More on Mercury!

First – thanks you to all of you who have sent emails or made calls to the House Fish and Wildlife Committee members and the Speaker of the House on mercury-amalgam dental fillings! (also known as H. 121) These legislators need our support and encouragement to move forward on this important bill, as they have been receiving many calls from special interest groups who want to kill this bill. (if you haven't called yet, click here to take action now)

The House Fish and Wildlife committee will be discussing H. 121 again this week, so far it looks like this will happen on Wednesday and Friday. In addition to the mercury-amalgam dental fillings, they will also be discussing the other half of the bill which deals with recycling of thermostats that contain mercury. This part of the bill would initially require a number of things, but a key component is a $5 cash incentive for contractors that return (for recycling) mercury-laden thermostats. Eventually a similar cash incentive would be extended to homeowners, but currently 70% of thermostat replacement is done by contractors, so the initial focus is on them. We fully support this half of the bill as well – and if you get a chance to talk to your legislators, please encourage them to support the entire bill.
Thanks all – more soon-Jakki.

CAD a Success Despite the Snow

What a DAY!
Despite a record snowstorm on valentines day, about 20 Vermonters turned out for the 4th annual Citizen Action Day. We had some great meetings with House Speaker Symington, Sen Pres. Peter Shumlin, and many many other representatives and Senators who weren't snowed in. Thanks to local activist Carl Etnier for brining a cmaer and letting us post pictures.

For those of you who couldn't get out of the driveway on Thursday, we've posted all our training and briefing materials online so you can get the experience of having been there.

We're also asking everyone interested to make 2 quick phone calls: to your Representative supporting Clean Safe and Affordable power, and to your Senator supporting local studies on the impact of big-box retail.

Thanks again to all those who turned out and made calls. We're off next to petition gathering around Town Meeting Day and district meetings with Senators. - drew hudson

What’s new with Mercury.

Well, it’s been a busy time with Mercury. The last few weeks in the legislature, the House Fish and Wildlife Committee has been taking testimony on mercury dental fillings – also known as amalgam fillings. In case you’re not familiar with amalgam dental fillings, they are often referred to as “silver” fillings. The common (and understandable, based on the name) confusion is that the fillings are predominately made of silver, the reality is that those metal dental fillings you probably have in your mouth are 50% mercury. I’ll list more information regarding health effects of mercury below – but for now back to the committee.

So, the short version of hours worth of testimony and committee discussions, is that the dentists testifying on behalf of the Vermont Dental Society all said mercury, excuse me, amalgam, in your mouth is safe, and what little that does vaporize in your mouth/body or that gets into the environment is hardly worth mentioning. Dentists on the other side (Mercury-Free dentists) have testified that they’ve stopped using mercury amalgam over 20 years ago for a variety of reasons: health of patients and staff, aesthetically more appealing alternatives, and environmental concerns. They’ve also said, why use mercury amalgam when there are safe alternatives available that are just as good, and often better for the long term life of a tooth, than mercury amalgam. Good question. So a straw poll of the committee that was held a week ago Thursday, by the Chair of the committee, Rep. Deen, found that in regards to the question “do we want more discussion on amalgam/do we support the amalgam bill” the responses from the 9 member committee were: 5 yes votes: McCullough of Williston, Martin (Cynthia) of Springfield, Randall of Troy, Courcelle of Rutland City, Zenie of Colchester, 1 absent: Adams of Hartland, 2 no votes: Shaw of Derby, Johnson of Canaan and then the Chair, Deen of Westminster, who wanted to send the portion of the bill that deals with mercury-amalgam back to the Advisory Committee on Mercury Pollution where he felt the mercury-free advocates and the pro-mercury-amalgam dentists should work on a compromise. Also to note, at least two committee members wanted to make the mercury-amalgam ban even stronger than the current legislation (which excludes back molars). So, based on the vote the committee will continue to examine this bill, H. 121 (Read the bill text here)

FYI – as I’d mentioned Mercury and its effects. Mercury is a potent neuro-toxin. It is especially dangerous for children and pregnant women (as exposure in pregnant women is passed onto the fetus). It can disrupt brain and body development, cause learning and behavioral disabilities, damage the kidneys, adversely affect memory, fertility, vision and hearing. Its effects are dramatically more severe in children as their bodies are rapidly developing and they absorb it at higher rates. There is also growing research linking mercury toxicity to a large number of diseases, including arthritis, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, learning disabilities and ADHD.
Also note a new bill has been introduced in the Senate
Stayed tuned for further updates.

