In Arizona, it’s illegal to ban the use of single-use plastics. Yes, you read that right, it is illegal. In 2015, the state legislature approved Senate Bill 1241, preventing all local governments from regulating the sale, use or disposal of plastic bags and other “auxiliary containers”. This means that Arizona municipalities trying to take a more aggressive approach towards tackling their plastic simply cannot. It sounds absurd, but doing so would have criminal consequences. 

Take the city of Bisbee, Arizona. In 2012, spurred on by a growing trash problem, the Bisbee City Council enacted an ordinance banning retailers from providing plastic bags to customers. However, in 2015, after Senate Bill 1241 was approved, the Arizona Attorney-General flagged Bisbee’s progressive ban on plastic bags as violating state law. The ultimatum for Bisbee? Give up your single-use plastic ban, or lose more than US$2 million in state tax revenue. 

Arizona is not the only state that has made bans on single-use plastics illegal. Today, state laws in 10 US states prevent local governments from implementing more progressive plastic reduction policies at the city level. 

States with Enacted Plastic Bag Legislation – note that 10 states have preempted bills preventing local governments from passing bans, fees, or taxes on plastic bags. (From National Conference of State Legislatures)

Proponents of these states laws argue that cities can still pursue voluntary plastic waste reduction programs. Citizens need to be given a choice, they say, such as reusing and recycling their plastic bags. They argue, enacting such legislation doesn’t mean that there can never be a ban on single-use plastics, it just needs to happen on a state level to prevent confusion. (Read: it will never happen.)

 In truth, most state legislators passing such laws disregard consumer interests. It is corporate interests that they are protecting. 

A deeper investigation reveals that these laws are modelled on legislation proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is an organization that claims to “protect business and consumer choice”, but works behind the scenes to draft model legislation advancing corporate interests – so much so that critics have called it a ‘corporate bill mill’. It has proposed bills that allow states to opt out of safe water drinking protections, withdraw from regional climate initiatives, and seize public lands for industry. Worst of all: ALEC has denied the existence of climate change. 

It should concern you that powerful corporate lobbies are taking away your city’s right to enact their own plastic reduction policies. ALEC is not the only group working with state legislators – the American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA), which represents the plastic bag manufacturing and recycling sector, is another strong lobby. In Minnesota, the APBA and the American Chemistry Council spent $290,000 lobbying at the state level to make banning single-use plastics illegal – forcing cities like Minneapolis to backtrack on plastic reduction policies. After California passed its statewide ban on single-use plastic in 2014, the APBA spent over $3 million to put a reversal of the ban on the ballot. 

These state laws are out of step with the rest of the world. The European Union parliament recently approved a wide-ranging ban on single-use plastics, Vietnam and Hong Kong levy a charge on plastic bags, and more than 25 African countries have national bans on plastic bags. 

We must overturn such state restrictions. These restrictions limit your local government’s power to pass more aggressive plastic waste reduction policies – policies which are favorable to local municipalities. Instead, state laws give power to corporate groups that do not have your city and the environment’s best interests at heart. 

More aggressive plastic reduction policies have already substantially reduced plastic waste. In Washington D.C., a 2009 bag ban has led to a 50% reduction in single-use plastic bags. In Los Angeles, a 10-cent bag tax introduced in 2011 has reduced plastic bag use from 2.2 million/year to 125 thousand/year.

So what can you do? 

1. Check if your state has existing laws that make it illegal for cities to take more progressive action on single-use plastics. You can refer to this website to find out more. 
2. Petition your elected officials to overturn such “bans on bans” – collect signatures, attend city council meetings, and/or go to your mayor!
3. Support community-led or government-led plastic reduction policies for single-use plastics, or propose your own. The Product Stewardship Institute has sample policies you can use to encourage local policymakers to adopt. 

On October 31^st, a group of fishermen from a rural province in India got up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to argue the case of Jam v. International Finance Corp. This wasn’t some elaborate Halloween costume or prank. No, the fishermen and their lawyers had been preparing for their day in court for almost 8 years.

But how they end up in the United States Supreme Court?

The story starts in Gujarat, India. Jam is the last name of Budha Ismail Jam, who until recently was a fisherman in his hometown of Tragadi. The harbor, or bander as it’s called in Gujurati, had been a lifeline to his community for generations, providing them with food and products to sell at the market. But everything changed when a coal-fire power plant was built in the harbor.

