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DEFENDING ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
March 13, 2003
Lisa, if we start conserving, the environmentalists win! -Homer Simpson
(1)WILDLANDS: Taking Stakes after 100 years
(2)WATER: Water Rights
(3)WETLANDS: Bush Administration Affecting the Real World (4)TAKE ACTION: Everything, Everywhere
1. Taking Stakes after 100 years
Tomorrow marks the centennial of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Many refuges were established as a result of efforts by hunters and anglers concerned with conserving healthy wildlife populations. There are 540 refuges nationwide covering more than 95 million acres.
After many successes of the refuge system's first one hundred years, the second one hundred years will offer new challenges. In fact, new challenges are knocking on the back-door, and guess who's knocking. That's right, the Bush Administration is proposing to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic Refuge and to allow local and state governments to crisscross other refuges with roads that threaten the integrity of the refuge system.
Learn more about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge here: https://www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/arctic/index.asp
2. Water Rights
The state Senate of Oklahoma took a step in the right direction this week by passing a bill supported by the Oklahoma Sierra Club to temporarily halt distribution of water-use permits for the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer. This move comes in response to landowners wanting to pump water out of the aquifer and selling it to farmers miles away. If the aquifer were pumped dry, three towns downstream would be left waterless.
What does the Daily Oklahoman think? Find out here: https://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=997940&pic=none&TP=getarticle
3. Power Plant Permits Needed
Almost 147 power plants and factories in Illinois are operating without federal clean air permits. Of those without permits, older, coal-fired plants are the dirtiest. The Sierra Club and the American Lung Association are working together to solve the problem.
The two groups have filed a petition with federal Environmental Protection Agency addressing the inefficiencies of the state program and the need for closer monitoring of the toxic power plants. Now, the EPA could end up taking over the program.
Get the local story from the Chicago Tribune: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0303110215mar11,1,1784406.story
4. TAKE ACTION - Everything, Everywhere
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a report documenting the devastating effects that oil development has had on Alaska's Northern Slope. Now the Bush Administration wants to open not just the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but the Western Arctic and surrounding off shore areas to full scale development. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting comments until March 18 on the proposal to open the Western Arctic to development. In the light of the new NAS study, the Administration should slow its "drill everywhere" approach. The BLM should develop supplemental leasing alternatives that will provide protection for the most special places in the region and ensure that, in areas where development proceeds, strong environmental safeguards are upheld to protect the land, air, water, and wildlife resources of this unique arctic environment.
Click below to send a fax directly to the BLM. There's a draft provided! https://www.sierraclub.org/action/?alid=201&st=curr
"This is just as they say, poppy-cock." -Sierra Club Activist Rita Harris' response after trying to duct tape plastic to 3 windows, a door and an air vent in less than 10 minutes
Read more here: https://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=1169917
(1)FACTORY FARMS: New Meaning for the term "Agricultural Stormwater"
(2)TOXICS: Losing Patience (3)FORESTS: Alternative C
(4)TAKE ACTION: Everything, Everywhere
1. New Meaning for the term "Agricultural Stormwater"
A new Bush Administration farm pollution rule violates the Clean Water Act by allowing large-scale livestock farms to continue to foul the nation's waterways with animal waste, according to a lawsuit filed by three environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club. Among other things, the new rule shields factory farms from liability for damage caused by animal waste pollution.
Also under the Bush Administration rule, animal factories can continue to dump millions of gallons of liquefied manure into open pits, called lagoons, and then spray the liquid over fields. Typically the manure runs off the fields into nearby streams or seeps into underground water supplies, polluting water with viruses, bacteria, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and excessive nutrients. The rule exempts this contaminated runoff from Clean Water Act standards by calling it "agricultural stormwater."
Read more from ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20030311_78.html
2. Losing Patience
New Yorkers are still waiting for the EPA to clean up General Electric's toxics from the Hudson River and now they're going to have to wait an extra year. The project to clean-up PCBs leftover from GE was supposed to start in 2005 and now it won't begin until 2006. Sierra Club activists, who were monumental in the clean-up decision, are worried the foot-dragging will continue and delay the process even more.
Read more about this story and how GE has only handed $5 million of the $37 million is owes to the EPA here: https://www.poststar.com/story.html
3. Alternative C
The Bush Administration released its management plan for National Forests in five southeast states: Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. Originally, there were nine alternatives for the plan, one that prohibited logging, called "Alternative C." So far, the US Forest Service has not chosen this option, but the Sierra Club isn't throwing in the towel.
