Action Alert: Take the 'Three Issues in Three Minutes' Challenge!
Believe me, nothing feels better than taking action when you're confused and thinking the situation is hopeless when it comes to fighting big political battles. If you have just three minutes, you can click on the "TAKE ACTION" link after each description and make a meaningful contribution to issues directly affecting your life and that of the communities we call home.
Regulate Data Centers in Oregon
Data Centers owned by large corporate interests (like the Google Data Center in The Dalles, above) are flooding into Oregon, gobbling up our diminishing farmland, turning valuable agricultural resources into industrial wastelands and consuming huge amounts of our water and electricity. (Read about one attempted land grab here in Oregon.)
Data centers' water and energy consumption are directly related:
- Each year, a 100MW data center will consume 100 million gallons of water, enough for 2,500 people’s domestic use.
- Data centers produce wastewater laced with contaminants and pollutants not normally targeted for removal by wastewater treatment plants.
- Data centers’ water use—from groundwater to streams and rivers that feed municipal water supply—drains water supply in drought-prone areas and endangers fish and wildlife.
- Data center operators have resisted efforts to make water use and impact data available.
Fight Factory Farms
As regular readers of Good Stuff NW know, factory farms put public health and our food supply at risk, pollute the environment and drinking water, wreck rural communities, and fuel climate change while increasing corporate control over our food. (Read more about local efforts to stop these industrial facilities.)
The Farm System Reform Act will revitalize independent family farm agriculture and rural communities by:
- Placing a moratorium on new and expanding large factory farms.
- Phasing out existing large factory farms by 2040.
- Holding corporate integrators responsible for harm caused by factory farms.
- Providing a $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who want to transition away from factory farms.
- Strengthening the Packers & Stockyards Act to protect family farmers and ranchers
- Restoring mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for meat and prohibiting the USDA from labeling foreign imported meat products as “Product of USA.”
TAKE ACTION: Urge your Members of Congress to support the Farm System Reform Act.
Maintain Affordable Access to Clean Drinking Water
Oregon is already facing a water crisis. Trump’s budget plan for next year proposes to cut the main source of federal funding for local water and sewer systems by 89 percent His goal is to outright eliminate this support for safe and clean water, which would seriously endanger public health.
We need Congress to step up and safeguard federal support for safe water. WATER Act—which stands for Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability—is critical legislation that would fund water and sewage system repairs, create good jobs for over 1 million people nationally, help stop sewage overflows, and make infrastructure fixes each year.
TAKE ACTION: Tell your Members of Congress to sign on to the WATER act.
There, now—don't you feel better?