Missouri used to have an Agricultural and Environmental Division at the Attorney General's Office to protect our state's natural resources. As Attorney General, I will bring back a Conservation Division to work with the Department of Natural Resources and other partners to protect all that Missouri has to offer its residents. As Attorney General, I will:

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1. Restart Missouri's Conservation Division. The Conservation Division will protect our waterways, land, and air from pollution, and will help ensure that our state's natural resources are passed down to the next generation of Missourians.

 

2. Protect our water. Every day, irresponsible people are looking for ways to dump their waste in our state's streams and rivers. Runoff that contains dangerous chemicals poisons our drinking water and parks. Water pollution is again becoming an increasing area of activity, especially on the part of big businesses. Right now, factory farms are pushing to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of waste every day into Missouri's waterways. And large companies that improperly stored their waste need to be held accountable for seepage into our drinking water. As Attorney General, I will protect our state's water against these big interests.

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3. Hold the federal Department of Energy accountable for poisoning our state with radioactive waste. St. Louis, St. Charles, and Warren County have been impacted by the ongoing effects from the Manhattan Project work done in Missouri. So many Missouri families have lost loved ones to rare cancers. We recently learned that the federal government knew about the dangers early on, downplayed them, and allowed children to play in poisoned streams and on poisoned lands. The Department of Energy must be held accountable. As Attorney General, I will demand that the federal government provide expedited cleanup services and compensation for victims and, if the federal government won't do its job, I will sue them.

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4. Work with the Department of Natural Resources and the community to ensure safe cobalt mining practices. Missouri is home to one of the largest deposits of cobalt, an important component of batteries. Cobalt mining in other parts of the world have been dangerous to miners and to surrounding communities, in large part due to poor mining rules. This deposit provides our state with a great economic opportunity that can improve our country's energy system, and we must ensure that we are extracting cobalt in a way that protects workers, neighboring towns, and our state's environment. As Attorney General, I will work with local community members, state entities, workers, and businesses to ensure safe extraction.

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5. Rejoin the national network of Attorneys General to coordinate enforcement against polluters. Pollution does not respect state borders. We need a regional effort to protect Missouri interests from polluters, including those that reside out of state. As Attorney General, I will defend Missouri's interests, and I will help lead a Midwestern coalition to stop polluters by rejoining the national coordinating network of Attorneys General that previous Attorneys General withdrew from for political purposes. We need to preserve all of the greatness that makes Missouri such a beautiful home for all of us.

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6. Support sustainable farming. Missouri is home to exploitative farms, many of which are owned by foreign entities, that deplete our land, spread animal waste into nearby communities, bring down surrounding property values, provide low wages and poor working conditions, and produce less nutritious food. As Attorney General, I will hold companies responsible for damaging our state, and I will work with family farmers to make it much easier for them to farm sustainably by streamlining the bureaucratic process.