers in toys and other children’s products, cleaning supplies,

populated community in Jersey City, New Jersey. The settlement calls for a 700,000-ton cleanup to standards more protective than state chromium guidelines and includes funding for community expert oversight.

Meanwhile, California’s Environmental Protection Agency announced in July that it was setting a safe level for hexavalent chromium in drinking water. NRDC health experts have been battling for years to

“California’s recent adoption of a BPA ban—it’s the 11th state to take action—has shaken the ground all the way to Washington, D.C., and may prove to be the tipping point in finally getting meaningful federal action to protect the public from this widespread toxic chemical.”—Daniel Rosenberg, director of the health program’s toxic chemicals reform project building materials, fabrics, furniture, electronics, food and beverage containers, and more. In response, NRDC and our allies are fighting state-by-state and chemical-bychemical to strengthen safeguards against these hidden health hazards, as we escalate pressure on our leaders in Washington to act.

Thanks in part to pressure from NRDC— including targeted action campaigns waged by our leadership, supporters, and thousands of our Members and online activists—a strong federal bill was introduced in the Senate in April 2011 that would enhance the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority (and responsibility) to regulate toxic chemicals. We are working with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families—a coalition of hundreds of health, science, consumer, and environmental groups—to engage additional sponsors for the Safe Chemicals Act and move it to a floor vote. Crucially, this legislation will shift 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.

We are also gaining ground in our campaigns to reduce exposure to and use of specific chemicals, including hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen made famous by the film Erin Brockovich. After fending off two attempts to oust our case from federal court, we settled a lawsuit against PPG Industries for its toxic legacy of hexavalent chromium contamination in a densely

advance this crucial standard, the first of its kind in the nation and a major step toward enforceable limits on the toxic compound in drinking water.

Also in California, the state legislature passed a bill that would ban the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles and sippy cups, capping a three-year push by NRDC’s Los Angeles Leadership Council and our California-based online activists. BPA has been linked to reproductive abnormalities and other diseases and poses special risks to fetuses, infants, and young children.

California is the 11th U.S. state to adopt the ban. This move spurred the chemical industry to petition the FDA to remove BPA nationwide to assure market uniformity.

In a consent agreement with NRDC, FDA has agreed to make a decision this spring. Moving forward, our health team will continue to contribute its technical expertise to local efforts aimed at strengthening restrictions on unsafe chemicals, including toxic flame retardants, BPA, and phthlates across the country.

Climate change is one of the most serious public health threats facing the nation, but few people are aware of how it can affect them. Children, the elderly, and communities living in poverty are the most vulnerable. Explore our interactive maps to see climate-related health threats in your state, actions that are being taken to protect communities from climate change’s serious health threats, and what you can do to safeguard your family.

Visit NRDC’s new online pages about climate change and health at: nrdc.org/ health/climate

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ensuring safe and sufficient water

Clean and Plentiful Water For decades NRDC has fought to keep dangerous pollution out of our nation’s lakes, rivers, streams, and aquifers. Today, swelling demand for water and changing climate patterns pose an urgent risk to the supply and quality of our water resources. To meet these challenges head-on, NRDC’s Water Program is advancing an ambitious agenda that integrates our expertise in pollution prevention, water efficiency, and climate change. Our water advocates, now staffing nearly every NRDC office, made strides on several key fronts over the past year: Citing a “friend of the court” brief submitted by NRDC, a federal 2010 court upheld the EPA’s authority to require polluters to clean up their Superfund sites—including a 200-mile stretch of the Hudson River contaminated with highly toxic PCBs. july

Siding with NRDC, a federal district court judge ruled that the city of 2010 Malibu, California, violated the Clean Water Act by discharging polluted water into a marine coastal preserve in northern Los Angeles County. aug

NRDC and our partners announced a negotiated agreement with the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers to dramatically improve water efficiency standards for new residential clothes washers and dishwashers, among other key measures.