A map of India with the Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Plant marked, and a satellite image of the plant. Both images courtesy of Google Maps.

In 2008, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the branch of the World Bank Group that provides loans to private companies to undertake development projects, approved a $450 million loan to an Indian company to build the Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Plant. The IFC knew that the project was likely to hurt communities like Jam’s, and decided to proceed anyway.

Suddenly, a new fence surrounded their ancestral fishing grounds, increasing the walking distance from Tragadi to the harbor by 3.8km. The plant’s open cooling system was dumping warmer water into the bander, which killed lots of fish. Not only were the livelihoods of fisherpeople jeopardized, but Jam’s friend and another plaintiff in this case, Ranubha Jadeja, reported that all of the fresh water wells in his village became salty. This power plant that was supposed to provide electricity and jobs to help the local people was instead a source of harm.

The Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Plant in Gujurat, India. Photo courtesy of the Hindu Business Line.

The IFC knows its big projects can cause trouble for small players like Jam. It even has a mechanism in place to hear the appeals of locals who think their rights have been infringed. This so-called ‘independent complaints mechanism’ allows people like Jam to ask for mediation and reparations.

Jam and his neighbors asked the IFC’s mechanism for help with the problems they were facing with the coal plant. They filed a complaint alleging that power plant had caused deterioration of water quality and fish populations, blocked access to fishing and drying sites, forced displacement of fishermen, community health impacts, and destruction of natural habitats. The review panel found that the IFC had violated its own rules on protecting people and the environment. Yet, the IFC ignored these findings and allowed the project to continue.

In 2015, legal experts from EarthRights International filed suit on behalf of Jam and his community in federal court in Washington D.C. From the very start, this legal suit was an uphill battle.

Because many multilateral development banks are headquartered in the United States, including the IFC, they are protected under the International Organizations Immunity Act. This U.S. law gives international organizations absolute immunity, meaning they are protected from all lawsuits in US courts. Not even foreign governments enjoy this much privilege—they can be taken to court when the lawsuit involves their commercial activity in the U.S.

As long as the current form of this Act remains on the books, Jam and his community couldn’t sue the IFC for anything in U.S courts. The IFC wants to keep being able to push Jam and other communities around without letting the little guy speak up. During the court case, the IFC argued that it should have more immunity than sovereign states. Even the Trump administration, which has a less than stellar record on social and environmental issues, is standing on Jam’s side.

A fishing boat in illuminated by the glow of the Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Plant. Photo courtesy of Sami Siva, ICIJ.

In this David versus Goliath case, Jam is challenging the IFC’s ability to hold itself above the law. Despite the enormous odds against them, Jam and EarthRights International didn’t back down. They pursued their case all the way up to the nation’s highest seat of justice: the Supreme Court.

The legal reasoning might be obscure, but the importance of the case is clear-cut. The Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Plant hurt Jam and his community. When the IFC didn’t follow the recommendations from its own complaint mechanism, there was nowhere else Jam could go for help. If the Supreme Court sides with Jam, he’ll receive the assistance he needs to get his livelihood back through processes in U.S. courts.

The IFC and other development banks have been allowed to act with impunity for too long. Donate to EarthRights International to help communities around the world get justice.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh just revealed Resilient Boston Harbor, a landmark initiative for making coastal resilience a focus for the City of Boston. To bring the vision to life, Bostonians will need to show the city they care, and keep city agencies accountable.

Resilient Boston Harbor is a transformative, climate-resilient vision for Boston’s 47-mile coastline. The city will bolster its harbor with carefully engineered infrastructure like seawalls and raised roadways. But Bostonians will barely notice these structures, which will disappear into a greener, more accessible, and culturally meaningful waterfront.

Residents will see the city harness nature-based solutions and coastal ecosystems by restoring 122 acres of parks and tidal areas and adding 67 acres of park space. Marsh restoration and park elevation will buffer the city from sea level rise and storm surges. The city will add vegetated berms to the shoreline—small hills that are essentially earthen floodwalls. Even concrete structures like floodwalls will be disguised as terraced seating in parks or as harborwalks that give people direct access to the ocean.

