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Guest post by Tessa Marquis

The newly elected leaders in the House of Representatives have launched cruel and inhumane assault on women’s health care. They want to eliminate Title X, which provides Planned Parenthood and hundreds of other community clinics with funding for preventive care. Cutting this funding will eliminate testing for STDs (currently at 25% for tested females between 18 and 29*), legal and necessary birth control, and life saving cancer screenings such as PAP tests.

I have a friend who is a well known, highly respected OB-GYN in Connecticut. He has told me that his offices are quite often the primary care location for patients. I referred a young friend to him on her first pregnancy and he discovered a thyroid problem which needed to be resolved immediately. This ”first-responder” role seems to be the case in many OB-GYN offices and clinics, and is especially important for women and girls with limited resources for medical care.

Eliminating the national family planning program means women will lose access to basic primary and preventive health care. Let’s end the assault on women’s health and get back to fixing the American economy.

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A budget bill being pushed in Congress this week includes a number of measures that would threaten Connecticut’s public health and environment, according to Environment Connecticut. Under the bill, the Environmental Protection Agency would be barred from taking any action to clean up carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industrial pollution sources; and EPA would be barred from restoring Clean Water Act protections for many of the nation’s most vulnerable waterways.

“Americans have a fundamental right to clean air and clean water, but this budget bill threatens both,” said Joe Blass, Field Associate for Environment Connecticut. “In economic times good or bad, it’s critical that our government protect public health and our environment, and we’re counting on our Representatives to help defeat this dangerous proposal.”

Environment Connecticut warned that the U.S. House Republicans’ budget bill—also called a continuing resolution—would do the following:
· Threaten the health of Connecticut’s children, elderly citizens and other vulnerable populations by blocking EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act and cleaning up coal-fired power plants and other large sources of carbon dioxide pollution. The EPA estimates that clean air regulations saved over 160,000 lives in 2010 alone, and Environment Connecticut urged Congress to build upon this success—not tear it down.
· Threaten Clean Water Act protections for the streams that flow into Long Island Sound and the streams that feed the drinking water supplies of 2,241,000 Connecticut citizens. Nationally, the bill would threaten drinking water supplies for over 117 million people and endanger thousands of streams and wetlands across the country by blocking EPA’s ability to restore Clean Water Act protections for these waterways.
· Put the health of our drinking water and waterways at risk of sewage and urban runoff pollution by severely cutting funding to Clean Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs). Connecticut would experience a funding cut of $17,073,000, which would not only hurt our health and environment but is estimated to cost our state 475 jobs.
· Implement the largest percentage cut in EPA’s overall budget in 30 years, severely threatening the Agency’s ability to ensure that all Americans have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.
· Waste energy and homeowners’ money by eliminating future funding for home weatherization assistance. In the last two years, the Weatherization Assistance Program has renovated 3,432 homes in Connecticut to lower families’ energy bills and reduce our consumption of energy. Weatherizing Connecticut homes is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to save money, cut energy use and reduce dangerous pollution.

“We are dismayed to see House GOP leadership abandoning America’s core environmental and public health programs by attacking the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, wiping out future funding for commonsense home weatherization programs, and threatening to impose the largest overall percentage cut to EPA’s budget in 30 years,” said Blass.

The budget bill is expected to be considered by the end of the week, and Environment Connecticut encouraged all of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation to oppose the bill.

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A nationwide coalition of over 150 environmental, labor, business, consumer advocacy, public health, faith, and community organizations has applauded Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and 50 other House members from 15 states for reintroducing legislation to protect clean truck programs and reduce harmful air pollution that meets bipartisan goals for a U.S. transportation reauthorization bill: accelerate the speed and success of clean fleet turnover plans, lower public health costs for taxpayers, pave the way for massive, job-creating infrastructure projects, and help propel America’s struggling blue-collar workers.

The Clean Ports Act of 2011 would further advance the trucking and shipping industry’s desire to make U.S. trade hubs more efficient, as well as help address a key Obama Administration priority: recoup lost state and federal tax revenue by curbing illegal worker misclassification.

