At the end of March, several KFTC members and staff traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to represent KFTC at the 2019 Member Convening of the Climate Justice Alliance.
CJA is a diverse yet aligned coalition of communities on the frontline of the climate crisis from across the country and world working for a Just Transition.
The member convening was a similar to KFTC's annual membership meeting – combining voting on key proposals and plans for CJA's work by CJA member organizations, with valuable moments of collective learning, relationship building and deepening alignment.
The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) held the last of three hearings on Monday, April 8, to gather public input on its latest proposal to change its mandate to monitor and enforce clean water standards on the river. The previous two had been in Pittsburgh on April 1, and Evansville, IN on April 4.
Monitoring would continue under the new proposal, but states could decide whether or not to adopt or enforce the standards. This opened a new front in the fight to protect water in the Ohio River that provides drinking water for more than five million people. Over 75 people gathered at the meeting in Erlanger to voice opposition to the organization’s proposal. KFTC members attended the public hearing along with a broad coalition of individuals, environmental, social justice, religious, public health and civic groups.
For more than a year, KFTC has worked with allies to protect the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission’s (ORSANCO) mission to clean and protect the Ohio River through monitoring and enforcement. This commission, made up of representatives of the federal government and 8 members states (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois) of ORSANCO maintains pollution control standards that are higher than the EPA or state enforcement agencies.
While these standards have not solved the Ohio River’s pollution issues, it has made considerable progress since the founding in 1948. Yet some political appointees in ORSANCO want to make these essential standards optional for states to enforce, giving states the ability to ignore damage to our water systems that disproportionately impacts lower income people and people of color across the region.
A bill that would have rescinded restrictions on the types of physicians who can diagnose black lung disease will likely not get a vote in the Kentucky House of Representatives this year … The proposal’s likely failure comes amid the largest resurgence of black lung in decades, one that has left more than 20 perc
Four big utility interests pumped $327,050 into the political committees of legislative candidates and the political parties during the 2018 election cycle.
That compares with the $6,500 contributed by the tiny political action committee of Kentucky’s solar industry.
KFTC members took part in a special called meeting of the Benham Power Board on February 12 to share the good news that an anonymous donor pledged $200,000 to support the Benham$aves Program.