Thanks to strong advocacy by NRDC, the Metropolitan Water 2010 District of Southern California set a 10-year target to reduce per capita water consumption by 20 percent across Southern California by 2020. oct

The California Court of Appeal voted unanimously to reverse a 2010 trial court decision that would have prevented the state from applying protective water quality standards to urban runoff. NRDC successfully intervened in the case after the state lost. dec

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The EPA finalized a landmark cleanup plan for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. NRDC offered key technical support for the plan and defended it against congressional attacks.

In a West Virginia state court, we successfully defended a pioneering plan that relies heavily on green infrastructure approaches to control urban runoff.

Under pressure from NRDC and more than 10,000 messages from our online activists, the EPA secured a legally binding commitment from General Electric to finish cleaning up its toxic legacy of PCBs in the Hudson River.

Siding with NRDC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an 2011 assertion that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lacks authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution to regulate a purely “intrastate” species like delta smelt. apr

Working closely with NRDC experts, Philadelphia approved a plan to 2011 control sewage overflows using the most comprehensive network of planted roofs, porous pavement, parks, and other green infrastructure in the country. jun

Following a powerful campaign of litigation, communication, analysis, and public advocacy by our Midwest Program, water regulators in Chicago voted to end the practice of dumping contaminated sewage into local waterways.

Thanks to a three-year lobbying effort by NRDC’s Water and Urban teams, the New York State Senate passed legislation requiring that large water withdrawals from state rivers, streams, aquifers, and the Great Lakes meet strict environmental criteria.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the County of Los 2011 Angeles has discharged polluted stormwater in violation of water quality standards, marking a major stride in our legal effort for limits. july

At the urging of NRDC’s Midwest Urban Program, the U.S. Army 2011 Corps of Engineers abandoned a plan to allow larger oceangoing ships to enter and transit the Great Lakes Navigation System and St. Lawrence Seaway. aug

In response to our challenge to New York City’s Clean Water Act permits, a state court ruled that the city’s existing obligations to reduce sewage overflows are enforceable by citizen groups.

Moreover, the public can object and seek a hearing if the city and state propose to modify the standards.

NRDC and our partners in the San Joaquin River Restoration 2011 Program won the Secretary of the Interior’s Partners in Conservation Award. The award recognizes organizations that have produced outstanding conservation achievements by fostering collaboration and partnerships. sept

“We are fortunate to have talented people on our Board who help shape our objectives and then breathe life into them by providing support. NRDC Trustees Bob Fisher and Kate Greswold have an excellent grasp of policy and are incisive thinkers about water and other environmental issues.

Bob and Kate are in our corner, but they challenge us, too, by asking the right questions at the right time.”–David Beckman

Talking with David Beckman, Director of NRDC’s Water Program David Beckman is leading our efforts to ensure that the water we have is clean and that we use it as efficiently as we can.

What’s new about NRDC’s approach to water?

NRDC is devising and supporting policies that address the quality and availability of water at the same time. For example, green infrastructure strategies such as parks, porous pavement, and planted roofs reduce water pollution and also help capture stormwater where it falls. So we are helping to control the biggest source of water pollution—urban runoff—as we green our cities and limit the amount of water used for landscaping and other purposes. We also are now moving to advance integrated solutions in the agricultural sector, which currently accounts for 70 percent of America’s water use and releases large amounts of polluted runoff into our lakes and rivers.

How are you leveraging NRDC’s assets to meet your goals?

To improve water efficiency, we’re making use of some of the same techniques that NRDC has used successfully for years in the area of energy efficiency. We reached a very significant agreement last year with the largest trade association of appliance manufacturers in the country to increase the efficiency of clothes washers and dishwashers.

By negotiating with a range of stakeholders that otherwise might have been our adversaries, we were able to make great progress.

Holiday Rush OF WATER NEWS As key developments unfolded simultaneously in several of our water-related campaigns last December, our Media team hustled to put our water experts front and center. On the brink of the New Year, their voices rang out from coast to coast.