“This bill is a simple way for Washington to help local governments reduce emissions, boost the green job sector, improve public health, and help responsible businesses grow and compete as part of a national economic recovery strategy, and it belongs in the transportation reauthorization bill,” said David Foster, Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance. “We commend Rep. Nadler and look forward to working with both chambers of Congress to remove this barrier to progress.”

Mr. Nadler is a ranking member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. The U.S. EPA estimates 87 million Americans who live near ports are subjected to the preventable, costly, and fatal health consequences of diesel soot – asthma, cancer, and heart disease – while poor air quality is a top reason to stall job-creating infrastructure projects. Pollution from trucks is a major culprit.

Supporters of federal action include the mayors of Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Oakland, and Seattle. Local, state, and national groups as diverse as Sierra Club, New Jersey Environmental Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Center for Environmental Health, GreenFaith and Church Council of Greater Seattle have joined with multi-million dollar waterfront businesses like Crowley Maritime Corporation and American Stevedoring Inc. to support the bill as well.

The Clean Ports Act specifically makes clear that an obscure provision in the 30-year-old Federal Motor Carrier Act does not prohibit local port officials from exercising their existing regulatory authority to clean up trucking operations and create financial incentives to jump start an alternative-fuel economy. While a federal court has recently confirmed this authority, a Beltway trucking lobby with ties to Big Oil has mounted an expensive, lengthy legal challenge to unravel the nation’s most successful program for slashing heavy-duty diesel-truck emissions, forcing other local officials to put similar comprehensive plans on hold.

The Ports of Los Angeles and Oakland and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey – which together handle over a third of the nation’s container volume annually – are among those major ports advocating for federal legislation.

“Our collective failure to protect the public from diesel pollution is a moral outrage and a shame on our nation. Fortunately, the Obama Administration appreciates that Americans want and deserve clean air and the sustainable jobs that accompany it,” said Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club. In the case of Los Angeles, there’s a proven track record of success. “Congress should embrace this local green-growth model and take action to protect it.”

In 2008, Los Angeles officials sought to end the market failure that has earned U.S. seaports the notorious reputation as “the place where old trucks go to die.” Lax oversight allows some 5,000 port trucking companies nationwide to skirt tax laws and push all the costs of doing business onto their drivers by misclassifying them as independent contractors. Accordingly, new research shows that the typical port truck driver – who previously held a middle-class job – works 59 hours per week with average net earnings before FICA, income, and other taxes of $28,783, making it no surprise that this workforce can only afford to haul in the oldest, most decrepit clunkers. Ninety-five percent of our nation’s 110,000 port trucks fail to meet current EPA emission standards.

“If these drivers were in a position to purchase and care for environmentally-friendly trucks with their current wages, the air pollution that threatens to impede our growth and efficiency wouldn’t be an issue in the first place,” said Matt Yates, Director of Commercial Operations for American Stevedoring, Inc. “Modernizing the port is a long-term investment that merits real capital and real commitment between port authorities and private businesses – not workers behind the wheel.”

The LA Clean Truck Program, endorsed by Federal Maritime Commission Chair Richard Lidinsky, Jr. and the EPA, was developed to shift the financial burden of fleet replacement off the backs of individual workers and onto the broad shoulders of the powerful logistics industry – with a negligible effect on consumer prices.

Los Angeles’ attractive financial incentives leveraged $600 million in private investment from both small and large trucking companies to put nearly 7,000 clean diesel and alternative-fuel vehicles in service. Other key operational standards encouraged thousands of drivers to eagerly retire their old polluting rigs in exchange for jobs that promised set hourly wages, company-owned clean vehicles, and workplace protections that come with legitimate employment.

