Plastic and paper bags fill up landfills, are incinerated to create unhealthful emissions, add needless costs to public works budgets, pollute our streams and add to neighborhood litter. They are also unnecessary.

The District of Columbia can reduce waste, protect and restore the waters of the District, clean up neighborhoods, beautify community parks and fund Anacostia restoration efforts by enacting B18-150, the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009.

The proposed law will:

This week the State Legislature held hearings on House Bill 27 and Senate Bill 753, legislation to defund the Inter-County Connector (ICC). The ICC is an 18.8 mile toll-highway with a price tag of $3 billion plus, almost $200 million per mile and is ranked by national environmental groups as one of the worst projects in the US.

At a time when Maryland faces a $2.5 billion budget shortfall this one mega-project drains fiscal resources from public transit, public health, education and environmental protection. That's why we are working to defund the ICC and shift transportation funds to maintain critical transportation infrastructure and public transit.

In November 2008, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission voted to move forward on a comprehensive review of the potential impact of uranium mining in Virginia. Earlier last year, during the 2008 Virginia legislative session, the House Rules Committee killed an attempt to fund a related study. These efforts are widely viewed as initial steps towards lifting a ban on uranium mining in Virginia that has been in effect since 1982, after uranium was discovered in an area used for cattle, hay and timber.

The Chesapeake Bay is in trouble.

This is no longer news, but the recent meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council (a decision-making body that includes the Governors of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the Mayor of the District of Columbia and others) confirmed that the existing 2010 cleanup deadline will not be met. Participants in that meeting agreed that setting long term deadlines no longer made sense, and that our elected leaders of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed need to take short term actions with near term deadlines to accelerate progress.