12/14: “While we go back and forth trying to find more perfect information, the estuary keeps declining.”—Kate Poole (San Francisco) quoted by the Associated Press after a federal judge dismissed a plan to protect California’s threatened delta smelt.

12/15: “This is a limited victory [for water contractors] … I tend to think that they will have very similar pumping restrictions the next round.”—Doug Obegi (San Francisco) in the Los Angeles Times on the delta smelt court ruling.

12/15: “This decision will protect millions of people who use local beaches and water resources throughout Southern California and assures that science remains the focus when these standards are developed.”—David Beckman (Los Angeles) in the Los Angeles Times’s L.A. Now blog on a court ruling that will allow state water regulators to enforce water-quality standards.

12/16: “It can be done relatively quickly with off-the-shelf technology … It’s troubling that they continue to rely on more study when it’s clear that what’s really needed is just the political will to move forward.”—Thom Cmar (Chicago), quoted by the Associated Press on stopping the Asian carp invasion of the Great Lakes.

12/17: “Under these cleanup standards, there’s no doubt we’ll have a much cleaner and healthier Hudson River than we do today.”—Larry Levine (New York) in The New York Times on the tightening of EPA rules for the second phase of General Electric’s cleanup of toxic PCBs. 12/20: “Great Lakes invasions do not stop at the lakeshore; they spread across North America … Now is the time for us to get to work and finally address this costly problem.”

—Thom Cmar (Chicago) in an Indianapolis Star op-ed on invasive species.

12/22: “They don’t want to have this on their books anymore as a contingent liability of unknown size …

The only option is to opt in.”—Larry Levine (New York) in Greenwire on whether GE would comply with tighter EPA rules for its Hudson River cleanup.

12/24: “It isn’t wastewater until we waste it.”—Noah Garrison (Los Angeles) in the Los Angeles Times on incorporating relatively simple water-harvesting techniques to capture and reuse stormwater.

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fostering sustainable communities

Growing a New Generation of Healthy, Sustainable Communities

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s NRDC Trustee Jonathan Rose says, “With perhaps 10 billion people living on earth by 2050, we are going to have to figure out how to live in ways that are more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.”

Toward that goal, NRDC helped conceive and develop LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), the first set of consensusbased national standards to steer new development toward environmentally sound sites and design.

We kicked off our first urban revitalization project in 2011 in the Mapleton– Fall Creek neighborhood of Indianapolis. Long neglected by private investors reluctant to accept risk, the community suffers from a

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50 percent vacancy rate and serious poverty. Working with Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the neighborhood-based Mapleton–Fall Creek

jobs; transportation options; energy and water efficiency measures; and green stormwater management strategies. The neighborhood is now progressing toward its

“Thank you so much for helping us achieve a deeper understanding of sustainable development practices and the ability of LEED-ND to serve as guidance as we continue our neighborhood revitalization work.”—Tyson Domer, MFCDC LEEDND Taskforce Chair and Doressa Breitfiel, MFCDC Nonprofit Administrator and Econ. Dev. Coordinator Development Corporation, we helped construct a pragmatic, achievable vision for Mapleton–Fall Creek that includes affordable housing; access to shops, services, and

goal of achieving certification under LEED-ND for a 27-acre area.

In sites across the country, our revitalization work is engaging local residents

to the greatest extent possible in planning and design, applying sophisticated environmental analysis to quantify the benefits we hope to achieve, recording lessons learned along the way, and developing instructional reports and handbooks. The development and planning templates generated by our initiative will help enable community development corporations (CDCs) to apply our strategies in inner-cityneighborhoods nationwide.

In an average year, America’s nearly 5,000 CDCs and related community-based nonprofit organizations build some 86,000 homes and millions of square feet of commercial space. We are now exploring opportunities to launch similar demonstration projects in Boston and Los Angeles.

NRDC: Playing in the Big Leagues

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t the suggestion of Trustee Robert Redford, NRDC became the nation’s principal environmental adviser to professional sports in 2004, providing in-depth guidance about greener practices that reduce environmental impacts.