Officials announced a near 80 percent reduction in emissions and struggling local truck manufacturers saw business up by one-third, but the American Trucking Associations gutted the award-winning program in U.S. District court to keep the status quo. As the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals considers the case, many haulers at the nation’s largest port complex report that their earnings have dropped below minimum wage because a once-transforming industry is now deducting the truck payments and other operation costs straight from their paychecks via lease scams recently chronicled on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

Said Alex Mejia, who was featured in the Times’ expose: “Now drivers are being forced to pay for the company’s new clean truck, but I can already tell you that these trucks are not going to stay ‘clean’ for much longer – we just can’t afford the maintenance. I’m basically working double shifts and I still have to choose between buying milk or replacing a filter. Congress can make sure these companies are playing by the rules, otherwise the clean air programs are going to fail and drivers like me will continue to live in poverty.”

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The Obama Administration’s budget proposal includes a critical investment to strengthen state early learning programs, including pre-kindergarten. This creates a solid foundation on which future education reforms can be built.

By including high-quality early education in his budget, President Obama has taken a critical step in ensuring young children’s learning potential is maximized. Decades of research demonstrate that high-quality pre-k produces short- and long-term impacts in academic performance, especially among low-income children. President Obama’s commitment to early learning will ensure that the achievement gap is addressed before children set foot in a kindergarten or 1st-grade classroom.

Research shows early learning programs provide children with a solid foundation for success, which pays dividends for families, school districts and taxpayers – and ultimately improves America’s economic competitiveness.

Over the last decade, state legislators from both political parties have found common ground in their support of early education, even when facing budget shortfalls. Federal support for state early education efforts has never been more crucial. Congress should support the president’s budget as well as make high-quality early education a key component in the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, our nation’s major education law.he public and stimulate civic life.

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A report by Connecticut Voices for Children, “Connecticut Early Care and Education Progress Report, 2010,” finds that the state has already reversed progress in early childhood funding in recent years. The report also finds that a lack of central coordination of early childhood programs leaves child care providers and parents confused by a diverse array of programs, requirements, and funding sources. The organization called on state legislators and Governor Malloy, who has identified increasing access to preschool as a priority, to maintain early childhood program funding and to develop a more integrated approach to child care and early education.

“Connecticut’s early care and education services need stronger integration and leadership.” said Annemarie Hillman, Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children and co-author of the report. “The state needs comprehensive reform to build a system that coordinates across programs and is more accessible for parents and providers.”

Key findings in the report include:

• After several years of improvement and expansion in early care and education, the state has recently reversed progress in funding. Overall funding declined by 6.3% between Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010, the first decline since 2004.

• Despite the need for child care from families struggling through the recession, fewer Connecticut children are being served as a result of these funding cuts. While accurate calculation of the total number of children served by state-subsidized programs is difficult because of limitations in available data, Connecticut Voices estimates that overall, approximately 1,600 fewer infants and toddlers and 1,600 fewer preschoolers were served in October 2009, compared to October 2008.

• Despite research pointing to the importance of quality to the educational value of early childhood education experience, and increasing educational degree requirements for child care providers, funding for quality improvement decreased by 14.7% between Fiscal Year 2008 and 2010 (adjusted for inflation). These quality improvement funds support a variety of staff training, professional development, accreditation and other initiatives.

• Connecticut lacks a coordinated and comprehensive early care and education system. Currently, the state suffers from poor coordination and planning for its patchwork of state-supported programs, including Care4Kids, School Readiness, Even Start, and state-funded child care centers. The study finds that child care providers must struggle to manage multiple funding streams, regulations, reporting requirements, reimbursement rates, and assessment measures. In addition, families struggle to understand and navigate a confusing and often overlapping array of programs and eligibility requirements. These problems were exacerbated when in Fiscal Year 2010, the state eliminated all funding for “infrastructure development” – efforts to plan, coordinate, and evaluate the early care system.