The bottom line is that Resilient Boston Harbor recognizes the city’s deep ties to the waterfront. Bostonians want to maintain and strengthen their connection to the sea. They also want security in the face of climate change. Resilient Boston Harbor does both: it uses sensible and effective nature-based solutions to make the shoreline more resilient and more accessible.

Resilient Boston Harbor Vision. Image Courtesy Environment Department, City of Boston

Making Boston Harbor resilient is more important now than ever before. Last winter, a strong nor’easter wreaked havoc in Boston’s streets, causing unprecedented flooding. The National Guard had to rescue 50 people in Quincy, a city suburb. Kayakers paddled down streets, taking in the scene. Sea level rise, stronger storms, and extreme temperatures are already taking a toll on Boston.

Projections show the situation will only get worse: by 2070, areas that currently only see coastal flooding during major storms will experience regular, monthly flooding at the highest tides. Even in the short term, from 2030 to 2050, one major storm alone could inundate the homes of 16,000 Bostonians and cause $2.3 billion in damages.

In 2016, the city responded to these dire projections by establishing a new wing of the Environment Department called Climate Ready Boston. The Climate Ready Boston program will oversee the implementation of Resilient Boston Harbor.

Two years after its creation, Climate Ready Boston has devised several neighborhood resilience plans. Working at the neighborhood level, Climate Ready Boston held community open houses, conducted interviews, and circulated online surveys for residents of Charlestown, East Boston, and South Boston. From these community conversations, focused on brainstorming and input, sprung two resilience plans, one for Charleston and East Boston, and the other for South Boston.

Alisha Pegan, Coordinator for Climate Ready Boston, explains, “while we have a general sense of what’s going on with the landscape, we don’t have the on-ground experience.” That’s why Boston takes citizen input to heart, and knows that the success of Resilient Boston Harbor depends on what citizens need, want, and envision for their communities.

In South Boston, the Moakley Park redesign exemplifies how the city is already engaging citizens to make Resilient Boston Harbor a reality. Moakley Park is at grade with the beach, and is susceptible to flooding that immediately impacts three Boston housing projects as well as the surrounding neighborhood.

The planning process for Moakley Park ends in December 2018, and has depended on citizen input. Community engagement events stimulated conversation about Moakley Park’s future. People provided input like “we envision multi-sport facilities and community gardens, not dog parks and artificial turf.” They brainstormed ideas for making the park more accessible, as four and six-lane roads currently isolate the park from surrounding neighborhoods. Most recently, people ranked their preference for resilience options like sloped lawns, tree groves, and wetlands. The results aren’t public yet, but they’ll inform the final redesign plan.

As the city forges ahead with Resilient Boston Harbor, community engagement will be central to planning. Citizens need to engage with the city to transform Resilient Boston Harbor from vision to reality.

If you live, work, or go to school in the Boston area, get involved and push the city to live up to its promise of a resilient future.

• Call the Mayor’s Office and thank Mayor Marty Walsh for releasing Resilient Boston Harbor. Emphasize your concern for what climate change holds in store for Boston, and that your life and the lives of all Bostonians depend on making Resilient Boston Harbor a reality.
• Call Parks and Recreation about Moakley Park. Thank them for working with Climate Ready Boston to engage citizens about the future of the park, but that you want to see a concrete plan released soon, and a contractor hired by the end of 2019.
• Sign up for your neighborhood newsletter so you can stay in the loop. Getting involved in your neighborhood network will give you avenues to start making change and showing you care. If you live in Downtown or Dorchester, be on the lookout for Climate Ready Boston open houses in 2019. Sign up for your newsletter so you don’t miss them!

If you want to know what’s in your food, from calories and saturated fat, to high fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring, you read the label. Labeling for GMOs, however, is not required in the U.S. GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are organisms whose genetic material is altered- often in order to grow larger and faster, repel pests, or endure herbicides. Globally, more than 60 countries including Japan, Australia and nations within the European Union require labeling of GMOs. In the U.S many companies voluntarily use Non-GMO labels to gain customers. With roughly 90% of Americans in support of mandatory labeling of GMO foods a mandatory labeling law ought to be good news. But many consumers don’t think it is, and here’s why: the new policy actually hinders transparency of foods labels.

