Over the last 30 years, we have made significant progress through strong public safeguards. Our air and water are cleaner; our food, workplaces, and roads are safer; and corporations and government are more open and accountable to the public. These protections have saved thousands upon thousands of lives and improved the quality of life for all Americans — without hobbling industry or the economy. Nonetheless, significant problems remain. Every year, more than 40,000 people die on our nation's highways. Food-borne illnesses kill an estimated 5,000 people and sicken 76 million. Nearly 6,000 workers die as a result of injury on the job, with an additional 50,000 to 60,000 killed by occupational disease. Meanwhile, environmental damage not only threatens the loss of irreplaceable natural resources but also the public health, as 1.8 million people every year get sick from swimming in sewage and thousands of lives are shortened by air pollution. We should address these problems, and others, by building on past successes. Instead, the Bush administration has reversed course. Crucial safeguards have been swept aside or watered down; enforcement efforts have been curtailed; and emerging problems are being ignored, as the administration squelches information and scientific findings that suggest a need for action. The undersigned organizations are coming together as part of the Citizens for Sensible Safeguards coalition to promote stronger public safeguards. We recognize the common problems across our particular areas of concern, and we are guided by a shared set of principles:

• First, we need strong protections for public health, safety, civil rights, and the environment, and these protections must be vigorously enforced. Industry self-regulation — which is the Bush administration's answer — is not enough.
• Second, we must commit the necessary resources to do the job. If we do not, enforcement will suffer and public and environmental dangers will not be addressed.
• Third, the scientific advice that informs regulatory decisions must be free of conflicts of interests, so that protective rules are based on sound, independent judgment that does not put special interests over the public interest.
• Finally, government decision-making should be transparent and open to scrutiny, allowing for accountability to a fully-informed public.

The public suffers when these principles are forgotten. The recent wave of corporate financial scandals is a case in point: corporations came to see the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as toothless and irrelevant and subsequently pushed fraudulent practices to the breaking point, cheating investors out of billions. Unfortunately, these principles are being ignored across the board, and the failure to set and enforce needed safeguards is inviting irresponsible behavior that could have devastating consequences for public health, safety, civil rights, and the environment. We need to get back on course before it's too late.