2015 Program Report

CoPIRG
2015 Program Report
To Our Members
An Update On Our Program Work In 2015
Dear CoPIRG member,
Thanks to your support, 2015 was a powerful year for CoPIRG.
Your gift helped us stand up to powerful special interests and win
some important victories for our public health, our democracy and
our financial security.
Danny Katz
Director
In the midst of ever-growing calls from medical experts to protect our
antibiotics, more than 100,000 members and supporters spoke out,
calling on major restaurant chains to take action. With your help, we
convinced McDonald’s to stop serving chicken raised on medicallyimportant antibiotics, and we convinced Subway to do the same for
all meats.
And, with the 2016 elections looming and Super PACs pouring
millions into the races, our national coalition helped pass small
donor reforms at the state and local levels, which will empower more
Americans in our democracy and build support for national reforms.
Lisa Ritland
Field Director
Kate Cohen
Campaign Organizer
These are some incredible wins. But while big victories often make
headlines, it’s the smaller, daily actions of our staff and members
like you that add up to make the biggest impact. From those of you
who called on companies like BP to be held accountable for their
wrongdoing, to those who called, emailed or tweeted at Subway to take
action to protect antibiotics, this year reminded me just how powerful
we can be when we call for change together. CoPIRG’s power lies not
just in big accomplishments, but in the support of every one of you,
our members.
I hope you enjoy reading about all we’ve been able to accomplish this
year thanks to your support. I look forward to seeing what we can
continue to do together, thanks to you.
Sincerely,
Jessica Johnnes
Campaign Organizer
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Danny Katz
Director
Photo credits: (cover, from top, left to right) Eliot Foust, Wefoust Photo; Staff, Josue Rivas Fotography, Eliot Foust, Wefoust Photo; (this page) all photos by staff.
A DIRTY DECEIT— CoPIRG members Marcus Moench
and Elisabeth Caspari called on VW to pay for cheating
emissions tests on “clean” cars.
STANDING UP FOR COLORADO CONSUMERS— CoPIRG
Director Danny Katz (center) and staff at Coors Field “go to
bat” for Colorado’s Consumer Advocate.
Protecting Consumers
Thanks to your support, CoPIRG
and CoPIRG Foundation stood up for
consumers on many fronts in 2015,
from ensuring our children’s toys are safe,
to calling on companies to be held accountable for their wrongdoing.
Thirty Years Of Toy Safety
In November, CoPIRG Foundation released
our 30th annual “Trouble In Toyland” report. For the last 30 years, we’ve taken a
close look at the safety of toys sold at toy
retailers, drug stores and dollar stores. Our
reports have led to more than 150 recalls
and other regulatory actions.
This year’s report found 22 potentially hazardous toys, including some with choking
risks, toxic chemicals and excessive noise.
We are calling on policymakers to protect
our families by enforcing existing rules and
enacting new regulations to ensure dangerous toys are taken off store shelves.
Making VW Pay
In September 2015, news broke that international carmaker Volkswagen (VW) had
cheated on emissions tests for years, selling
“clean” diesel vehicles fitted with defeat devices that emitted as much as 40 times the
legal limit of smog-forming pollutants.
By signing more than 20,000 petitions, you
helped CoPIRG call on VW to buy back all
cars sold to unsuspecting consumers. We
also showed the Environmental Protection
Agency the public support for holding VW
accountable and demanding tough penalties for the company’s wrongdoing.
Defending CO’s Consumer Advocate
For 30 years, Colorado’s Consumer Advocate, also known as the Office of Consumer
Counsel (OCC), has gone to bat for Colorado consumers on gas, electric and telephone
matters. All told, it has saved Coloradans
more than $1.7 billion on their bills.
Despite this track record of success, in 2015
the state Legislature came close to eliminating it. CoPIRG helped mobilize public support and generate media attention to save
Colorado’s Consumer Advocate. The OCC
was renewed, but unfortunately, telecommunication issues were removed from its
mandate.
Photo credits: (this page, left to right) Caley McGuane; Staff.
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YOU CALLED ON SUBWAY TO TAKE ACTION— CoPIRG staff launched our Subway campaign in front of a Subway
restaurant in downtown Denver.
Convincing Restaurants To
Protect Lifesaving Antibiotics
In 2015, bolstered by your support after more than 100,000
people took action, CoPIRG and CoPIRG Foundation
helped convince both McDonald’s and Subway to take
action to protect antibiotics and public health.
We rely on antibiotics to treat simple infections, as well as ones that are potentially life-threatening. But medical experts are warning that if we don’t stop the overuse of antibiotics, they could stop working—with potentially grave consequences for public
health. Yet, many factory farms continue to give antibiotics to healthy livestock every day. In
fact, 70 percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States are for livestock and poultry.
