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DEFENDING ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
May 8, 2003
"We are absolutely not happy with the results." - Gary Cowger, president of GM's North American operations in response to a J.D. Power and Associates automobile survey that found the second most common complaint to be fuel consumption.
(1)POLITICAL: Seniors Spanking the Bush Administration Worked!
(2)WATER SENTINELS: Shining Knight - Part II
(3)MORE POLITICS: Smithsonian Exhibits Political Bias
(4)TAKE ACTION: Conserve America's Fish and Wildlife
1. Seniors Spanking the Bush Administration Worked!
The Bush Administration rescinded its "senior death discount" because concerned seniors turned out in droves to public hearings across the country. The original, behind-the-scene plan would have weakened environmental laws by devaluing health needs for seniors.
Read the NY Times story (registration required): https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/08/politics/08REGS.html
2. Shining Knight - Part II
Remember Tuesday's "current" on Susan Knight, Sierra Club Water Sentinel activist in Cincinnati? Well, here is an excellent example of her work. Today, the Cincinnati press covered the story of how AK Steel is polluting a tributary of the Great Miami River, also known as Dick's Creek. AK Steel claims it does not pollute the creek that presently has 2,000 to 3,000 times more toxic pollution (PCBs) than what the Clean Water Act considers safe.
Watch how the pollution is driving one neigh of the plant one neighbor of the plant has had enough and is moving out: https://wcpo.com/news/2003/local/05/07/aksteel.html
Read the story in the Cincinnati Enquirer: https://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/05/08/loc_akwater08.html
3. Smithsonian Exhibits Political Bias
Who knew that the Smithsonian could be used for political purposes? After his photographs were displayed on the floor of the Senate to demonstrate the splendor of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Subhankar Banerjee was surprised to learn that the Smithsonian was moving his highly anticipated photography exhibit from the main floor of the museum to a less visible space on a lower floor. Also, Banerjee's exhibit will no longer include his captions, which were supposed to accompany each photo.
Hear the story from NPR at: https://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1251567
4. TAKE ACTION: Conserve America's Fish and Wildlife
Tell Congress To Maintain A Strong Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of America's strongest laws conserving the nation's fish and wildlife. Since becoming law 30 years ago the ESA has worked to help restore populations of grizzly bears, Peninsular bighorn sheep, Gila trout and gray wolves. Now, Congress, at the request of the Bush Administration, is considering weakening this landmark conservation law by exempting the Pentagon from conserving the habitat of at-risk fish and wildlife on the more than 25 million acres of public land it manages, making it easier for the federal government to avoid habitat conservation activities, on all lands. The need for the Pentagon, or any segment of government, to be above the law and avoid conserving the open space, wildlands and clean water that imperiled species and our families depend on and enjoy, is unfounded.
Please call your Congressperson and Senators and ask them to oppose all efforts to exempt the Pentagon from habitat conservation provisions of the ESA and to oppose the avoidance of conserving critical habitat our fish and wildlife depend on.
US Capitol Switchboard - (202) 224-3121
"We are organizers at heart. Most of us in the movement take great pride in being able to put things together." -Cesar Chavez
(1)FACTORY FARMS: Animal Factories in the Hen House with the Bush Administration
(2)WATER SENTINELS: Shining Knight
(3)NATIONAL FORESTS: Pristine Rainforest Today, Clearcuts Tomorrow
(4)TAKE ACTION: Urge Your Senators to Vote NO on the 2003 Energy Bill
1. Animal Factories in the Hen House with the Bush Administration
Closed discussions between the Bush administration and the livestock and poultry industry, which resemble the controversial energy task force meetings held by Vice President Cheney, may soon lead to far-reaching deals that would shield polluting animal factories from government lawsuits and effectively exempt animal factories from clean air safeguards. According to state and local air pollution administrators that have pulled out of the negotiations, Bush administration officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are contemplating an alarming agreement proposed by the meat industry.