Sierra Club activists just completed a five-state tour to raise awareness for the logging alternative. Along the way, these activists delivered to the region's Forest Supervisors 5000 postcards signed by people who supported a ban on commercial logging in the southeast region's National Forests.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8098-2003Mar10.html
4. TAKE ACTION - Everything, Everywhere
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a report documenting the devestating effects that oil development has had on Alaska's Northern Slope. Now the Bush Administration wants to open not just the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but the Western Arctic and surrounding off shore areas to full scale development. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting comments until March 18 on the proposal to open the Western Arctic to development. In the light of the new NAS study, the Administration should slow its "drill everywhere" approach. The BLM should develop supplemental leasing alternatives that will provide protection for the most special places in the region and ensure that, in areas where development proceeds, strong environmental safeguards are upheld to protect the land, air, water, and wildlife resources of this unique arctic environment.
Click below to send a fax directly to the BLM. There's a draft provided! https://www.sierraclub.org/action/?alid=201&st=curr
"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." - Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes
(1)JUDICIAL NOMINEES: Chalk One Down for the Senate
(2)ENERGY: Greener Autos
(3)POPULATION: International Women's Day
(4)TAKE ACTION: Help Stop the Bush Administration's Disastrous Forest Proposal
1. Chalk One Down for the Senate
Today, the Senate voted to continue the debate over Miguel Estrada's nomination to the second most important court in the land, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Estrada has refused to answer questions regarding important federal cases and the Department of Justice is refusing to release other information about his past. Who is this mystery man?
Read more about the judicial nominees here: https://www.sierraclub.org/politics/judicial_nominees/index.asp
2. Greener Autos
Tired of reading the paper's automotive page because it only refers to the new, upcoming, larger than life, heavier than lead SUVs? Thanks to Jim Motavalli, editor of E: The Environmental Magazine and author of several Sierra Club Books, there's an alternative option. Motavalli developed a list of clean (or cleaner) auto choices that aren't heavy on the wallet. Save green by buying green.
Check it out, from the Heart of Rock and Roll: https://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/1046628913147271.xml?banew
3. International Women's Day
Saturday, March 8th is International Women's Day. It marks the struggles of our grandmothers and mothers to achieve equality, justice and peace and to secure a better world for children. March 8th gives us the opportunity to acknowledge the past and honor those who work to create lasting social and environmental change. Since the Bush Administration took office, they have publicly advocated their support for women around the world. However, their political actions illustrate a very different reality.
Find out more here: https://www.sierraclub.org/population Need help writing a letter to your newspaper's editor for International Women's Day? If so, look here: https://www.sierraclub.org/population/womensday_letter_2003.asp
4. TAKE ACTION - Help Stop the Bush Administration's Disastrous Forest Proposal
The US Forest Service is required to develop a management plan for each National Forest. The rules that implement this law are key in detailing the requirements that the Forest Service must follow in developing each plan. As part of its barrage of damaging proposals, the Bush administration has announced changes to these rules. The draft proposal would greatly reduce the amount of environmental analysis, wildlife protection, and public involvement currently required in the development and revision of forest management plans and the management of our National Forests.
YOU CAN HELP! -- Send official comments to the Forest Service and a copy of your comments to your Congressional representatives. Comments should be sent by April 7!
Please visit https://www.sierraclub.org/logging for more information and a sample letter that can be sent to the Forest Service and Congress.
"I would rather spend our limited budget suing a polluter than suing the federal government. But, unfortunately, the two are synonymous these days." -California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer comments about California's suit against the Bush Administration for its changes to the Clean Air Act that will dramatically increase air pollution
(1)NATIONAL FOREST: TGIF - There Go Irreplaceable Forests!
(2)POLITICAL: We've Got Questions
(3)LEADERS: High Praise
(4)TAKE ACTION: Stop Bush's "Mystery" Nominee
1. TGIF - There Go Irreplaceable Forests!
On Friday, the Bush Administration recommended to Congress that no more of the Tongass National Forest be designated as wilderness. This decision by the US Forest Service puts over 9 million acres of rainforest in jeopardy of being carved out by roads and cut by the timber industry. The announcement came on Friday, when Americans are least likely to notice another anti-environmental move by the Bush Administration.