In an important milestone in 2011, NRDC helped launch the Green Cardinals Green Team volunteers collect Sports Alliance, which now includes recyclables during the 2011 World Series nine professional leagues, such as games in St. Louis, Missouri.

Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer, as well as more than 50 teams, arenas, and stadiums. The Alliance shares information about better practices and opportunities to measure and reduce environmental impacts. NRDC’s valuable sports greening resources have helped many stadium and arena operators realize that going green is smart business, protects public health, and provides many environmental benefits. For example, n The

Cleveland Indians cut their waste in half by expanding recycling and adding composting, saving the club $50,000 annually.

n The Seattle Mariners will now keep 5.1 million pounds of carbon dioxide out

of the air and save about $500,000 in utility costs annually. n Through

investment in energy conservation and following an energy and water audit facilitated by NRDC, the Staples Center (home to the L.A. Lakers, the Clippers, the Kings, and the Sparks) installed a large solar array on its roof, which provides 3 percent of the energy used at the arena, and replaced all 176 urinals with waterless fixtures—saving more than 7 million gallons of water a year and about $30,000 in water costs. To track league-wide environmental progress, NRDC helped establish the first ever environmental data gathering system in professional sports.

Excerpts from Sustainable Communities Deputy Director Amanda Eaken’s switchboard blog, posted October 28, 2011

San Diego Adopts one of Nation’s First Sustainable Communities Strategies

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oday the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) voted 14–1 to adopt the first Sustainable Communities

Strategy to implement SB 375 in California. After hours of public testimony and debate, SANDAG Chairman Jerome Stocks summarized his thoughts on the day and called for the vote.

“We are the first in the state, the nation, and possibly the world to adopt a Sustainable Communities Strategy, and that does matter,” he said.

Since the summer, NRDC has been working with SANDAG to recommend improvements to the plan. We are pleased to see that some of our recommendations have been incorporated into the final plan and grateful to staff for their willingness to work with us, particularly at this late date. In particular, we are pleased to see SANDAG commit to adopt an early action

measure for active transportation by next summer, to develop a transitoriented development policy to ensure its $53 billion investment in transit leads to strong ridership gains, and to develop a complete streets policy. We also appreciate SANDAG’s commitment to evaluating alternative land use scenarios through its upcoming Regional Comprehensive Plan.

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The NRDC Action Fund: Ensuring the Hill Hears the Facts

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he NRDC Action Fund—a sister organization of NRDC —has fought successfully for years to build support for proenvironment legislation through paid advertising, phone-banking and grassroots mobilization. In the summer of 2010, after its clean energy allies in Congress came under fierce attack for supporting a comprehensive climate bill, the Action Fund set out to bring the advocacy power of its most influential supporters to the table. Through the Adams Project, named for Board Member (and NRDC founder) John Adams, the Action Fund keeps this network of high-profile environmental ambassadors

up to date on congressional intelligence and strategy decisions, helps them connect and build relationships with elected officials, and lets them know how they can help advance and defend key proenvironment legislation.

In 2011, when Tea Party leaders in Congress proposed a suite of bills aimed at undermining bedrock protections for our air and water, the Action Fund quickly mobilized its Adams Project ambassadors to meet face-to-face with senators and members of the media with whom they have relationships. In April, due in large part to this strategic effort, the Senate voted down four amendments

that would have curbed crucial clean air protections.

Later in the year, as the leading environmental grasstops network in the country, the Adams Project helped shore up the necessary political will to secure tougher vehicle fuel efficiency and pollution standards, derail antienvironment appropriations measures in Congress, and stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Moving forward, project members will continue to fan out from coast to coast to build support for Action Fund priorities in key political hubs and help engage new high-profile ambassadors, particularly in the Midwest.

The NRDC Science Center: Underpinning Policy with Robust Research

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cience provides a critical cornerstone for identifying and solving our most urgent environmental challenges. Yet over the past two decades, science has been under attack: Public trust in science and key scientific theories has been eroded, and in the political arena, science is now regularly distorted or ignored. In 2006, NRDC established the Science Center to enhance our scientific capacity, credibility, and visibility. Working closely with our program staff to ensure our policy and legal positions are supported by

sound and current science, the center helps advance our advocacy efforts across a range of priority issues.