Read the AP story here: https://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030506_1330.html Read a copy of the industry's confidential proposal memo here: https://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/2003/may/cafo_papers.asp
2. Shining Knight
Sierra Club Water Sentinel activist, Susan Knight is on the cover of the latest issue of Cincinnati Magazine. The magazine highlights movers and shakers under the age of 35 from the Cincinnati area. Susan has a lot on tap, working to prevent more city sewer overflows and getting an industrial polluter to clean up after itself.
Read more about Ohio's water sentinels program here: https://www.sierraclub.org/watersentinels/ohio/
3. Pristine Rainforest Today, Clearcuts Tomorrow
Last week, the Bush Administration made its first sale to begin logging in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is America's largest National Forest and the largest remaining pristine temperate rainforest on Earth. These wildlands will remain roadless until revving chainsaws move in.
Find out more about America's biggest, wettest, wildest national forest at: https://www.sierraclub.org/ecoregions/alaska.asp
4. TAKE ACTION: Urge Your Senators to Vote NO on the 2003 Energy Bill
The Energy Policy Act of 2003 threatens the environment by targeting our coastlines for oil and gas exploration and promoting drilling in our Western lands. This bill takes us backwards by entrenching our dependence on oil, cutting key consumer protections in electricity markets and funneling billions of dollars to polluting industries. This bill not only fails on all counts, it actually makes our situation worse. Instead of an energy bill that takes us backwards, the country needs an energy policy that cuts our dependence on oil, increases our use of clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, and protects our special wilderness places from drilling. We call on the Senate to reject the current irresponsible and environmentally destructive legislation.
Call Your Senators. The Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 can direct you to your Senator's office. When a staff member answers the phone, tell them that the 2003 Energy Bill takes us backward by opening up our special places to oil development and is a disaster for electricity consumers. Further, it fails to cut the country's dependence on oil and other polluting energy sources. Tell your Senators to speak out against the Energy Bill and support efforts to defeat this harmful legislation.
"If you're doing it already, there's nothing to fear. We have people who come to intersections and stop, but we put up stop signs for the ones who don't.
-California Senator and farmer Mike Machado, on regulating the agriculture industry's air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley, CA.
(1)WASTE: Easy Way to Do Your Part
(2)GLOBAL WARMING: All That Jazz
(3)WILDLANDS: Making Strides
(4)TAKE ACTION: Communities Left Without Aid
1. Easy Way to Do Your Part
What did you do with your old cellphone? Is it just clogging up your junk drawer? Well, the Sierra Club has teamed up with Staples and CollectiveGood, a socially responsible mobile electronics recycling company, for a solution. The new program makes recycling easy: simply drop off used cell phones, PDAs and pagers, as well as chargers, in collection tubes conveniently located near the cell phone displays in every Staples store nationwide.
2. All that Jazz
Yesterday, Chicago became the latest in a growing list of cities adding hybrids to their fleets. The city is in the early planning stages to include 100 of the energy efficient cars to transport inspectors, clerical staff, and other city employees. The Illinois Chapter is excited about getting this program on the road and improving Chicago's air quality.
Get local with the Chicago Sun-Times: https://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-cars01.html
3. Making Strides
The largest, unprotected wildlands in the lower 48 states is the Greater Owyhee Canyonlands on the border of Nevada, Oregon and Idaho. After an unsuccessful attempt to lobby President Clinton to make this area a National Monument, the Sierra Club is on a new trail. The Sierra Club is meeting with ranchers and off-road vehicle riders to try to come up with a compromise conservation plan for the region.
Read the whole story and see pictures here: https://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/04/26/40480.php
4. TAKE ACTION: Communities Left Without Aid
Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO) and Rep. Greg Walden's (R-OR) "Forest Health Restoration Act" is likely to be voted on by Congress within the next week. This bill misses on all of the major components that a responsible, science-based, community protection plan should have: protecting homes by creating a defensible space 100 feet around homes and 500 meters around communities (the method the US Forest Service Fire Research lab has found to be the best).
