BP Makes Me Sick!
Amazing! 57,264 people joined our “BP Makes Me Sick” coalition in only 4 days. As BP blocks Gulf clean-up workers from wearing respirators when dealing with harmful toxins, thousands of us are asking President Obama to step in. (Keith Olbermann explains the issue here.) The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Baton Rouge Advocate, and others all wrote about this new coalition!
We have momentum — can you help us reach 100,000 signers by joining our coalition today? Click here! (Then, forward to others!)
Today, we are proud to announce that our effort is endorsed by 50 partners across the nation. This includes:
- Waterkeeper Alliance President Robert Kennedy Jr. and the Save Our Gulf Waterkeepers
- Louisiana Environmental Action Network Executive Director Marylee Orr
- Major Senate candidates — Roxanne Conlin (IA), Jack Conway (KY), Kendrick Meek (FL), and Elaine Marshall (NC)
- 27 House candidates — including bold progressives Ann McLane Kuster (NH), Bill Hedrick (CA), David Segal (RI), and others (full list here)
- 9 House members — including Carolyn Maloney (NY), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Jared Polis (CO), Chellie Pingree (ME), and Alcee Hastings (FL)
- National organizations like Democracy for America, Color Of Change, and Commercial Fishermen of America
Louisiana Watermen Demand Proper Safety Equipment In Gulf Oil Cleanup
By Ryan Grimm
The Huffington Post
July 8, 2010
In the harried cleanup that followed the attack on downtown New York on September 11th, managers of the process famously failed to equip workers with protective gear, damaging countless lives of those who came to the rescue. Environmental advocacy groups and commercial watermen, who are more often joined in combat than alliance, have come together with bloggers and public officials to prevent the pattern from repeating in the Gulf.
Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance, the United Commercial Fisherman, the Louisiana Shrimp Association, Commercial Fisherman of America, the Nassau Sierra Club in Florida and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, among dozens of others, are calling on BP to properly equip rescue workers mired in the toxic muck that has been spewing from the Gulf floor for nearly three months.
“We cannot let the denial of protective gear that hurt so many 9/11 clean-up workers happen again with the Gulf clean-up workers,” reads a statement signed by the groups, organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “President Obama and the federal government must demand that BP allow every clean-up worker who wants to wear respiratory protective equipment to do so — and ensure that workers get the equipment and training they need to do their jobs safely.”
The fishing organizations represent those who have been transformed into cleanup workers by the spill. A scientist with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network recently testified before Congress on the hazards of Gulf cleanup.
The groups are organizing an online petition at BPMakesMeSick.com, where a full list of the coalition, which includes local bloggers and national politicians such as Florida Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson and Kendrick Meek, can be found.
Go to the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/louisiana-watermen-demand_n_639094.html
Gulf Fishermen, Bloggers, RFK Jr. Say “BP Makes Me Sick”
By Nancy Scola
Tech President
July 8, 2010
A growing coalition of local bloggers, elected officials, online organizers, workers, environmental groups, and public figures formally launched today a drive to get BP to allow workers wear health-saving protective gear as they go about cleaning up the Gulf coast.
The new BP Makes Me Sick Coalition is, it’s probably fair to say, the first high-profile push we’ve seen to use political organizing tactics, online and offline, to shape the ongoing disaster in the Gulf. The implicit tactic is to coalesce public opinion around a tangible idea — one itself important, but that stands for something bigger. The BP Makes Me Sick Coalition is a project spearheaded by the Progressive Change Coalition, with the backing of local groups like Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and Galveston Baykeeper, Gulf fishermen, local blogs like the Burnt Orange Report and Texas Kaos, local electeds like Reps. Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Kendrick Meek (D-FL), and national figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helps head the New York-based environmental group Riverkeeper.
The group, explained PCCC’s Adam Green, started taking shape about two weeks ago, after Marylee Orr, the head of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, talked on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show about BP’s alleged efforts to prevent clean-up workers from wearing respirators on the job.
“It’s a choice between feeding their family, and not having money to feed their family,” Orr told Olbermann. “They’re willing to sacrifice their health to feed their family, and I think that’s tragic. When our fishermen folks had their respirators on, they were told to take them off, that they would be fired if they used them.” (Clip here.) Through Orr, says Green, PCCC connected with local fisherman’s organizations. Through them, they reached out to local environmental groups, and on to Kennedy, who came aboard yesterday.
This being a PCCC joint, there’s also a strategic twist. The subtext of BP Makes Me Sick is using the relatively discrete matter of protective respirators to press President Barack Obama on his leadership in the Gulf — or, to flip it around, his supposed deference to BP. Fleshing out that angle is a note on the site echoing the George W. Bush-era: “We cannot let the denial of protective gear that hurt so many 9/11 clean-up workers happen again with the Gulf clean-up workers.”
At the moment, BPMakesMeSick.com features an online petition that anyone can co-sign.
Go to the article here: http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/gulf-fishermen-bloggers-rfk-jr-say-bp-makes-me-sick
NY DAILY NEWS: Group Demands BP Provide Cleanup Workers With Respirators
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/group-demands-bp-provide-clean.html
SAN FRAN CHRONICLE: Sources: BP threatens to fire cleanup workers who wear respirators
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=67426#ixzz0t87rmAfd
DAILY KINGFISH: Kingfish joins coalition to protect cleanup workers
http://www.dailykingfish.com/diary/1575/kingfish-joins-coalition-to-protect-cleanup-workers
