On Monday, June 7, the Senate Environment and Assembly Appropriations Committees approved the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act. We are now only full Senate and Assembly approvals from passing the most important piece of New Jersey environmental legislation in 25 years. Senate and Assembly votes are scheduled for this Thursday, June 10, so it is critical that we spend the next three days urging legislators to support the bill!
In addition to sending an e-mail to your legislators and leadership, please CALL your legislators TODAY or TOMORROW.
Call Your Legislators and Tell Them:
* The Highlands provide drinking water for more than half of New Jersey's residents;
* Without state legislation, that drinking water will be degraded by sprawl;
* Urge them to be 1 of the first 21 Senators and 41 Assembly members to vote yes on S1/A2635 without amendment on Thursday to protect over half the state's drinking water.
We will be scheduling meetings with key legislators, and it is critical that we have constituents and representatives of grassroots organizations at these meetings. We will be convening at 8:30 a.m. in Committee Room 16 on the Fourth Floor of the State House Annex, and you should plan on spending the entire day at the State House if possible. Please R.S.V.P. directly to Kelly.McNicholas@SierraClub.org or (609) 656-7612.
PLEASE include what legislative district you live in (1-40). (If you don't know, send your zip code, and we'll find out by checking http://sierraactivist.org/contactofficials.php - or check yourself!)
Call the Assembly Leadership, thank them for posting the bill for a vote on Thursday and urge them to support passage of A-2635 without amendment (you should note that the Highlands provide drinking water to residents in 35 of the state's 40 legislative districts, including Districts 5 and 33)
* Speaker Albio Sires, District 33 (Part of Hudson County): (201) 854-0900
* Majority Leader Joseph Roberts, District 5 (Parts of Camden and Gloucester Counties): (856) 742-7600