{{ FirstName | commonize | default: ‘Friend’ }}, we still do not know when (or if) the funding from our EPA award will come through.

As Chris noted in the Buffalo News,
“We think this is unlawful and a disturbing overreach by the federal government… Congress allocated it, and communities really need the funding.”

Last week, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works published documents challenging the legality of the cancellation of these grants – we will keep you apprised as news develops on this front.

As we navigate these unprecedented times and tribulations, we are heartened by our community and the support being offered – as shared at our Annual Meeting last week, we are about one third of the way towards our emergency May day appeal!

We still have about 20k left to raise by May 1, though – can you chip in today, and also forward this email to a couple friends with an ask to donate?

We have also launched the ticket purchase page for our Annual Dinner on May 1, where we will gather to celebrate the results of our fundraiser and our wins this year. Ticket purchases will be counted towards our May Day appeal.

Interested in sponsoring the Dinner? Click here to see the sponsorship letter, and here to email Gia!

With Bread and Roses,
Bridge, Chris, Cindy, Gia and Kiera

Join us this Saturday April 5 at 11am sharp at Niagara Square for the Buffalo United Rally and March! More info is available at the Facebook event here. We will be meeting up at 10am out front of the Statler Building entrance at Delaware and Niagara Square, and you can also find us during the event by looking for our banner near the obelisk.

Do you want a Clean Air tee shirt for the rally? Swing by our office at 371 Delaware anytime Thursday (today) between 9-6:30 or Friday between 9-4, or email us your size and we will bring one with us for you on Saturday!

We are also supporting Equality NY’s Buffalo rally on Tuesday April 15 at 4:30, also at Niagara Square. Bridge is hosting!
More info available at this link.

While federal environmental justice work for the foreseeable future will be challenging, that is not true of state and local policy, where we can make progress and add environmental protections.

Join us on Wednesday April 30 at 6pm at the Frank E. Merriweather Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave in Buffalo, to urge robust implementation of the new Environmental Justice Siting Law, also known as the “Cumulative Impacts Law”. Click here to learn more and see the full list of public comment hearings.

We are applauding the work of North Tonawanda residents who organized to make North Tonawanda a nuclear-free community in response to proposed plans by Digihost Technologies to turn the Fortistar Gas Plant into a micro-nuclear powered facility. The North Tonawanda Common Council vote unanimously in favor of the new regulations!

Also be sure to scroll down to read about the teach in on Data Centers we are planning for May 8 with North Tonawanda residents and the Allies of the Tonawanda-Seneca Nation, and take a sec to sign this petition urging Senator Gillibrand to stop backing the GENIUS Act, a pro-crypto bill.

At our Annual Meeting, Clean Air signed the SURJ Pledge to Protect and Resist – learn more about the pledge and sign today at  https://www.protectandresist.com/

Hear from Luella Kenney, a Love Canal survivor who lost her son to the contamination, on her thoughts on the community and worker exposures from operations at Goodyear.

Resistance to the STAMP project continues to grow – click here to sign a petition opposing data center operations at STAMP.

We are also working with ATSN to do an in-depth teach in on May 8 on both Zoom and in-person at 371 Delaware – save the date, and sign up for updates by clicking here.

Finally, check out this article about how seven indigenous nations have pulled out from talks with the Army Corps of Engineers related to the Line 5 Pipeline project through the Great Lakes largely because of the new administration’s policies to fast track oil and gas projects.

Save the date – on May 6 WNYALF will be leading a rally in Niagara Square!

Our friends in labor have been extremely busy this month and expect to stay busy for the foreseeable future. Click here to use AFL-CIO’s toolkit make a call to our elected officials in DC in support of our federal workforce, and be sure to stay up to date on news about CWA Local 1168 and 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East’s contract negotiations with Catholic Health and Kaleida Health – the Kaleida contract expires May 31, and the Catholic Health contract expires June 30.

Clean Air joined our friends with Workers United this month for a picket at the AKG in opposition to unionbusting layoffs. The National Association of Letter Carriers also held a rally this month to highlight proposed policies to privatize the USPS. Buffalo-area writer Derek Seidman also wrote about how ICE is targeting farmworker organizers.

One of the biggest lessons to learn from this moment is that when we fight back, we may not win the short term battle but will win in the long term, but when we don’t fight back, we not only lose automatically, but also cede ground, setting ourselves up to lose in the long term.

