> Take Action: U.S. Capitol Going Smokefree!

Congratulations! On January 10, 2007, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Speaker’s Lobby of the U.S. Capitol will be smokefree!  Thanks the 9,000 American Lung Association advocates across the country who signed our “Smokefree U.S. Capitol” petition, no Member of Congress, staff member, page or journalist will have to breathe secondhand smoke when they are in the Speaker’s Lobby. The decision to make the Speaker’s Lobby smokefree is both an important public health victory and a symbolic decision. By making the Speaker’s Lobby smokefree, Speaker Pelosi has ended the days of smoke-filled rooms. 

> Take Action! Join the Smokefree Air 2010 Challenge

Be a part of the American Lung Association Smokefree Air 2010 Challenge and help make your community and every community smokefree! The American Lung Association has issued a challenge to all communities and states:  Be smokefree no later than 2010. Secondhand smoke is a serious health hazard that kills an estimated 49,400 people in the U.S. each year.

Since we launched the Smokefree Air 2010 Challenge in 2006, eight states and dozens of cities and towns have gone smokefree.  To date, 16 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have passed comprehensive smokefree laws that include restaurants and bars.  This is tremendous progress.  With your help and our aggressive campaign, we will hit our goal of a Smokefree U.S. by 2010!  But, we can only do it if citizens keep the pressure on their elected officials. Not only do smokefree laws reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, but they also increase the number of people who quit smoking and also discourage kids from starting to smoke.

> Take Action: Help Make 2007 the Year FDA Regulation of Tobacco Products Becomes Law

This year we are more hopeful than ever that strong legislation giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products will become law.  Longtime champions Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), have indicated that they plan to reintroduce strong, bipartisan FDA legislation early in this new Congress. 

Please take a minute to urge your Member of Congress and Senators to become among the first congressional leaders who commit to protecting the public health and our kids from tobacco products.

> Take Action: Funding Needed for Lung Health Research

United States Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Rep. David Obey (D-WI), who will chair the Appropriations Committees in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives respectively, have announced they will work to pass a continuing resolution to provide funding for the remainder of the current fiscal year.  The chairs have indicated that the bill will fund all government agencies at the amount they were funded during the last fiscal year.  However, due in part to the elimination of earmarks, more than $7 billion will be available to increase funding for federal government for the select priorities.  Lung disease research and other important health initiatives should receive some of this funding.

> Take Action: Help prepare America for the flu season!

Experts have warned that a potential flu pandemic can strike the United States at anytime. A flu pandemic will spread rapidly and easily from person to person, affecting all age groups.  It will cause illness in a high proportion of those infected. We must make sure the United States is better prepared for the flu season regardless of whether a flu pandemic occurs in this year or in several years.

Funds must be available to ensure that we are prepared for influenza outbreaks. Further, please make sure we are ready for any flu pandemics. Leadership is needed to prevent these pandemics. Learn more about how you can help.

> Guilty! Judge Finds Tobacco Companies Guilty of Federal Racketeering

Seven years after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to stop the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler found on August 17, 2006, that Big Tobacco was guilty of federal racketeering charges.  After reviewing millions of pages of evidence and expert testimony, Judge Kessler correctly concluded that tobacco companies have engaged in a long-term, fraudulent scheme to mislead the American people about the health risks of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of their products, and in their tactics for marketing their products to children.

> State of the Air: 2006 - Make a Difference by Cleaning Up Dirty Diesel Locomotive and Marine Engines

More than 150 million Americans still live in counties where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution, according to the  American Lung Association State of the Air: 2006 report, released on April 27.