How the Climate Bill can help protect our waters.

When you try to picture a world where a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions is perfectly implemented, you probably envision cleaner skies, or an end to devastating mountaintop removal coal mining. But as Nancy Stoner at the Natural Resources Defense Council points out, the House climate bill can have major beneficial effects on our beaches and oceans through various requirements that will help reduce extreme storm events. Fewer storm events will also help water quality in all of our nation’s waterways by reducing stormwater, which carries pollutants, sediment, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and in many communities with combined sewer systems, untreated sewage straight into our rivers, bays and oceans. Nancy Stoner highlights three key ways the climate bill will help protect beaches:

1. It will set firm limits on global warming pollution, which will help minimize the impacts of climate change, including storm events.
2. It calls for protecting the wetlands, coastal dunes, and other natural systems that buffer us from storms and help filter out pollutants in stormwater.
3. It offers funding for water utilities and sewage treatment plants to update their storm drains and make their infrastructure more resilient to climate change.

Another critical effect of global warming is ocean acidification. The Conservation Law Foundation does a great job explaining this phenomenon and how it will affect the American industries that depend on marine resources that depend on healthy ocean waters. Here in Maryland, agencies are struggling to sustainably manage the depleted populations of oyster and crab fisheries already severely stressed by pollution and other factors. Climate change will further stress fish and shellfish populations, constituting an economic threat for all the people whose jobs depend on these natural resources. However, a strong climate bill like ACES can help protect American fisheries, waters, and local jobs.