Supermodel, television host, international humanitarian ambassador and now environmental activist Elle Macpherson helped play a part in a huge victory for American families today.
Today the US Senate voted to keep in place the EPA’s popular new Mercury and Air Toxic Standards. These safeguards (20 years in the making) are the first-ever limitations placed on the amount of toxic mercury (a potent brain poison that harms development of young children and babies) that can be pumped into the air by coal-fired power plants. As a mother, Elle recognized the importance of these standards which will also limit the amount of arsenic, chronium and other cancer-causing chemicals polluting our air and water.
“It has taken decades to finally get clean-air protections from mercury in place,” Elle wrote in an oped on CNN. “We can’t let Congress overturn them. By cleaning up or retiring coal plants and transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, we can protect our economy, create jobs and attain cleaner air for our families.”
Elle is an advocate for clean energy and is working as a Sierra Club activist on their historic campaign to move Beyond Coal energy and into clean energy like wind and solar. For more info www.beyondcoal.org or www.sierraclub.org.