• Young children are experiencing large educational preparation and achievement gaps. Children from low-income areas are less likely to have preschool experiences. In the 2009-2010 school year, 95.9% of kindergarteners in Connecticut’s wealthiest communities had preschool experience, compared to 67.7% in the poorest school districts. By fourth grade, there is a vast achievement gap between socioeconomic and ethnic and racial groups. In the 2009-2010 school year, 84% to 91% of fourth graders in the wealthiest communities were at “goal” on the Connecticut Mastery test in math, reading, and writing, compared to 27% to 35% in the poorest communities. Because of a lack of data collection and analysis – tied to the state’s limited coordination and planning — policymakers cannot adequately evaluate the impact of its early care programs in Connecticut and their impact on later preparation and achievement.

To improve access to and quality of child care programs, Connecticut Voices recommends that the Governor and state legislators:

• Maintain, and ultimately increase funding for early care and education.

• Create a coordinated system of early care and education, ideally through a state department in the executive branch (e.g., the Dept. of Early Childhood) that works to integrate existing program “silos,” gather data to evaluate and improve quality of care, and fund services based on the actual costs of providing care.

“To improve the quality of early childhood education and achieve better long-term results for children, we need to understand what works and hold programs accountable for their performance,” said Cyd Oppenheimer, Senior Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices and co-author of the report. “Connecticut is simply not yet gathering the data we need to evaluate the state’s child care system.”

Connecticut Voices is a research and policy organization that works to advance policies that benefit children, youth, and families.

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A new proposed regulation announced today by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would ensure students enrolled in health insurance coverage through their college or university benefit from critical consumer protections created by the Affordable Care Act. Students enrolled in college plans would have the freedom from worrying about losing their insurance, or having it capped unexpectedly if they are in an accident or become sick.

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, college students will have more control over their health care,” said Secretary Sebelius. “This rule would ensure that these plans remain a viable, affordable option for students while guaranteeing that they are regulated consistently and offer transparent benefits to students.”

Student health plans are often purchased when family coverage is not available, or is unaffordable. Approximately 1,500-2,000 institutions of higher education across the country offer some type of health coverage; however, what benefits are covered by these plans, as well as how they’re regulated vary widely. The proposed regulation would ensure students enrolled in these plans benefit from important consumer protections created by the Affordable Care Act by clarifying that these plans will be defined as “individual health insurance coverage.” Under the proposed rules, some of the new health insurance protections include:

* No Lifetime Limits on Coverage: Insurance companies would no longer be able to impose lifetime dollar limits on the amount they spend on health benefits in student health plans.
* No Arbitrary Rescissions of Insurance Coverage: Insurance companies can no longer drop coverage when student health plan enrollees get sick because of an unintentional mistake on an application.
* No Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions for Students Under Age 19: Insurance companies cannot deny or exclude coverage for students under age 19 because of a pre-existing condition.

Today, some student health plans, only offer limited benefits with low annual dollar limits on health care, or have limited networks of doctors, and other health care providers. For many students, these health plans are their only health insurance option.

The Affordable Care Act allows HHS to take steps to preserve market stability while ensuring student health plans remain affordable until all Americans have new coverage options through the state-based Exchanges that will be established in 2014. Under the proposed rule announced today, student health insurance plans would be allowed to have annual dollar limits on essential health benefits of no less than $100,000 for policy years beginning before September 23, 2012. Student health plans with policy years beginning after that date must fully comply with the Affordable Care Act’s annual limit restrictions.

The proposed rules would also require insurance companies to clearly tell students enrolled in student health plans whether or not their plan meets the new requirements laid out under the Affordable Care Act—bringing transparency to this marketplace and enabling students to understand the value and quality of the coverage they have.

As a part of the new proposed rule, HHS also is requesting comments on how other Affordable Care Act protections might apply to student health plans, including the choice of medical provider and application of the new medical loss ratio rules.

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The Environment Connecticut has released Safer By Design: Businesses Can Replace Toxic Ingredients through Green Chemistry, a new report that highlights 14 businesses across the country that are innovating to cut toxic chemicals from their products, while creating green jobs and boosting the economy.

“Currently, these businesses are the exception and not the rule. But by harnessing American ingenuity, businesses can actually design their products and processes to be safer,” said Joe Blass of Environment Connecticut.