During the first five years of the Science Center, we hired top-notch scientists to tackle critical problems at the nexus of science and policy, including climate change, health impacts of toxic chemicals, and endangered species protection. We coordinated NRDC’s internal and external peer-review process to ensure the scientific accuracy and quality of our studies, reports, and publications. Meanwhile, we raised our profile in the scientific community by publishing peer-reviewed journal

articles and increasing our engagement at conferences, on advisory boards, and with professional societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

We built more effective working relationships with federal agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and opened up new scientific collaborations with universities.

In 2011, as political realities placed the fundamental framework of our environmental protections at risk, we repositioned the Science Center to meet this escalating challenge head-on. To lead the fight, we hired a new director, Dr. Christina (Tina) Swanson, who is nationally renowned for her leadership on environmental, biological, water quality, and water resource management issues. We also brought in three new science fellows: Briana Mordick, an expert

“The Science Center serves as support for NRDC’s scientists, a bridge for NRDC collaboration with other scientists, and a voice for the critical role that science plays in our work.”—Bill Schlesinger, NRDC Trustee Tina Swanson, Director of NRDC’s Science Center

in geology and petroleum engineering, who has been instrumental in our research on natural gas extraction; Greg Gould, a specialist in computer modeling of transportation systems and air pollution emissions, who has provided critical analyses for Southern California and Chicago-area highway and freight transport plans; and Jordan Weaver, a nuclear engineer with expertise in nuclear safety and radiation detection, whose work with us is especially timely after the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster. Over the next several years, the Science Center will continue to build its effectiveness by promoting internal collaboration among NRDC scientists and by establishing long-term relationships and partnerships with outside scientists and scientific institutions.

We will also increase the diversity and effectiveness of our science communications with the addition of a science communications expert to the Science Center staff in 2012 and through the use of more short films, investigative journalism, and web-based media to reach broader audiences.

NRDC Communications: Advancing on All Fronts of Digital Media

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eaturing great stories and great solutions from some of the best journalists on the planet, OnEarth is a magazine and website about the environment and its impact on how we live—and vice versa. Founded in 1979 as The Amicus Journal, our publication explores the challenges that confront our world, the solutions that promise to heal it, and the way we can use those solutions to improve our

homes, our health, our communities, and our future. Today OnEarth is reaching new audiences and building greater influence for NRDC through OnEarth.org, which provides a home for environmental journalism and commentary beyond what is published in the pages of the magazine.

With web-exclusive stories, online columns, multimedia features, and the growing OnEarth Blog Network, we publish fresh news and

insights about environmental issues and solutions several times a day. Our in-depth reports have helped shape the national conversation and held polluters and the politicians that protect them accountable. And by pursuing topics such as food, health, and culture that reach beyond the traditional audience for environmental issues, OnEarth.org is bringing in new readers who are also potential new activists and NRDC

members. Our efforts are being noticed: In 2011, OnEarth.org was honored by both the Online News Association and the Eddie Awards, which recognize editorial excellence in the magazine industry, and was named one of the 10 best environmental blogs by Outside magazine.

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NRDC LITIGATION TEAM: WINNING VICTORY AFTER VICTORY IN THE COURTS

February 2011: In response to an NRDC lawsuit joined by states and other groups, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Department of Energy failed to comply with fundamental environmental laws protecting sensitive ecosystems and wilderness when it designated two huge electric transmission corridors, covering 10 states in the Southwest and the East.

July 2010: Siding with NRDC and our partners, a federal district court judge in Alaska ordered a halt to all oil and gas activities in more than 29 million acres of the Chukchi Sea, home to half of America’s polar bears.

November 2010: NRDC and our partners reached an agreement with Commonwealth Edison on a three-year plan to install energy-efficiency technologies that will save more than 16 million megawatt-hours of electricity.

