October to December 2011

In October, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decreed that nearly 50 million acres of America’s richest natural resource- our National Forests are protected. The ruling reinstated the Roadless Rule.

In October, CA Governor Brown signed SB 126, an amendment that changed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act and removed some obstacles for farm workers who want to join a union.

In the November state elections, Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to repeal Senate Bill 5—Gov. John Kasich’s attack on middle-class jobs that was designed to destroy collective bargaining rights in Ohio.

In November, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the execution of Hank Skinner pending resolution of the DNA testing!

In November, the Obama administration announced a decision to consider a new route through Nebraska for TransCanada’s controversial Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas tar sands oil pipeline thus delaying the decision until 2013.  In December, federal legislators gave the Obama Administration two months to make the decision as part of a deal in working through the passage of legislation.

In November, the “Super Committee” failed to reach an agreement on how to reduce $1.2 trillion from the U.S. budget over 10 years. This deficit means that automatic spending cuts are scheduled to kick into effect. Half of those proposed cuts would come from defense and national security budgets, while the other savings will come from discretionary spending, not entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security.

In December, the Obama Administration committed to clean air through the cleaning up mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants.

In December, Congress granted a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and did not raise payroll taxes. If this had not happened, nearly 2 million Americans would have lost unemployment benefits this month alone. Many of them would have been pushed into poverty.

The Fiscal Year 2012 budget ensures funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and for a program that provides food assistance to poor senior citizens. In addition, there are no significant cuts to international aid programs that save lives and help reduce poverty, like emergency food aid and school feeding programs in developing countries.