Environment Connecticut was joined by Evan Beach, Program Manager at the Yale School of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and Anne Hulick, Coordinator, Clean Water Action. The report shows that businesses across the country are creating new technology to reduce their use of toxic chemicals, a process called green chemistry. The report highlights the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer, which has a research and development lab in Connecticut. Pfizer has eliminated the use of harsh chemicals in its manufacturing of the popular drug Lipitor.

“It’s exciting to see American innovation at work,” said Blass. “These businesses are a shining example of how we can create new safer products to protect our health and environment—all while improving our economy.”

“Green Chemistry is a common sense approach– it addresses environmental problems at their root cause, instead of just treating the symptoms,” said Evan Beach, with the Yale School of Green Chemistry. “By designing for reduced hazard at the molecular level, these companies are maximizing their potential to eliminate waste and toxic chemicals from their products and processes.”

“There is growing consensus among health professionals and scientists that exposure to many of the chemicals found in our workplaces, and in products we use every day, is linked to the rise in incidence of many serious diseases such as cancer, reproductive disorders, learning and behavioral disorders, and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” said Hulick, RN, MS, JD. “Green chemistry offers promise to reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals and to reduce the staggering health care costs associated with these diseases.”

Environment Connecticut called on Congress and the Administration to create policies to promote more businesses that employ Green Chemistry. Specifically, they want to require that businesses study and share with the public and other businesses the health and environmental risks associated with chemicals they use; that businesses use safer alternatives where they exist, and phase out the use of the most dangerous chemicals first; and that businesses using toxic chemicals in their products pay the total health and environmental cost of using those chemicals.

“More businesses can reap the rewards of using fewer toxic chemicals,” said Blass. “With bold, new policies in place we can encourage more businesses to turn to green chemistry to protect our health and environment while building the economy.”

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Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.

“LEDs are touted as the next generation of lighting. But as we try to find better products that do not deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as replacements,” said Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine’s Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention.

He and fellow scientists at UCI and UC Davis crunched, leached and measured the tiny, multicolored lightbulbs sold in Christmas strands; red, yellow and green traffic lights; and automobile headlights and brake lights. Their findings? Low-intensity red lights contained up to eight times the amount of lead allowed under California law, but in general, high-intensity, brighter bulbs had more contaminants than lower ones. White bulbs copntianed the least lead, but had high levels of nickel.

“We find the low-intensity red LEDs exhibit significant cancer and noncancer potentials due to the high content of arsenic and lead,” the team wrote in the January 2011 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, referring to the holiday lights. Results from the larger lighting products will be published later, but according to Ogunseitan, “it’s more of the same.”

Lead, arsenic and many additional metals discovered in the bulbs or their related parts have been linked in hundreds of studies to different cancers, neurological damage, kidney disease, hypertension, skin rashes and other illnesses. The copper used in some LEDs also poses an ecological threat to fish, rivers and lakes.

Ogunseitan said that breaking a single light and breathing fumes would not automatically cause cancer, but could be a tipping point on top of chronic exposure to another carcinogen. And – noting that lead tastes sweet – he warned that small children could be harmed if they mistake the bright lights for candy.

Risks are present in all parts of the lights and at every stage during production, use and disposal, the study found. Consumers, manufacturers and first responders to accident scenes ought to be aware of this, Ogunseitan said. When bulbs break at home, residents should sweep them up with a special broom while wearing gloves and a mask, he advised. Crews dispatched to clean up car crashes or broken traffic fixtures should don protective gear and handle the material as hazardous waste. Currently, LEDs are not classified as toxic and are disposed of in regular landfills. Ogunseitan has forwarded the study results to California and federal health regulators.

He cites LEDs as a perfect example of the need to mandate product replacement testing. The diodes are widely hailed as safer than compact fluorescent bulbs, which contain dangerous mercury. But, he said, they weren’t properly tested for potential environmental health impacts before being marketed as the preferred alternative to inefficient incandescent bulbs, now being phased out under California law.