Back in 2016, on July 29 President Obama signed the national bioengineered food disclosure standard S.764, which required labeling GMOs on food packaging. This law was nicknamed the DARK Act– “Denying Americans the Right to Know”- by critics because it imposed weak labeling requirements. It included no penalty for noncompliance and it gave companies the power to determine what information is disclosed and how. For example, use of 1-800 numbers, URLs, or QR codes that digitally link consumers to information were acceptable in lieu of listing ingredients on packaging. Such indirect new labeling methods require use of a smartphone and cell phone service. Critics estimate that this would disproportionately impact more than 100 million rural, minority, low income, and elderly people.

Implementation of this standard had been extremely slow, but on May 3, 2018, the United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a long-awaited proposal for regulations on mandatory disclosure of GMOs that implements the 2016 law. This 106-page rule will go into effect January 1, 2020 once finalized and is the final step in securing federal level GMO food labeling requirements in the US.

But critics point to numerous problems with the rule. The term GMO, which is consumer-friendly and recognizable, will be replaced by “bioengineered” or “bioengineered food ingredient.” This narrowly defined term brings into question what types of genetic altering must be labeled. The draft contains loopholes about what is exempt from disclosure. Additionally, a new symbol that looks like a smiling sun will be used, which gets consumers to associate products with happiness.

The rule is meant to boost transparency but is actually quite vague. Erasing GMO labels gives corporate agri-business and the biotechnology industry– both of which are heavily invested in GMO products – a long sought victory. This business advantage, however, comes at the expense of informing consumers.

There is opposition to government mandated food labeling. It rests primarily in concern for pricing and the complexity of managing changes along the supply chain. Yet, despite these industry concerns, food labels serve important roles in providing vital information relating to decisions consumers make every day about the food their families consume.Labels cover a broad range of food-related concerns such as animal, human, and environmental welfare, and nutritional value. GMOs need to be labeled so that consumers can make informed purchasing decisions.

A key tenet of Environmental health literacy is that people should have access to accurate and assessible information related to the safety of what they consume, whether it involves air, water, or food. We need greater transparency, not less, in making scientific information understandable and accessible to the public. The proposed draft rule boosts secrecy and confusion. Jargoned language, feel-good images, and high-tech labeling move us in precisely the wrong direction in helping others and ourselves better understand connections between human health and environmental policies and practices. We all deserve to know what we are eating.

The public commenting period closed on July 3. Still, there are actions we can take in support of accurate, accessible, helpful, and mandatory labeling that safeguards the public’s right to know.

1. The Center for Food Safety, a non-profit public interest environmental advocacy group dedicated to protecting human health and the environment, clearly lays out the proposed labeling rule and provides ways to take action.
2. The “Just Label It Campaign” believes in the right to know what is in our food. Its website has a good F.A.Q page about GMOs and offer nine easy action steps such as writing to Congress, petitioning the USDA, sharing resources about choosing products, and learning labels to look for.
3. Food and Water Watch is an organization that works to promote healthy food and clean water. It gives citizens tools to fight back against “corporations that put profit ahead of people.” Learn more about their local work, sign their petition, and support their national campaigns.

The United States is experiencing what could potentially be the largest oil spill in history – right at this very moment. Rather than cleaning it up, the Trump administration is looking to expand exploratory offshore drilling into even more vulnerable environments.

Are you surprised you haven’t heard any breaking news coverage of this story? Even more bewildering, this oil leak has been happening in the Gulf of Mexico for the last fourteen years. Each and every day, 300-700 barrels of oil are spewed off the coast of Louisiana – for a total of 1.5 to 3.5 million barrels leaked over the life of the spill. This is almost the same amount leaked during the Gulf oil spill in 2010, the largest oil spill ever to happen in the US!

Using a provision of the Clean Water Act, environmentalists sued Taylor Energy, the company responsible for the leak. In 2015, it came to light that the spill was about 20 times worse than they had originally reported. Taylor Energy argued that this event was an act of God, and that they had no control over the hurricane which caused the spill to begin.

Uncontrolled offshore oil spills similar to the Taylor spill may become more frequent and severe in the near future. On January 4, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal that would allow drilling in protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic. Oil and gas exploration here are opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, countless attorney generals, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers, as well as the Defense Department. The proposed period in which companies can buy leases to drill offshore is 2019-2024.

