Thanks to a state law passed in 2007, Colorado's for-profit utilities, like Xcel Energy, have eliminated energy waste equivalent to 210,000 households, reducing over a million tons of air pollution and saving millions of dollars. Now, however, Xcel wants to roll back their effective energy savings programs by a third, and they’re asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to let them do it. Stand up for Colorado energy efficiency: Tell the PUC to stop Xcel's energy savings rollback. Comments are due to the PUC by April 21st, so we need to act fast. And the PUC doesn't get a lot of public comments so trust me: your voice can make a difference. Sign the petition and we'll hand deliver it by the 21st.

I see mile-long Bakken oil trains⎯each carrying approximately 3 million gallons of volatile crude oil⎯roll through my small Skagit Valley community nearly every day. If all oil-by-rail permit requests are approved, many more potentially explosive oil trains will travel through Washington state every day. The dangers to the health and safety of our communities and our environment of transporting oil by rail, given the flammability of Bakken crude oil, the poor safety record of the tank cars currently carrying the oil, and the increased number of derailments as more trains transport oil, need to be studied and addressed before allowing more oil-by-rail trains to travel through Washington state.

We are drilling thousands of feet into the earth and injecting, on average, four and a half million gallons of pressurized sludge into cracks between subterranean rocks. Is it really surprising that this is leading to increased seismic activity?

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

Last summer, the levee board responsible for protecting metro New Orleans filed suit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies for their part in destroying Louisiana's coast. Instead of filling thousands of miles of abandoned access canals within 90 days after they stopped using them – as their permits required – and restoring land they damaged – as the law required – the industry simply left, allowing the channels to swell and engulf the sliced, fragile vegetation of our millennia-old marsh and wetlands. The destruction of this natural buffer against hurricane storm surge endangers all residents and property of south Louisiana. Our survival is literally at stake. In one lifetime, our coast has lost nearly 2000 square miles of land, an area the size of Delaware. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was a symptom of that loss, and we continue to lose land at the rate of one football field every 45 minutes. Legislation backed by Governor Jindal and Big Oil to retroactively declare the levee authority’s lawsuit null and void is moving quickly through both chambers of the state legislature. If adopted, the oil and gas industry – the most profitable in world history – will enjoy virtual legal immunity in Louisiana. It will be above the law, and it will leave the taxpayers in one of America’s poorest states with the impossible task of raising the $50 billion minimum required to rebuild our coast.

Even when we try to buy foods that are in biodegradable packaging, it is difficult. Plastic bags encase almost all frozen foods, and even fresh produce is placed into plastic bags. For consumers to have choices in supermarkets and specialty stories, we need manufacturers to phase out plastics and move towards containers that are not toxic and will biodegrade. Recycling helps, but not enough. We need a better world, and it will start with no plastic!

There are certain rules fishermen must abide by, such as, people only being able to catch six Striped Bass at a time or there being a certain size fisherman can catch. By removing these restrictions the number of Striped Bass in the Delta and San Joaquin River will be reduced. Since Striped Bass mostly feed on Salmon, after removing many of them from the water, Salmon population will be able to expand. Considering that Striped Bass is the most abundant predator, Salmon will be able to increase the size of their population after restrictions on Striped Bass are removed, therefore, bringing more Salmon to the San Joaquin River and Delta. Environmentally, this will benefit the Delta and San Joaquin River’s population of fish. There will be reduction of the amount of Stripped Bass in the Delta however, there will be an increase of Salmon. Economically, there will be more jobs for fisherman. There will also be more fish making the cost of Salmon decrease as well as the cost of Striped Bass.

What I'm proposing is for Chicago to implement a Cap-and-Trade emissions policy for carbon within the city limits, thus creating a proven model that can be replicated and spread throughout the United States and world. The details to be worked out by Mayor Emanuel involve MAJOR producers of greenhouse gases having to buy permits to put a certain amount of emissions into the air. Originally a Republican solution (Reagan, and Both Presidents Bush), this policy would financially incentivize voluntary reductions and conversions to cleaner energy sources. And according to Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in a 10/14/09 USA Today article, the cap and trade impact on employment would be small. The Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov/clearskies/captrade.html) and Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, as well as moderate Republicans and Democrats support this as a viable, market based solution to global warming. We therefore want to start in Chicago and go from there. --------------------------------------- Need more details? Here's a short summary from the US EPA: "Cap and trade is an environmental policy tool that delivers results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply. Successful cap and trade programs reward innovation, efficiency, and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth." EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL cap and trade programs IN THE USA include the nationwide Acid Rain Program and the regional NOx Budget Trading Program in the Northeast. Additionally, EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) on March 10, 2005, to build on the success of these programs and achieve significant additional emission reductions." In other words, it has been done in the past and we can do it again. City by city, this petition starts in Chicago. Named the 2014 Earth Hour Capital of the US by the World Wildlife Fund, Chicago is second to none and this proposal will prove that WE DO HAVE THE POLITICAL WILL to change the course of what the U.S. Secretary of State called in a February 17th article on CNN.com "... the greatest challenge of our generation, and we can create the future that everybody dreams of". You are being called to rise to the greatest challenge to human existence in the 21st Century. I challenge you to get off the couch, sign and spread this petition to answer the call. Be the change that you want to see and thank you.

Until research is complete and the safety of our students is ensured the school board should make it their number one priority to protect our children. The potential loss of enrollment and funding will greatly affect the longevity of our local school and is of great concern.

According to U.S. Bureau of the Census, there are 11,459 households within Cheboygan County, Michigan. If each uses 9 plastic shopping bags per week, a total of 5.3 million plastic bags are distributed within Cheboygan County, Michigan, each year. According to the EPA, fewer than 5% of the plastic bags used in the U.S. are recycled. so 5.0 million of the plastic bags that are distributed within Cheboygan County are sent to landfills. According to www.worldwatch.org/node/5565, plastic bags take thousands of years to decompose. According to the Great Lakes Alliance on Adopt-A-Beach, plastic bags make up 13% of the trash on the beaches within Cheboygan County, Michigan. Animals, including turtles, fish, and birds, are killed when they ingest plastic bags.