As a result of this overuse, antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are threatening our families with
illnesses that are difficult to cure. Already, 23,000 Americans die as a result of these infections every year. In 2015, with your support, CoPIRG and CoPIRG Foundation worked to
convince major restaurants to pressure factory farms to change their practices.
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Photo credits: (left page) Eliot Foust, Wefoust Photo; (right page, clockwise from right) Staff; Staff; Eliot Foust, Wefoust Photo; McDonald’s arches- McDonald’s via Wikimedia Commons
McDonald’s And Subway Take Action
In January, we began calling on McDonald’s, one of the
most iconic restaurant chains, to stop serving meat raised
on antibiotics. In March, just two days after we delivered
more than 30,000 petitions to McDonald’s headquarters,
the chain announced that they would stop serving chicken raised on medically-important antibiotics. Just weeks
later, Tyson Foods, a major supplier of chicken to McDonald’s, made their own commitment to phase out routine
antibiotics in their flocks.
Then, CoPIRG set its sights on Subway, the chain with the
most restaurants in the United States. With nearly 27,000
locations nationwide, a commitment from Subway to
serve meat raised without the routine use of antibiotics
would have a major impact on the marketplace.
With our national federation, we spread the word to consumers across the country and organized more than 500
health professionals to sign a letter urging the restaurant
to help protect public health. Members like you helped
generate thousands of tweets and Facebook comments,
and 100,000 of you signed petitions calling on Subway to
take action, showing the chain the vast public support for
the move. And in October, Subway announced a plan to
phase out all meat raised on antibiotics.
Now we’re calling on more major restaurants, like KFC
and others, to stop serving meat raised on routine antibiotics. As more chains do this, it will put additional pressure on factory farms to stop overusing our life-saving
medicines.
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We rely on antibiotics to treat infections.
To keep these life-saving medicines
effective, CoPIRG is working to stop
their overuse on factory farms.
CoPIRG’s Tierra Langley
petitioned Subway customers to
join our campaign. More than 100,000
took action across the country.
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CoPIRG Advocate Kate Cohen
spoke to the media during the
launch of the McDonald’s campaign.
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CoPIRG outreach staff met with
State Sen. Pat Steadman to build
political support for our campaign.
CoPIRG built coalitions with elected
officials, farmers, medical professionals
and restauranteurs.
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EMPOWERING REGULAR AMERICANS—PIRG staff and supporters worked to amplify the voices of small donors, so
that politicians are more likely to listen to their constituents, rather than big donors.
Ensuring Every Voice
Matters In Our Democracy
With you by our side, CoPIRG is fighting to make sure
that in our democracy, the size of your wallet doesn’t
determine the volume of your voice.
All Americans should have an equal say in the issues that affect us. Yet, all too
often, politicians listen more to the voices of an outsized few who fund their campaigns
than to the people they’re elected to represent. Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United
decision, these mega-donors have gained even more influence in our democracy. This year,
CoPIRG worked to put voters in the driver’s seat of our democracy by passing measures at
the local and state levels that would increase the impact of small donors in our elections, and
calling for an executive order to combat secret political spending.
Passing Small Donor Reforms
In 2015, our national coalition won two reforms at the state and local levels, helping to pass
ballot measures in Maine and Seattle that give small donors a greater voice in local elections.
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Photo credits: (left page) Wina Beals Photography; (right page, clockwise from right) Eliot Foust, Wefoust Photo; Staff; Staff
Seattle’s Initiative-122 empowers small donors with “democracy vouchers” that can be donated to local candidates
and lowers the cap on contributions. In Maine, the state’s
Clean Elections Act was improved by offering qualifying
candidates increased public funding and strengthening
campaign finance disclosure laws.
By passing more and more local reforms, we can build
support for small donor programs at the national level.
The Government By the People Act in the House and the
Fair Elections Now Act in the Senate would match small
donations and establish lower contribution limits for participating candidates, curbing the influence of mega-donors and ensuring candidates pay more attention to regular voters.
Shining A Light On Secret Money
In addition to working toward small donor programs,
CoPIRG urged President Obama to sign an executive order cracking down on secret political spending by federal
contractors. Under current law, corporations that do business with the federal government can spend hundreds of
millions on elections without disclosing details. The proposed executive order would require federal contractors
to disclose their political spending, which would affect at
least 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies. CoPIRG joined
a broad coalition to deliver one million petitions from
Americans, including CoPIRG members and supporters,
calling on President Obama to shine a light on secret political spending.