Local and state officials across the East Coast are extremely worried about the impacts this proposal could have on their states. There are concerns about the impact environmental disasters could have on their thriving beach tourism industries as climate change worsens future storms. The Trump administration cites its focus on domestic energy production as the reason behind expanding offshore oil drilling. Yet in 2017, natural gas made up the majority of the U.S. primary energy production at 31.8%. There have been developments of more cost-effective drilling and production technologies for crude oil drilled on land. With so much land-based domestic energy production available, there is no need to begin more exploratory drilling offshore. We can still improve domestic energy production without risky offshore drilling.

In Maine, many citizens depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. All of Maine’s Congressional Delegation and the entire state legislature are against this federal proposal. A $4 billion tourism industry and a $1.7 billion commercial fishing industry are two of Maine’s most important economic fields. Both depend on healthy coastal waters. Even if the drilling industry takes major safety precautions, any oil spills off of the coast of Maine could be catastrophic for its residents.

With the Taylor spill’s effects on marine life still unknown fourteen years later as oil continues to flood into the ocean, the federal government has no reason to be expanding offshore oil production before it can remedy previous environmental disasters. Make your voice be heard in this matter and tell the Trump administration not to go forward with its proposal.

1. Call your representatives. Tell them that you are opposed to the expansion of offshore gas and oil expansion in the Atlantic. Here is a handy website for finding contact information for your representatives.
2. Keep up to date with the proposal process.At BOEM’s website, you can stay up to date with where this proposal is in the process to becoming approved. The first comment period has ended, but there will be another 90-day comment period after the Proposed Program has been published. There, you can also find a step-by-step guide to providing comments about the proposal to the federal government.

Highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s, with light snow falling. A common October scene in Minneapolis, Minnesota. To Minneapolitans like myself, it’s beautiful fall weather. For several hundred people living in what is thought to be the largest ever homeless encampment in Minnesota, though, these first signs of winter are a dangerous omen.

Along Hiawatha Avenue, the Minneapolis stretch of State Highway 55, tents holding around 200 mostly Native American people fill the narrow space between the highway and the highway sound wall. This wall lends itself to the local name of this encampment: “the Wall of Forgotten Natives”.

The Wall of Forgotten Natives, along State Highway 55

Hundreds of Tents and Teepees line the busy street

This tent city is hard to miss; it can be seen from the highway and surrounding roads, from public transport, and from the busy dog park across the intersection. Despite this, I’ve talked to many other locals who don’t know about this encampment. Somehow, there are hundreds of homeless Natives in the largest homeless encampment in Minnesota who are seemingly invisible.

The camp began to expand in early summer 2018. A handful of homeless people lived here previously, but the camp expanded rapidly for a few reasons. Homeless people chose the spot due to the high visibility and partial protection of the sound wall; many Natives found safety in numbers as their community strengthened. Most reside in this camp because of a widespread Native housing crisis and opioid addiction.

The location of this tent city is very purposeful; it is adjacent to a historically Native neighborhood. Just over the dividing wall is the Minneapolis American Indian Center, an Anishinaabe rehab center, All Nations Church, and the Little Earth housing projects.

With all-time high rent prices in Minneapolis, Little Earth is the only rent controlled housing in the area, giving preference to Native American people. However, Little Earth is full. It is plagued with opioid addiction as well as violence. It is one of few Native spaces in Minneapolis, but it is not enough.

Minneapolis officials have long been aware of the Hiawatha encampment, but the response has been slow. Luckily, rather than raze the encampment, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has been working to provide for the community until permanent housing can be established. Medical facilities, shower and toilet facilities, lighting, police patrol, and more have been installed at the site by the city.

The Minneapolis City Council also passed an emergency measure to expedite the set-up of a relocation site as soon as possible. Frustratingly, this emergency measure simply speeds up the City Council decision-making process. Although declared an emergency, the measure will not officially warrant aid from FEMA. But this is an emergency. 4 people have died at this camp; with fresh snow weighing down and soaking through tents, people will continue to die if they are not housed.

The most promising solution comes with the support of the Red Lake Nation, a Chippewa band from Northern Minnesota. The Nation owns a plot of land nearby the camp, and they offered it to the city to be developed into temporary winter housing for the camp inhabitants. The expedited housing is not expected to be completed until December at the earliest. The promise of housing is exciting, but there are hundreds of Native people struggling to keep their tents dry in the snow, and it will only get colder.