Report From the Desk of Your Health Advocate: Jakki Flanagan

Environmental Health News: Update on Lead

Exciting update on lead – the latest is the new report from the Lead Task Force, Get the Lead Out of Vermont. This report is the result of extensive research conducted over the past year by various subcommittees of the Task Force. VPIRG was a member of the subcommittee that examined lead in consumer products. The Task Force was convened by the Attorney General and the Commissioner on Health.

Based on the task force's research, Vermont will now lead the nation by setting a significantly lower level of lead in the body to be considered lead poisoning. The previous standard was 10µg/dL (known as 10 micrograms per decileter) the new standard is now 5 µg/dL. What this means is that more children in Vermont will be identified as having levels of lead in their blood that are too high, and thus they will be referred for services.

Currently, even low levels of lead poisoning are known to cause behavioral disorders, lowered IQ, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, aggressive behavior, speech delay and hearing impairment, while high levels can cause severe mental disabilities, convulsions, coma or even death. The information from this report could help thousands of children in Vermont.

Dr. Lanphear, a national expert and leader on research investigating the affects of neurotoxins on children’s health, with a special emphasis on lead, spoke at the press conference in which the new report was released. Afterwards he made a presentation to Senate and House committees, in which he highlighted the fact that children - and adults - are adversely affected by lead in the body at levels which are much lower than was previously considered serious.

Dr. Lanphear also said he was very excited about the actions Vermont is taking on lead and that this new report, in particular the consumer products section, was the most comprehensive in the country.

VPIRG is currently working on legislation to phase-out or ban lead in a variety of children’s and consumer products. Get involved in these efforts by taking action with us today!

Big Crowds at our final kick offs, an incredible week of activism:

What a week for clean, safe and affordable power in Vermont!

Monday night saw a gathering of 50 in Brattleboro. Members of CAN, Nuclear Free Vermont and VPIRG turned out for a kick off meeting on how to shut down Vermont Yankee and replace it with clean local power. Not only was attendance high, but folks got right into action: volunteering to call their elected representatives and tell them to support H.127 and it’s call for 80% clean power by 2018. You can make that call too through our online action center here.

We spent Tuesday night calling VPIRG members to invite them to Citizen Action Day, so many volunteers turned out that we ran out of phones here at VPIRG HQ and had to borrow one from our neighbors. Thanks to all who showed up to call, including our newest VPIRG employee Natalia Fajardo (say hi and welcome here). Great turnout lead to great results again and we are now at more than 150 RSVPs for the day and counting. Keep ‘em coming though, we won’t be happy until citizens outnumber legislators next Thursday. If you haven’t yet, consider taking a day off work to defend our environment, more info at http://www.vtactionday.org/.

Wednesday was more calling and a kick off event with the Sierra Club. VPIRG Energy Advocate James Moore packed the basement of the Norwich public library, where folks phoned in to Speaker Gaye Symington, House Natural Resources Chair Robert Dostis and more local legislators from the upper valley.

Finally, Thursday night was our cap-stone event in Burlington with Mayor Bob Kiss. A great big THANK YOU to the more than 100 Burlingtonians that packed city hall and joined our fight to stop global warming by investing in clean, safe and affordable power. Channel 3 (WCAX) and Channel 5 (WPTZ) sent camera crews to the event as well. If you missed the meeting, don’t get mad, get organized: join VPIRG’s email list and stay in touch about actions coming up in your area on global warming, health care and more….

Rutland, membership in action.

Another week another successful round of Global Warming meetings… It’s great to be an activist in a state where action is the name of the game!

Hey it’s Sean the Field Guy again and for those you just tuning in VPIRG and its allies are out around the state this month growing support for H. 127 the Clean Safe and Affordable Power Act which will require the state to get 25% of all its energy from renewable power by 2012.

This time I took the long lonely ride through the mountains to Rutland to host a meeting with CAN (That’s Citizens Awareness Network for those of you that don’t know). I was a little worried because VPIRG has never been huge in Rutland. But to my great surprise turnout was amazing: more than 25 people showed up!