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To counter the influence of megadonors and corporations in our
elections, CoPIRG worked to amplify
the voices of regular Americans.
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Rep. Ed Perlmutter (center) joined
CoPIRG Organizer Jessie
Johnnes (left) at a CoPIRG roundtable
discussion on money in politics.
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PIRG staff delivered more than 1
million petitions to President
Obama, calling on him to shine a light
on secret money.
CoPIRG Director Danny Katz (far
left) joined Rep. Diana DeGette
(at podium) and numerous community
leaders to call for the reauthorization of
the National Voting Rights Act.
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MOBILIZING COMMUNITIES— CoPIRG staff joined
community members in Colorado Springs to build support for
bigger investments in safe biking and walking infrastructure.
NEW TRANSPORTATION TECH— CoPIRG Foundation
Director Danny Katz released the report, “The Innovative
Transportation Index” in Denver.
Shifting Transportation Priorities
Americans are increasingly looking for more and better options to
get around, like bikes, buses, or intercity
trains. As our transportation priorities shift,
we need a system that reflects the variety of
ways we want to travel now.
CoPIRG Foundation took a closer look at
our transportation options in 2015, and
found that new technologies are making it
possible for more Americans to get around
without owning a car. Yet, while it’s becoming easier to drive less, we also found that
the general public shoulders many of the
costs of driving, no matter how much—or
how little—they drive.
New Technology Options
CoPIRG Foundation and our partner,
Frontier Group, released “The Innovative
Transportation Index” in February, which
explains how many American cities are
using technology options like car-sharing,
ride-sharing and public transit navigation
apps to support their transportation needs.
Out of 70 cities, Denver ranked 8th nationally for the number of services and tools residents have available, including ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber, car-sharing
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services like eGo Carshare, Zipcar, car2go,
bike-sharing services, and numerous apps
for navigating local bus and taxi services.
More than 28 million people living in 19
cities have access to eight or more technology-enabled transportation services, and
other cities are catching up.
The report calls on policymakers and elected officials to further tap into the potential
of services like these, to address transportation challenges and help those who want to
drive less.
Building Local Support
CoPIRG traveled the state and helped build
support for more transportation options at
the local level. In Walsenburg, we helped
win $1.3 million for upgrading pedestrian
services, and also earned media coverage
across the state with our local organizing.
We traveled to cities like Vail, Steamboat
Springs, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs
and built support for multi-modal transportation by walking, biking and using transit to get there—a transportation triathlon.
With your support, CoPIRG will continue to
push for local commitments for more transportation options, and build momentum for
statewide policy changes in the future.
YOU SPOKE OUT— Our national coalition delivered
8,500 petitions to the Department of Justice, calling on
them to deny BP tax deductions for wrongdoing.
ACTION AT THE STATE CAPITOL— CoPIRG Director
Danny Katz spoke in support of a bill to close an offshore
tax haven loophole that costs Colorado millions.
Stopping Corporate Tax
Avoidance
Many of America’s largest corporations use sophisticated schemes to shift
their U.S. earnings to subsidiaries in offshore tax havens—countries with minimal
or no taxes—in order to reduce their state
and federal tax liability by billions.
CoPIRG Foundation released a new study
last spring showing that small businesses
end up picking up the tab for offshore tax
loopholes used by many large multinational corporations. The study revealed that
the average Colorado small business owner
would have to pay an extra $3,165 in taxes
in 2014 to make up for the money lost due to
offshore tax haven abuse.
Building Support For A State Bill
State Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Mike
Foote joined us at an event to highlight a
new state bill that they sponsored, which
aimed to close a loophole in Colorado’s tax
code that costs the state millions. The bill,
which passed in the House but failed in the
Senate, would take a big step toward creating a more level playing field in Colorado
by requiring corporations to report profits
from notorious tax havens so the state can
appropriately calculate their owed taxes.
Companies Write Off Billions
When corporations commit wrongdoing
that hurts the public, they typically settle
allegations out of court. However, too often,
some portion of those settlements are considered tax deductible, effectively allowing
corporations to write off wrongdoing as a
business expense, leaving taxpayers on the
hook for the difference.
In October 2015, the Department of Justice
(DOJ) and BP reached a proposed $20.8 billion settlement for the company’s 2010 oil
spill, allowing BP to write off $15.3 billion
of that payment as a business expense.
Members like you helped CoPIRG call on
the DOJ to deny tax deductions for the company’s misconduct in the final settlement.
CoPIRG Program Associate Michelle Surka
testified at a hearing on the settlement in
November.
Photo credits: (left page) both staff; (right page, left to right) Sean Kennedy; Staff
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2015 Program Report
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