As winter approaches, what can we do as spectators? For those in the area, donations of winter clothes, towels, tarps, firewood, and non-perishable foods can be brought to numerous locations—this website lists what materials can be brought to which location and is updated daily to weekly with immediate needs. Local addiction support group Natives Against Heroin (NAH), working at the site to clean up needles and provide care for addicts, is spearheading the collection and distribution of donations. The website above also contains volunteer information and links to donate money to NAH and other Native American support agencies in the area.

If you aren’t in the area: make these invisible people visible. Spread the word about this camp so that the Native community is not, quite literally, left in the cold. This neglected Native community needs aid for immediate survival. Call the Minneapolis City Council (x) and call the Minnesota Governor’s office (x). Urge them to declare a statewide emergency to involve FEMA. Remind city officials that people will continue to die, and weather will exacerbate conditions. Use social media to spread articles with information on these forgotten Natives and how to help them. Make this encampment like Standing Rock, a national campaign to help a systematically impoverished people trying to stay alive.

The Native American population of Minneapolis is in desperate need of aid. Giving aid to the Wall of Forgotten Natives is a small but crucial step towards a bigger goal.

Donation info and Camp updates: https://www.franklinhiawathacamp.org/

Featured Image Source: http://www.startribune.com/fourth-death-linked-to-minneapolis-homeless-camp/499463831/

Across the country, rural land is falling into disuse.In the West, Southwest, and Appalachia, mines shut their doors or become mechanized, leaving thousands of miners without jobs. In the upper Midwest, farmland lays fallow as farmers retire or quit farming because they can’t stomach the high costs and low commodity prices. Rural towns have become snaggle toothed with darkened gaps between storefronts as businesses move out of town. Students get their diplomas, hightail it out of town, and don’t look back.

No jobs, no people, no future.  This is the ‘graying’ of rural America.

But rural America has always had something urban America doesn’t: abundant natural resources.  We’ve been farmers, loggers, miners. These resources – our land, water, plants, minerals – have sustained rural economies for centuries and fueled America’s growth.

In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture released a report confirming what many of us already knew. Resources for the generation of renewable electricity, like wind, solar, and geothermal, are more available and more useful for development in rural regions – especially the Southwest.

So let’s turn the graying of rural America into the greening of rural America. Let’s put our farmland back in rotation and our miners back to work.

Many people have figured out how to do this already. Fly over the Southwest and it’s hard to miss the solar arrays dotting the land, including Nevada itself. In rural Colorado and California, communities have turned to geothermal energy and both large-scale and community solar investments to attract tech investment, community colleges, and recent college graduates back to town. Renewables are putting small towns back on the map, as well as providing both an economically and environmentally sustainable future.

Yet despite this potential, US resources for solar are tremendously underutilized and underexploited. Less than 10% of US power comes from non-hydroelectric renewables, but only than 1% of that 10% is solar. There’s a lot of potential energy hiding in plain sight in the sunny deserts of the Nevada, which has the best solar resources in the country.

It’s an election year, and solar is on the ballot in Nevada. Nevada Question 6 calls for the state to require utility companies to acquire 50% of their power supply from renewables. Nevada has vastly underexploited solar resources: it’s ranked first in the country for solar potential, yet 88% of Nevada’s energy is imported from outside state lines. Question 6 would spark investment in solar and other renewables, a win-win for the environment, economy, and consumers. But the biggest winners of all would be local economies.

The Department of Energy found that renewable energy standards, like Question 6, don’t significantly raise energy rates – in fact, they often result in cost savings for consumers. At the same time, standards like the one Question 6 set have been shown to create thousands of jobs, many in rural areas. Question 6 is an opportunity for Nevada to stop sending money out of state to buy power, and instead spend the money in its small towns and counties.

In states with similar standards, like Minnesota, where utilities are required to produce 30% of their energy from renewables by 2020, the standard has prompted massive investment in solar.  These investments are not only in utility-scale solar and wind, but also in on-site home solar, which puts the benefits of renewables directly back in consumers’ pockets by reducing their energy bills. Consumers with at-home grids sell their power back to the utility – on sunny days, the electricity meter will run backwards.

It’s not hard to imagine something similar happening in Nevada, which has far more solar potential than a northern state like Minnesota. In fact, Nevada’s already well on its way to meeting its current standard of 25% renewable energy by 2020; Question 6 would keep the momentum going and encourage even more local energy investment.