I want to thank everyone who came for making the event most excellent. The night started off with a talk by yours truly on why global warming is bad for Vermont and what we can do about it. This ended up as an amazingly productive dialogue on how to get action going in the region. We then went to a Q&A session and finally to the phone calls.

At every VPIRG Global Warming event we say that coming together and talking about the problem is only the first step: We must take action. And that’s exactly what we did in Rutland. The lovely Wendy at Unicel donated some cell phones and we got to work calling our legislators. I had two wonderful assistants help me with the training and then we broke out into two groups and got our grassroots on. We ended up making more than twenty phone calls to local legislators in support of the Clean Safe and Affordable Power Act, the best we’ve done so far at any of our meetings. Kudos again to the Rutlandians….Rutlanders…. Rutlandites… ehem… for coming up big!

Well, that’s it from Rutland. I’d like to again thank everyone for coming and making it our most successful Global Warming meeting yet (despite the technical foibles). And don’t forget to come to Citizen Action Day at the State House on February 15^th at 9am in Room 11. We’re going to be teaching everyone how to effectively lobby their legislators and then go talk to those legislators about the issues we care about! So join us Thursday February 15^th for democracy in action! And go to www.vtactionday.org to sign up!

Welcome to the new VPIRG Blog!

We're proud to share with you the new VPIRG blog! A place to catch up on the ins and outs of our issues and actions, we will be posting several times a week to let you know what we're hearing, seeing and doing to protect the public interest, both in the State House as well as in communities across teh state. We welcome your feedback as we craft this new information resource for our members and friends.

Join us for Citizen Action Day 2007

Speak Up for the Environment!

Join Vermont’s Environmental Community at
Citizen Action Day
Thursday, February 15, 2007
8:30 am - 3 pm
The Vermont State House in Montpelier

This February 15, 2007 at 9 a.m. in Rooms 10 and 11 at the Vermont State House don’t miss an important opportunity to join fellow Vermonters to call upon legislators to enact laws that will ensure that Vermont remains a healthy, prosperous, beautiful place.

Don’t miss this chance to:

• Learn tips on how to talk with your legislators about the environmental issues you care about most and then go do it.


• Set up a meeting and have lunch with your legislators.


• Mingle with other concerned Vermonters.


• Learn what conservation issues are hot this session.


• Observe a floor debate.


• Attend a committee meeting.

No prior State House experience is needed. Just show up between 8:30 and 9 a.m. in Room 11 at the State House. At that time, organizers of the event will brief attendees on key issues and lobbying techniques prior to meeting with legislators.

Car pools and ride-shares are available from St. Johnsbury, Middlebury, Rutland, Brattleboro, Richmond and Burlington.For More Information Contact:E-Mail: Drew {at } VPIRG {dot} org Phone: 802-223-8421 x4787

Hosted by Rural Vermont, VACV, VCE, VNRC, and VPIRG, with generous support from Ben & Jerry's

Click here to RSVP online

The Empire Strikes Back: Entergy Sends Hired Gun to State House

The good news is that the House Natural Resources Committee has taken up H.127, our bill to develop clean, safe and affordable power for Vermont. You can find out more about the bill through VPIRG’s website here. The bad news is that almost instantly they started to hear from special interest supporters of the energy status quo.

First up was Entergy Nuclear, corporate owners of Vermont Yankee. Entergy paid for Patrick Moore, who claims to be a founder of Greenpeace, to testify before the committee in favor of continued reliance on nuclear power. VPIRG’s own advocate James Moore (definitely, definitely no relation), hit back fast on WCAX last night. You can read the news story here.

Moore also showed up yesterday in Brattleboro at a hastily scheduled Nuclear Regulatory Committee hearing that supported re-licensing of Yankee. Or was it Pilgrim, a Nuclear plant in New York? The NRC seemed confused about which nuclear power plant they were supposed to be regulating, but either way -- Patrick Moore and contractors for the NRC assured the crowd -- there is no reason to be concerned. The Brattleboro Reformer has the story here.

Patrick Moore was indeed a member and director of Greenpeace international in the 1980s, but he left his activist roots far behind when he founded Greenspirit Strategies. Since starting his career as a high-paid defender of corporate polluters, he’s defended nuclear power, GMO crops, strip mining and chemical companies. It seems like there’s almost no polluter he won’t defend if the money is right. You can read more about his career at SourceWatch, a project of the non-profit, non-partisan, center for media and democracy.