Repowering Vermont: Replacing Vermont Yankee for a Clean Energy Future

We are on the edge of making the biggest decision about Vermont’s energy future in the past 40 years. The choice to repower Vermont with renewable energy resources or commit to an additional 20 years of Vermont Yankee will determine the legacy we leave future Vermonters.

2009-2010 VPIRG Legislative Scorecard

VPIRG produces a scorecard of key votes at the conclusion of each legislative biennium. You can use this year’s scorecard to find out how your representatives in the Vermont House and Senate voted on VPIRG-backed legislation to promote clean energy, reduce exposure to toxins, make health care more accessible and affordable and protect our democracy.

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Building Better How High-Efficiency Buildings Will Save Money and Reduce Global Warming

America is the largest consumer of energy in the world, and the majority of this energy comes from dirty and dangerous sources like coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. Our continued reliance on these fuels contributes to global warming, undermines our energy independence, and costs American families and businesses more and more money every year.

State Leadership and the National Clean Cars Program

America’s dependence on oil threatens our economy and harms our environment. Roughly half of all the oil we use in the United States goes into the gas tanks of our cars and light trucks. The oil we use in our vehicles is also a major contributor to global warming.

Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Has Broken the Clean Water Act and Why Congress Must Fix It

For decades, the Clean Water Act protected the Nation’s surface water bodies from unregulated pollution and rescued them from the crisis status they were in during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Now these vital protections are being lost. This report details the threat to our Nation’s waters by examining dozens of case studies, and highlights the urgent need for Congress to restore full Clean Water Act protections to our waters.

The Right Track: Building a 21st Century High-Speed Rail System for America

America’s highways and airports are increasingly congested. Our nation’s transportation system remains dependent on oil. And our existing transportation infrastructure is inadequate to the demands of the 21st century.

Vermont Body Burden Report

The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Vermont - a coalition coordinated by VPIRG - released a study that tested the bodies of Vermonters from all walks of life for toxic chemicals. The results? Vermonters are no safer from toxic chemicals than anyone else in the country.  In fact, dozens of chemicals showed up in the bodies of all of the participants, many at levels suspected of causing health problems.

What We Learned From the Stimulus: And how to use what we learned to speed job creation in the 2010 jobs bill

Stimulus money invested in public transportation projects created twice as many jobs as highway projects, according to a new report released today by VPIRG, in conjunction with the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Smart Growth America.

But if the Senate doesn’t make changes to Congress’ latest jobs bill this month, it will miss an opportunity to create more jobs, while reducing oil use and carbon emissions, by funding public transportation.

Some Key findings of the report are:

Over Exposed: The Impacts of bisphenol A on Public Health

Bisphenol A (BPA), found in the 1930s to be a synthetic estrogen, is now a high-volume production chemical used to make epoxy resin and polycarbonate plastic. Approximately 7 billion pounds of BPA are produced globally each year for use in baby bottles, dental sealants, compact discs, water bottles, food cans, and a large variety of other items.

Pollution in People: Cord Blood Contaminants in Minority Newborns

Laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group have, for the first time, detected bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic component and synthetic estrogen, in umbilical cord blood of American infants.