September 2010: The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of NRDC and other environmental groups and upheld regulations giving the public a significant voice in grazing decision-making and emphasizing an ecological approach to grazing management.

july

august

“The NRDC Litigation Team is the most talented and versatile group of environmental litigators in the nonprofit world.”

— NRDC Trustee Gerald Torres

september

october

February 2011: NRDC forced a settlement on oil shale development that would prevent the leasing of this dirty fuel on millions of acres of wilderness and key wildlife habitat in the West.

December 2010: Thanks to ongoing legal pressure from NRDC and our partners, the Department of the Interior designated some 187,000 square miles along the coast of Alaska as “critical habitat” for the polar bear.

november

december

January 2011: In the wake of a court settlement with NRDC and our partners, the EPA proposed a rule that will make it harder for the chemical industry to use people as test subjects in pesticide research sent to the agency.

January 2011: Siding with NRDC, an Indiana administrative law judge ruled that permits to expand two corn-ethanol refineries had been issued in violation of the federal Clean Air Act and state law.

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january

February 2011: A federal judge granted NRDC’s motion to compel the administrative record in a lawsuit challenging the Navy’s plan to build a giant underwater sonar training range off the coast of northeastern Florida.

february

February 2011: A federal district court ruled in favor of NRDC and our partners and allowed the state of Washington to move forward with implementing a strong, new energy efficiency code for residential buildings.

July 2011: A Colorado district court restored Endangered Species Act protections in Wyoming for the Preble’s Meadow jumping mouse.

The court agreed with NRDC and our partners that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s practice of delisting species on a state-by-state basis was based on a “dubious legal opinion.”

July 2011: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of NRDC in our challenge to an EPA guidance document allowing some of our nation’s smoggiest areas to avoid assessing a fee on major stationary sources of pollution, including refineries and power plants.

July 2011: Siding with NRDC, the EPA, and others, the D.C. Circuit issued a decision denying a petition for review filed by ports and shipping interests challenging a national EPA permit to protect states’ water quality from invasive species in ballast water.

July 2011: Following legal action by NRDC, Duke Energy Ohio announced plans to retire its 862 MW Beckjord coal-fired power plant near Cincinnati by 2015. The plant emits more than 68,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 4 million tons of greenhouse gases annually.

July 2011: The L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved a negotiated settlement with NRDC and our partners that will improve health and environmental safeguards for residents living near active oil drilling in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of South Los Angeles.

March 2011: Taking aim at invasive species in the Great Lakes and other waters, NRDC and our partners forged an agreement that requires the U.S. EPA to issue a new permit regulating ballast water discharges from commercial vessels.

March 2011: Under legal pressure from NRDC and our partners, Ohio University agreed to retire its existing coal-fired steam heat plant by 2016 and to replace it with a non-coal alternative.

march

april

April 2011: In response to an NRDC lawsuit, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal plant in western North Carolina must abide by the stringent rules governing hazardous air pollutants.

April 2011: Siding with the EPA, California, and NRDC, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and auto dealers to California’s landmark standards to cut carbon pollution from new cars.

September 2011: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in NRDC’s favor and struck down the EPA’s approval of the pesticide dichlorvos.

This neurotoxic chemical interferes with the human nervous system and can cause severe health problems.

May 2011: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in our favor and against a highly destructive and wasteful highway project through Tongass wildlands north of Juneau, Alaska.

may

june

july

June 2011: We won our legal challenge to the illegal registration of a highly dangerous hemorrhagic poison used to kill prairie dogs on 2 million acres of the mountain West.

June 2011: Siding with NRDC and our partners, a federal judge upheld a May 2008 decision that polar bears throughout their range should be protected as a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act.

august

september

october

August 2011: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld energy efficiency standards issued by the Department of Energy (DOE) for commercial small electric motors. NRDC submitted a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the DOE.

October 2011: The U.S. Supreme Court denied consideration of an appeal by the livestock industry which sought to overturn federal court decisions secured

by NRDC and our partners on new grazing rules for public lands.

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