Karen Bass on Environment

Protect the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

• A comprehensive water agreement to protect the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the source of drinking water for Los Angeles and two-thirds of the state.
• Historic infrastructure bonds to repair our crumbling roads, bridges and transit and generate hundreds of thousands of construction jobs and small business contracts.
• Making California first in the nation when it comes to High Speed Rail, bringing in $2.25 billion dollars and creating new jobs.

Prohibits breeding or possessing Big Cat species.

• Prohibits any person from importing, exporting, transporting, selling, receiving, acquiring, purchasing, breeding, possessing, or owning any prohibited wildlife species (current law prohibits importing, exporting, transporting, selling, receiving, acquiring, or purchasing such a species in interstate or foreign commerce).
• Defines "breeding" as facilitating the reproduction of prohibited wildlife species (any live species of lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, jaguar, or cougar or any hybrid of such species) for commercial use.
• Defines a list of exemptions to such prohibition by authorized persons.
• Includes in the list of persons authorized to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, breed, possess, own, or purchase such species a wildlife sanctuary or a zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums; and a person that is in possession of animals of such species that were born before the date of this Act's enactment.

Rated 38% by HSLF, indicating a mixed voting record on animal welfare.

112th Mid-Term Humane Scorecard: The Humane Society Legislative Fund has posted the final version of the 2011 Humane Scorecard, where you can track the performance of your federal lawmakers on key animal protection issues during last year. We rated legislators based on their voting behavior on measures such as agribusiness subsidies, lethal predator control, and the Endangered Species Act; their cosponsorship of priority bills on puppy mills, horse slaughter, animal fighting, and chimps in research; their support for funding the enforcement of animal welfare laws; and their leadership on animal protection. All of the priority bills whose cosponsorships we're counting enjoy strong bipartisan support; in the House, each of the four now has more than 150 cosponsors.

The Humane Scorecard is not a perfect measuring tool, but creating some reasonable yardstick and allowing citizens to hold lawmakers accountable is central to our work. When the Humane Scorecard comes out each year, it helps clarify how the animal protection movement is doing geographically, by party affiliation, and in other categories. It helps us chart our course for animals by seeing where we have been effective, and where we need to improve.

Require reporting lead in drinking water to the public.

Congressional Summary:

• The EPA Administrator shall, in collaboration with operators of public water systems, establish a strategic plan for outreach, education, technical assistance, and risk communication to populations affected by lead in a public water system.
• Each operator of a public water system shall identify and provide notice to persons who may be affected by lead contamination of their drinking water, and corrosivity of the water supply sufficient to cause leaching of lead
• In making information available to the public, the Administrator shall target groups within the general population that may be at greater risk than the general population of adverse health effects from exposure to lead in drinking water.