Our Director was in DC lobbying our Senators and Congressmen last week.

Our director, Rex Wilmouth, was in DC last week with 70 colleagues from all over the country lobbying congress to:

Keep beaches Safe for Swimming – America is blessed with beautiful rivers and lakes that we all rely on for drinking water, agriculture and recreation. We should treat our waterways as the precious life-giving resources they are, not as dumping grounds for our pollution and waste. Every year, billions of gallons of sewage and runoff pollution flow into our waterways and make people sick. This threatens public health with pathogens and can make our favorite beaches unsafe for swimming. We lobbied congress to fix this by investing in the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to update aging water treatment plants and encourage nature-based projects that prevent stormwater pollution at the source. Congress should also pass the bipartisan BEACH Act of 2025 to expand water quality testing. 

Have Wildlife corridors and crossings restore critical habitat – Every day, wildlife-vehicle collisions kill more than a million large animals, while annually, at least one million large animals including elk, moose, and big cats are killed in these collisions. That’s because our highways often divide wildlife habitats, forcing animals to cross dangerous roadways or remain in areas too small for their survival. Wildlife corridors solve this problem by connecting habitats. Wildlife crossings, such as overpasses or underpasses, are a type of corridor that is especially effective in preventing collisions. Congress can save even more lives by passing the Wildlife Movement Through Partnerships Act which we were lobbying congress to pass.

Have the Right to Repair our electronics – When something breaks, you fix it. That’s just common sense. But when only the manufacturer or their “authorized technician” has the necessary parts, tools or information needed, they can charge whatever they want or push you into buying a new device. These manufacturer-imposed repair restrictions affect a wide variety of products from smartphones, tablets, and even tractors. The result is surging repair costs and a massive amount of waste. Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, and the U.S. EPA reports that it is now the fastest growing part of our domestic municipal waste stream. Americans dispose of some 416,000 cell phones every day. Making a single phone produces the planet-warming equivalent of 122.7 pounds of CO2 and requires 295 pounds of raw material. If we held on to our phones one year longer on average, it would have the climate benefits equivalent to taking 636,000 cars off the road. We lobbied congress to allow people and repair shops to be able repair our own devices. 

Contact your federal Senators Reed and Whitehouse and your Representative Amo or Magaziner to tell them you support these bills.