Cory Booker seems to have learned this lesson, and we applaud his 25 hour filibuster that he held this week!

We also applaud the Buffalo-area residents who turned out for the Tesla Takedown action on March 29 – check out these photos of the picket!

Much of the present fight is also ongoing in courts – for example, the Supreme Court earlier this month rejected Republican-led efforts to halt climate change lawsuits in Democratic-led states, and federal judges have issued ruling after ruling against the Trump administration’s actions, like these two against political targeting of law firms.

NY is making it known that any federal workers who have been laid off can find work in state government roles, including at the DEC – check out the recruitment page here!

NYS DEC is accepting public comments on a Draft Investigation Work Plan for 743 Main Street in Buffalo – learn more, including where to submit comments, by clicking here.

This month we are saddened to note the passing of several members of the organizing community.

First, there was the loss of Mickey Harmon and Jordan Celotto; Mickey was a good friend of Bridge and our board chair Jim, both of whom worked closely with him to organize for the queer and trans community and for the cycling community. Jordan was a member of the Onondaga Beaver Clan, and spent a time working for the City of Toronto – in this 2017 interview, he spoke about the fight for representation in city hall.

If you would like to donate to keep their memory alive, the Intersect Festival, which Mickey was a core organizer for, is collecting funds to move forward and dedicate the event in their memory.

Hazel Nell Dukes, the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and president of the organization’s New York State chapter, passed away on March 1 at the age of 92 after a lifetime of dedication to civil rights and Black liberation.

Greg Olma, a former Erie County Legislator and champion of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood, passed suddenly at the age of 65.

Richard Price, Anne Sterling, Karl Scheitheir, and Jude Keys also are remembered this month, as is Richard Lippes, the lawyer who is most famously known for his defense of Love Canal survivors.

CACWNY Events

• April 5 – Buffalo United Rally
• April 15 – Equality NY Rally
• April 30 – Environmental Justice Siting Law Hearing
• May 1 – Annual Dinner
• May 6 – WNYALF Rally
• May 8 – Data Center Teach-in

Upcoming Training Opportunities, Conferences and New Resources

Are you a Clean Air member or supporter who is engaged with a current campaign, and is there a training opportunity that you would like to pursue to strengthen your organizing? Please let a staff organizer know, as we budget to support leadership development! All Clean Air members and supporters also have free access to trainings from the Advocacy Institute.

• WE ACT TCTAC – resources, technical and policy trainings on demand, and numerous upcoming online trainings this month! 
• EPA Contaminated Site Clean-Up Information Center – multiple webinars, both live and on demand recordings
• EPA Superfund Training and Learning Center – multiple webinars, both live and on demand
  
• Little Sis – on demand webinar recordings

New This Month – 

• April 3 – A Conversation on Hope, a virtual conversation featuring three Episcopal Bishops on organizing in faith-based communities
• April 12 – Employee Ownership as Succession Planning
• April 14 – SKYWARN Training in Buffalo, additional dates also on schedule, including online dates
•  April 16 – Beyond Plastics briefing on New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S1749/A1464)
• Partnership for the Public Good’s Knowledge for the Public Good Workshop Series, click here to register
  • April 15: Buffalo City Budget 101
  • May 20: FOIL for the Facts (virtual only)
  • June 17: Erie County Budget 101

Community and Coalition Events

• April 16 – Burning Books The Unraveling: The Council of Crows
• April 26 – PPG 2025 Advocacy in Action Summit
• April 26 – Burning Books You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take

Public Comment Deadlines and Hearings

• Various dates starting in April – City of Buffalo’s Envision Neighborhood Workshops
• April 10 – Buffalo public hearing on the city’s Consolidated Plan & Annual Action Plan
• April 25 – public comments due on Draft Investigation Work Plan for 743 Main Street

Also see our regularly updated list of events at bit.ly/CleanAirEvents and linktr.ee/cleanairwny

With the current news cycle, it’s hard to keep track of all the headlines. Below are a few key stories about changes at the EPA and related coverage that you may have missed.