To the liking of who???: John Heilprin of the Associated Press, in his March 2nd article Bush blazes a trail on forests, writes, "In just six months President Bush has succeeded in redirecting the nation's forest policy to the liking of the timber industry."
Read all of Heilprin's article here:https://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/061/nation/Bush_blazes_a_trail_on_forests+.shtml
2. We've Got Questions
Have you ever wanted a chance to ask the Interior Secretary, Agriculture Secretary, and the EPA Administrator a question? Well, here's your opportunity to be a star. All of them, that's right, all of them, Gale Norton, Ann Veneman, and Christie Todd Whitman are going to be guests on C-SPAN, WEDNESDAY, March 5th. Model questions are below.
The show is Washington Journal and it will be on tomorrow, March 5th at 9am EST. The contact information is as follows: Call-in number for Democrats: (202) 585-3881 Call-in number for Republicans: (202) 585-3880 Call-in number for Others: (202) 585-3882 Fax: (202) 393-3346 Email: journal@c-span.org Website: https://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Series&Code=WJE&ShowVidNum=6&Rot_Cat_CD=WJ&Rot_HT=205&Rot_WD
Are you shy minded when in the spotlight?
If so, ask one of these questions:
Since the EPA reported the extreme dangers of mercury to children, why is the Bush Administration proposing the Clear Skies plan that will leave more mercury in the air than under current law (the Clean Air Act)? Shouldn't our children's safety be the biggest priority?
Last week, Tony Blair announced a plan to cut Britain's global warming emissions, and chided the Bush administration for failing to act. Britain understands that we can take real action to combat global warming without hurting the economy. So why is the Bush adminstration offering only voluntary measures that fall far short of what's needed?
The Forest Service's own scientists say that thinning small brush and trees closest to homes and communities is the best way to reduce the risks of forest fires. Why does the Bush Administration insist on focusing its efforts on logging large, fire-resistant trees deep in the backcountry? Shouldn't the Forest Service put protecting lives and homes first? Background: The Bush Administration's Healthy Forest Initiative would focus on increasing commercial logging across National Forests, instead of prioritizing honest fuel reduction in community protection zones.
The 100-year anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System is this year, and it is the perfect opportunity make sure we continue this legacy of conservation. So why is the Bush Administration pursuing drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the crown jewel of the Refuge System, despite the damage drilling would cause and the overwhelming public support for protecting this pristine landscape and the wildlife who live there?
3. High Praise
For outgoing New Jersey Chapter Chair Tina Schvejda praise doesn't get much better. Yesterday, she was recognized by the New Jersey Assembly in a resolution for her dedication and service to protect New Jersey's environment. Tina has been Chair of the Sierra Club's New Jersey Chapter for the past four years and in that time membership, fundraising levels, and most importantly, volunteer commitment have all increased tremendously.
Watch the resolution for Tina Schvejda, you can view the proceedings at: https://rmserver.njleg.state.nj.us/internet/2003/A/0303-0100PM-1.wmv
The presentation starts about 4 minutes into the session and lasts about 8 minutes.
4. TAKE ACTION - Stop Bush's "Mystery" Nominee
The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday morning on President Bush's nominee for a lifetime appointment to the second most important court in the country. Miguel Estrada has been the subject of weeks of debate, as senators try to obtain information about his views or his record. He's called the "mystery man" because when Senators asked him his views on legal issues, he clammed up. He has refused to answer questions about his views on landmark Supreme Court cases and won't reveal his opinions on basic environmental, civil rights and workers' rights laws. To make matters worse, the Bush Justice Department refuses to make public legal memos that he wrote while he worked there.
Many Senators have been demanding more information about Estrada before they vote, but the administration has refused to release his record. Now Estrada supporters are trying to force an end to the debate by calling for a "cloture" vote which would stop the discussion and force all senators to vote without the information on Estrada. On Thursday, Senators who support environmental protection and a balanced court system should vote AGAINST CLOTURE so that they can continue discussions and give the nominee the scrutiny that's needed.
Estrada's nomination is opposed by a broad coalition of groups, including the NAACP, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood. The Sierra Club opposes Estrada's nomination and is working with this coalition to protect our environmental laws and civil rights from Bush's plan to pack the courts with extreme judges.
Tell your Senator to vote against cloture on the Estrada nomination!
Click below to send a fax directly to your Senators. There's a draft provided! https://www.sierraclub.org/action/?alid=203&st=curr
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