Our Mission: We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way. That's the idea behind Environment Illinois. We protect Illinois’s air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

 

Stop Global Warming

The threat of global warming comes into sharper focus each day, with new reports of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, persistent drought and frequent, severe storms. Where Congress and the White House have failed to address global warming policy, states have filled the void. This fall, Illinois’s Climate Change Advisory Group recommended 24 policies to reduce Illinois’s global warming emissions while growing our economy. The Illinois General Assembly should turn these recommendations into law.

• Adopt more protective clean car standards, which, unlike the weaker federal standards passed in Congress this fall, include global warming pollution and are more protective of public heath. Thirteen other states have already adopted them.
• Limit Illinois’s global warming pollution from all sources to 1990 levels (about 18 percent less than today) by 2020, which will put Illinois on track toward the reductions that scientists say are necessary to avoid global warming’s worst impacts.

Protect Our Children From Toxics

Most people think laws protect Americans and their environment from dangerous industrial chemicals. But a recent Environment Illinois project tested the blood and urine of five Illinoisans and found toxic chemicals from common products—like food cans, baby bottles, cosmetics and children’s toys—in all of them. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that over a hundred industrial chemicals contaminate the bodies of Americans of all ages and races—even newborn babies. People should not be exposed to toxic and untested chemicals from the products they use everyday.

• Empower Illinois’s Environmental Protection Agency to identify hazardous chemicals used in consumer products, and in particular have been detected in the umbilical cord blood of newborn American babies. Require manufacturers to report and plan to reduce their use of these chemicals.
• Eliminate the toxic flame retardant decaBDE from televisions, mattresses and home furniture. DecaBDE accumulates in the environment and people, damages mammals’ developing brains, and breaks down into even more dangerous toxics.

Make Illinois Energy Efficient

Wasteful energy use increases soot, smog, and global warming pollution, and puts the brakes on Illinois’s economic growth. We can improve the economy and save billions of dollars on imported natural gas and coal by investing in energy efficiency and minimizing energy waste.

• Duplicate our state’s leadership on energy-efficient commercial buildings by applying similar standards to residential buildings, a policy that would save Illinois home owners millions of dollars on utility bills and was unanimously recommended by the Illinois Climate Change advisory group.

 

Recycle Toxic Electronic Waste

Electronics products like televisions, computers and monitors last only a few years, resulting in a vast legacy of discarded models, including, for example, 160,000 TVs that became obsolete each day of 2006, and up to 600 million computers. These products contain toxic chemicals like mercury, lead and decaBDE, which can be released into the environment unless the products are properly recycled.

• Create a market-based, producer-funded system to manage the proper recycling of Illinois’s electronic waste and provide incentives for manufacturers to produce more environmentally-friendly products.

Protect Illinois’s Natural Areas For Future Generations

As Illinois’s population continues to grow, our need for more protected open space is becoming critical. Only 3.6 percent of Illinois’s land area is publicly owned for conservation and recreation—ranking us in the bottom 5 among all 50 states—and opportunities to preserve the state’s natural areas are disappearing rapidly. Illinois needs to increase funding for protecting natural areas by:

• Ensuring that all real estate transfer tax revenues collected for open space programs are used for that purpose. For years, the legislature raided these dedicated funds, but in 2007, we helped finally win full funding for OSLAD and NAAF, two important programs that fund local parks and critical species habitat. Environment Illinois will fight for full funding these programs again in 2008.
• Illinois’s last capitol budget commitment to natural areas, The Open Lands Trust, preserved nearly 10,000 acres before exhausting its funding in 2003. Illinois must renew its capitol budget support for open spaces through the Illinois Special Places Acquisition, Protection and Enhancements (iSPACE) Program.