EPA Regulation Rollbacks

On March 12, the new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced 31 sweeping actions aimed at rolling back EPA regulations. Our friends at EarthJustice wrote about the impacts of some of these rollbacks here, and here are some of the EPA’s press releases on these changes:

• Weakening of the “Good Neighbors” Rule Restricting Air Emissions Across State Borders
• Weakening of Water Pollution Limits for Coal Power Plants
• Weakening of National Air Quality Standards for PM2.5
• Closing the EPA Environmental Justice Office and anti-DEI actions
• Reconsidering the Risk Management Plan rule
• Weakening of multiple National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs)
• Weakening of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards
• Changes to the Clean Air Act’s Regional Haze Program
• Changes to Section 111 of the Clean Air Act
• Revising Wastewater Regulations for Oil and Gas Extraction
• Rolling back the Clean Trucks Plan and the Clean Power Plan 2.0
• Reconsidering the mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
• Formal reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, ie, the 2009 finding that current and projected concentrations of six greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
• And finally, weakening of Coal Ash regulations and shifting priorities in enforcement discretion, including removing legacy coal ash from priority areas for action

We especially want to highlight those last two, as it impacts the clean-up of the ash ponds at NRG Huntley. Since 2015 and the Kingston Coal Ash spill, the EPA has focused on strengthening rules about management and clean up of legacy coal ash ponds and piles, with stronger rules announced in 2023. These changes will make our work to force NRG to clean up it’s mess that much more difficult – but it’s worth noting that under Trump’s first administration these same rollbacks, as well as many of the ones listed above, were also attempted and quickly undone under the Biden administration. In other words, our nose is bloody but the fight has only just begun.

Attacks on Federal Workforce

Labor Notes – Trump Goes Nuclear on the Federal Workforce 

Inside Climate News – Former Top EPA Official Warns of Dire Consequences of Planned Purge at the Agency’s Science Office 

EarthJustice – He Worked to Clean up Superfund Sites. The Trump Administration Fired Him.

Earther – ‘We Just Want to Get Back to Work’: NOAA Hurricane Hunter Speaks Out After Trump’s Layoffs 

ProPublica – “Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda

More on Terminated Awarded Grants and Other Topics

ShelterForce – EPA Terminates Already-Awarded Climate Funding

Banned and Trigger Words in Federal Grant Writing in the Trump Administration 2.0

EPA Closes Agency Museum

Jeff St. John, Canary Media – Gutting clean energy incentives would drive up electric bills

Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco & Izzy Ross, Grist Magazine – The US and Canada have long managed the Great Lakes together. That era could be ending.

Chris Bonasia, The Energy Mix – ‘Climate Bailout Bonds’ Could Protect Fossil Companies from Stranded Assets If They Build Renewables

Paige Bennett, EcoWatch – London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone Expansion Has Effectively Reduced Air Pollution, Report Finds

Stephanie Luce, In These Times – How a “Plan 2028” Could Bring Labor and Social Movements Together

Zeke Hausfather and Devin Rand, The Climate Brink – Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

Martha Pskowski and Kiley Bense, Inside Climate News – EPA Considers Giving Oil and Gas Companies More ‘Flexibility’ to Dispose of Highly Toxic Wastewater

You can also click here to join the Buffalo Snow Brigade. We also suggest checking out the resources at mutualaiddisasterrelief.org as well as their new website relieftoolkit.com. If interested in joining mutual aid efforts with Clean Air, particularly in the realm of community resiliency amid climate change,
please reach out to Bridge about trainings or to Gia about our events and membership committee.

We once again want to recommend checking out the wonderful podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, a history podcast about organizing movements. In a recent two-part episode, host Margaret Killjoy spoke about her experiences with the Mountain Valley Pipeline resistance.

Interested in connecting with CACWNY generally as an organization, have an emerging campaign or issue you’d like CACWNY to consider, or are you interested in joining our Peabody Street or  Lovejoy campaigns?
Do you know of a grant opportunity that might support our work?

Interested in joining our Tonawanda Just Transition campaign teams, our work to regulate cryptocurrency mining, our Energy Democracy work, or have a submission for this monthly newsletter?

Interested in supporting Clean Air’s grassroots fundraising efforts, or joining our events or membership committee, including our Rapid Response Team?

Want to join our American Axle campaign or support our work in the Delavan-Grider neighborhood and greater East Side, or support our statewide climate justice work with NYRenews,?

Interested in donating to support our work?