{"id":270,"date":"2019-05-20T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T15:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=270"},"modified":"2019-05-20T17:03:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:03:25","slug":"fwd-dc-council-secures-4-million-to-protect-children-from-lead-poisoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/270\/","title":{"rendered":"Fwd: DC Council Secures $4 Million to Protect Children from Lead Poisoning!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208
\nBegin forwarded message:
\n> From: DC Environmental Network <cweiss@globalgreen.org<\/a>> > Date: May 17, 2019 at 12:42:02 PM EDT > To: mary.bolton@comcast.net<\/a> > Subject: DC Council Secures $4 Million to Protect Children from Lead Poisoning! > Reply-To: cweiss@globalgreen.org<\/a> > > > > > The hero of Tuesday’s DC Council budget focused legislative session was Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (left), who boldly came up with a plan to secure votes to fund important budget priorities, including $3 million to protect children from lead poisoning. > UPDATE: DC Council Secures $4 Million to Protect Children from Lead Poisoning! > DC Environmental Network: > > On Tuesday, the DC Council voted forward all the DC Environmental Network’s budget priorities leaving only one more Council budget vote on May 28. > > The Council supported adding an Environmental Protection Attorney Position at the Office of Attorney General; protected all key Special Purpose Revenue Funds (SPRFs) to reduce carbon emissions, implement the Clean Energy DC bill, and clean up area rivers and creeks; secured new monies for zero-waste composting participation and awareness programs in Ward 7 and 8; and funded past priorities including Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funds, and wildlife rehabilitation programs in the District. > > Tuesday’s big surprise was the addition of $3 million dollars to support implementation of the “Lead Water Service Line Replacement and Disclosure Amendment Act of 2018.” This was the DC Environmental Network’s primary budget priority focused on increasing protections for District families from lead poisoning. > > The DC Environmental Network, Earthjustice, and others, under the leadership of Councilmember Mary Cheh, had already worked hard to secure $1 million dollars for proper lead line replacement. > > On Tuesday, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau took meaningful action, and leadership, by proposing an amendment, the “Downloading Lost Revenue Amendment Act of 2019”, that would recapture forgone revenues and invest them in a number of priorities that were as yet underfunded in the FY20 budget. Of the $15,865,000.00 that would be recaptured, Nadeau allocated $3,000,000.00 for implementation of the lead bill. > > This was a wonderful surprise that meant $4,000,000.00 would now be available to implement the lead bill. It was a bold move by Councilmember Nadeau that secured 9 of 13 council votes. > > Many of us will be testifying at a hearing next Tuesday to make sure this money stays in the budget. See hearing information below. > > Many organizations, individual advocates, and other entities, have, and continue to, work hard to make our budget more sustainable, including the DC Environmental Network, Global Green, Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Campaign for Lead Free Water, Water Alliance, Institute for Local Self Reliance, Institute for Market Transformation, Greater Greater Washington, DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Sierra Club – DC Chapter, DC Greens, Casey Trees, Wentworth Green Strategies, Rock Creek Conservancy, City Wildlife, Grid Alternatives, Earth Day Network, Audubon Naturalist Society, Green Compass, and many others. > > Our budget priorities are surviving this rigorous process but there is still one more budget vote on May 28 @ 10:00 AM. > > Keep doing what you are doing! > > DC Environmental Network > The spectacle of the DC budget process! > The DC Environmental Network always enjoys participating in the spectacle of a DC Council legislative meeting. The first Council vote on the changes made to Mayor Bowser’s, $15.5 billion plus, Fiscal Year 2020 budget, was guaranteed to be interesting, maybe frustrating at times, for all. > > At best, a city’s budget is a powerful representation of the dreams and aspirations of its citizens, at worst it’s a tool for rewarding corporate interests over the needs of District neighborhoods, and low-income residents. > > The DC Environmental Network’s dream is to have a budget that supports clean and healthy air and drinking water, flourishing urban wildlife, meaningful, strong programs to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change, lifting families out of poverty, creating secure neighborhoods that residents can afford to live and work in. > > Watching our elected representatives engaging each other, the media, and stakeholders, right up to the first of two budget votes, left DCEN with the impression that our DC Council is generally trying to do the right thing. Even with our advocacy successes, participants are often left with mixed feelings on how much progress has or has not been made to make our city a better place to live. It’s not a perfect system but some good does come from it. And it’s important to make sure all of our voices are heard. > > Here are some pictures that show the Council doing its “thing” prior to finalizing their latest vision statement, the Fiscal Year 2020 budget for DC.. > > Advocates and others had to wait over 2 hours after the scheduled start time before the Council started their legislative session. Most of the folks who came to witness the Council actions and advocate on their issues, came from the DC Nurses Association, and two DC public schools, Banneker High School and Shaw Middle School. DCEN is proud of these advocates. Although many environmental organizations have been working hard on making the budget more sustainable, the only environmental organization that showed up on Tuesday was the DC Environmental Network. > > As the Chairman of the Council, Phil Mendelson has a lot of influence over the budget process. As advocates watch, Mendelson makes the case for his budget priorities to the media. > > Councilmember’s Kenyan McDuffie and Trayon White, speak to advocates prior to the start of the legislative meeting. Councilmember Trayon White gave an impressive speech, just before the budget vote, suggesting that some progress had been made but more work was needed to take care of District residents with the greatest needs. > > Councilmember Allen speaks to advocates. You can see many conversations in the background. From our perspective, a circus of sorts. DCEN participated in some quick advocacy with the Council, and staff, during this time. > > Chairman Mendelson waiting or listening. The conversations never stopped….even during the formal legislative budget meeting. > Two hearings you should know about. > It feels like the DC Environmental Network has spent a lot of time at hearings the last 5 months. Here are two opportunities for you to be heard: > > DPW Director Confirmation Hearing, May 20TH @ 11:00 AM: The Committee on Transportation and Environment will hold the DPW Director Christopher Geldart confirmation hearing. Share with the DC Council, and Director Geldart, your thoughts on how the District of Columbia can improve its recycling, food waste\/composting programs, and become a zero-waste city. Learn how to sign-up here! > > Support Funding Protections from Lead Poisoning, May 21ST @ 11:00 AM: The Committee on Finance & Revenue will hold a Public Oversight Roundtable on the Qualified High Technology Companies (QHTC) Tax Incentives. This is the mechanism Councilmember Nadeau used to add $3 million dollars to monies slated to protect DC families from lead poisoning. Come share your support for using these funds to reduce the threat of lead poisoning in the District. Learn how to sign-up here! > > The final DC Council vote on the budget is on May 28th. You still have a chance to be heard. Hope to see some of you next week at these hearings. > DC Environmental Network > 820 First St. NE, Suite LL-180 > Washington, DC 20002 > Unsubscribe mary.bolton@comcast.net<\/a> > Update Profile | About our service provider > Sent by cweiss@globalgreen.org<\/a> > in collaboration with > > Try email marketing for free today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208 Begin forwarded message: > From: DC Environmental Network > Date: May 17, 2019 at 12:42:02 PM EDT > To: mary.bolton@comcast.net > Subject: DC Council Secures $4 Million to Protect Children from Lead Poisoning! > Reply-To: cweiss@globalgreen.org > > > > > The hero of Tuesday’s DC Council budget focused legislative session was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}