At the end of the day, clean energy is not only true to our rural identities as builders, producers, and providers, but it’s also a solution everyone should be able to agree on. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, jobs are always a good thing. Keeping class in session in rural schools is a shared priority. And going back to the land and resources is true to the identity of many rural communities. If utilities are required to produce more of their power from renewables, they must increase their energy investments in rural areas, because that’s where the sun is.

Put the power back in rural communities. Vote yes on Nevada Question 6.

Life in rural America is not easy. Right now, farmers across the country are staying up all night, racing to harvest the last of their crops. The economy is in turmoil and prices are uncertain due to a trade war we didn’t ask for. And things could get worse, too. Imagine planting next season with no crop insurance, or sending your child to a public school that no longer provides a free lunch. Yikes.

The Farm Bill is up for reauthorization this year and Congress missed its September 30^th deadline to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill. Congress has put our national food system in a precarious position, and left essential rural programs unfunded in the meantime. But with a fast-approaching midterm election, rural communities have a unique opportunity to influence what the next Congress and the Farm Bill will look like.

The Farm Bill is a 900-billion-dollar piece of legislation housing hundreds of programs that shape how the American food system works, from rural farms to urban supermarkets. Rural communities are familiar with programs such as crop insurance and commodity programs. They’re essential to our way of life, the reason we are able to produce the crops that feed America.

Yet the Farm Bill also houses some of America’s most significant nutrition and food access programs like SNAP (food stamps), as well as the national school lunch program. SNAP was the sticking point for politicians this year: the House Farm Bill imposed additional work requirements on food stamp recipients, while the Senate version did not. The new work requirements would be much more onerous than those currently in place, sharply increasing bureaucratic hurdles to SNAP eligibility by making participants work more hours and fill out more complex forms to prove that they did so. Such a change would cut an estimated 1.2 million adults off from accessing food stamps. Despite months of negotiations, Congress was unable to reach a compromise on whether or not to increase SNAP work requirements. And without a compromise, the bill died.

So what happens when Congress misses its deadline to reauthorize such essential programs? Theoretically, the programs run out of money, putting the American food system in jeopardy. In reality, major commodity programs in the Farm Bill are run according to the crop year rather than the fiscal year, and thus have a few months of wiggle room. Most other major programs have funding through the current appropriations bill, but would be vulnerable to funding cuts during the next appropriations cycle. So, they’re largely safe from immediate collapse due to Congress’s delay, but they’re still hanging in the balance as we wait for an eventual compromise – language in the Farm Bill has the power to change the parameters and requirements of these programs, which will have significant implications for program recipients.

The most immediate impact of Congress’s inability to reach a compromise on reauthorization is not in flagship Farm Bill programs like crop insurance and SNAP, then, but in “orphan programs,” many of which are especially important to rural communities. These 39 programs were written into the 2014 Farm Bill with a strict expiration date of October 1, 2018. Since that date, orphan programs have been both unauthorized and unfunded.

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has promised to do everything the USDA is “legally allowed to do” in order to provide interim funding for these programs, but even he acknowledged that the orphan programs are unlikely to continue at the status quo after the Farm Bill’s expiration.

Threatened orphan programs read like a priority list for rural communities. They include the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program, which funds rural communities to build water and waste facilities, the Value-Added Market Development Grants, which assist rural farmers in marketing organic, local, and non-GMO products, and the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, which provides funding to encourage startup growth in rural America. Several of our country’s biofuel, agricultural research, and conservation initiatives are also orphan programs.

Traditionally, the Farm Bill has represented a balance of typical rural and urban interests – rural districts have advocated for their commodity programs, and urban districts have championed welfare programs. This year, I challenge my fellow members of rural and farming communities to break from tradition and hold their representatives to a higher standard. Republican representatives of rural districts allowed the Farm Bill to expire and for funding to essential rural programs to halt, all in their insistence to increase SNAP work requirements. Despite tradition, SNAP is actually a rural issue too; more SNAP participants belong to rural communities than urban or suburban ones. It’s time to start electing officials that take care of their community’s interests, not just their political party’s priorities.

Join me today in voting out the rural Republican representatives who let us down by failing to reauthorize the Farm Bill. Help America elect representatives who will support rural communities in the Farm Bill, feeding them when they’re hungry and supporting them as they develop and grow.