Sense of Urgency to Save Reforms Marks 25th Earth Day Celebration

More than 100,000 people marked the silver anniversary of Earth Day in the shadow of the Capitol on Saturday, protesting what they fear will be a broad rollback of environmental protection laws.

“Today I can tell you what the largest threat to our environment is, and it’s right behind me--the U.S. Congress,” Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told a rally on the National Mall. “They’re literally dismantling 25 years of environmental progress.”

Congress has passed 28 major environmental laws, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, since the first Earth Day in 1970.

But environmentalists say the new Republican-led Congress is quickly and stealthily revoking that protection, and spent the 25th Earth Day urging Americans to fight back. Organizers hoped to collect millions of signatures on an “Environmental Bill of Rights” petition to present to Congress on July 4.

“Let them know up there that we still care,” actor LeVar Burton of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” told the cheering crowd, estimated by U.S. Park Police at 125,000. “Don’t turn back the clock on the environment.”

Elsewhere, more than 3,000 volunteers spent the day cleaning up illegal dumps in Oregon. In New Jersey, Bell Atlantic Mobile unveiled a national recycling program that lets cellular phone users turn in used phone batteries to phone stores. The batteries will be recycled and consumers will get a store coupon good for 10% off their next battery purchase.

About 80,000 people attended a six-hour Earth Day concert in Boston, where solar-powered cars and appliances were displayed.

In New York, 3,000 turned out to see marchers costumed as fish and trees in the “Parade for the Planet” and another 2,000 people raised $70,000 for city parks in a race through Central Park.

But in Tumwater, Wash., more than 100 timber workers spent Earth Day asking lawmakers to repeal the Endangered Species Act, which restricts logging on lands that are home to certain protected species of plants and animals.