| Dear Katy, With Scott Pruitt leaving in shame, things at the EPA are now going from bad to worse: a DowDupont executive is reportedly overseeing Superfund projects to clean up the toxic and deadly chemical spills his company is responsible for – all without the required Senate confirmation. Peter Wright, a lawyer for Dow and a former Monsanto employee, is already working at the EPA, occupying a desk at the agency and serving as "special counsel to the administrator," completely skirting Senate confirmation rules.1 This outrageous conflict of interest comes at a time when the EPA is facing scandal after scandal, yet the Senate committee responsible for overseeing the EPA recently approved Wright's nomination. We must build public pressure on the full Senate to reject his nomination ahead of his confirmation vote. Tell the Senate: Block and resist chemical executive Peter Wright at the EPA. Click here to sign the petition. According to a biography by the American Bar Association, Wright managed "the legal issues and outside counsel with respect to Dow's largest and most significant environmental matter, the mid-Michigan dioxin matter," a toxic Superfund site that Dow has been litigating for more than 40 years and has yet to clean up.2 The dioxin contamination, which is highly toxic and linked to a whole host of health problems including cancer, extends 50 miles down the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and into the Saginaw Bay, and continuously threatens communities along its banks.3 Earlier this year, Dow won a major lawsuit that prevented local residents from suing the company for the dioxin contamination.4 Wright's nomination is yet another example of the Trump administration's cozy relationship with Dow Chemical. Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris headed up Trump's now-disbanded American Manufacturing Council, and last year, the company donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee.5 So it wasn't a surprise that after a brief meeting with Liveris last March, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt overturned an Obama-era rule banning chlorpyrifos, the popular brain-harming pesticide manufactured by Dow.6 The full Senate is set to take up Wright's nomination very soon, so we must act now to stop another dangerous Trump nominee from devastating our environment. Tell the Senate: Block and resist chemical executive Peter Wright at the EPA. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/reject_wright?t=7&akid=29699%2E12967895%2E-bpLkh Thanks for all you do. Josh Nelson, Co-Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Mark Hand, "Former industry officials are advising new EPA head before they're confirmed," ThinkProgress, July 10, 2018.
- American Bar Association, "Making Rain: How to Bring Your Next Environmental Case Into the Door and Keep Them Coming," accessed March 16, 2018.
- World Health Association, "Dioxins and their effects on human health," October 2016.
- Associated Press, "Dow Chemical wins key ruling in dioxin pollution dispute," Jan. 26, 2018.
- Bess Levin, "Dow Chemical Donates $1 Million to Trump, Asks Administration to Ignore Pesticide Study," Vanity Fair, April 20, 2017.
- Associated Press, "EPA chief met with Dow Chemical CEO before deciding not to ban toxic pesticide," June 30, 2017.
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