The McInnis/Walden bill does nothing to honestly protect lives and communities from forest fires and is more of a vehicle to increase commercial logging. The bill seeks to cut out the public from public forest management and would promote harmful logging projects across federal public forests. The bill also promotes federal dollars for private forest owners and the ability of Forest Service managers to plan 1000 acre logging projects with the sparsest of environmental review.
The McInnis/Walden bill fails:
-- To prioritize fuel reduction treatment within Community Protection Zones, 500 meters around communities
-- To require federal agency managers to fully study the impact of proposed logging projects
-- To provide adequate protection for wild forests, sensitive fish and wildlife habitat and clean water
-- To responsibly direct taxpayer dollars and federal resources to assist homeowners and community leaders
-- To allow citizens to retain their rights to be involved in federal land management
For information on real home safety and responsible fire management see www.sierraclub.org/logging and www.firewise.org.
Please urge your Representative to OPPOSE the McInnis/Walden anti-community, pro-logging bill. ** You can reach Members through the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121.** Or write a letter to your local newspaper's editor telling your Representative to oppose the bill.
Answer: "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings' was a goal of this group at its 19th Century founding". Question: "What is the Sierra Club.?" -Final Jeopardy, 4/18/03
Note: Starting Thursday, May 1st, Currents will be delivered from the currents@sierraclub.org email address.
(1)CLEAN AIR: Possible Breath of Fresh Air
(2)EARTH DAY: 358 days until next Earth Day
(3)NATIONAL FORESTS: The Laugh-Test
(4)TAKE ACTION: Don't Let Old Power Plants Pollute More
1. Possible Breath of Fresh Air
The Bush Administration has taken away a vital component of the Clean Air Act, but California state lawmakers are on a mission to put it back. Yesterday, a State Senate Committee heard a bill to restore the New Source Review Program that will help clean up California's oldest and worst polluting power plants and refineries. If this bill passes in California, look for other states to follow suit.
Read the story in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/national/29POLL.html
2. 358 days until next Earth Day
Earth Day activists were busy this past weekend going door-to-door, handing out postcards and yard signs to publicize important local issues, and getting out the message that "America can do better" in protecting our water and our air. From Birmingham, Alabama, to Washington, DC, volunteers trekked through wind, rain and mud to educate friends and neighbors about a wide range of pressing environmental issues.
Read a clip from the field: https://204.228.236.37/News/story.asp?ID=38391
3. The Laugh-Test
According to Rep. DeFazio (D-OR), the Republican version of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act doesn't pass the laugh test. In the name of "wildfire protection," the bill promotes aggressive logging while eliminating the environmental review that protects water, communities, and wildlife. The Oregon Representative is offering his own alternative bill, focusing instead on a real solution to fire risk: forest thinning immediately around fire-prone communities without abandoning the environmental safeguards for the forest.
Read the latest story here: https://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20030426/northwest/50775.shtml
4. TAKE ACTION: Don't Let Old Power Plants Pollute More
Friday, May 2nd is the last day to tell Bush administration that their efforts to dismantle the Clean Air Act are atrocious. The administration is targetting a critical program that protects communities from increases in pollution from factories when they increase the amount of pollution they're producing. The administration's proposal would allow power plant changes to be treated as repairs, and therefore be exempt from meeting environmental standards. If you have not commented yet, please do so today.
Send a comment by e-mail to: a-and-r-docket@epamail.epa.gov and in your subject include Docket ID No. A-2002-04.
Or go to: https://www.epa.gov/edocket and following the instructions. The docket number is A-2002-04
Tell the Bush administration:
New Source Review is a critical program that protects communities from increases in pollution from factories as they make changes which increase pollution. We need to protect communities, requiring polluters to use available technology to clean up their factories. The EPA should not change the law in a way that removes an important tool that accomplishes this. Please do not finalize this damaging change.
"Every day is Earth Day." -Unknown
(1)WILDLANDS: Sugar-Coated
(2)SENIORS: Spankin' the Administration
(3)EARTH DAY: There's No Place Like Home
(5)TAKE ACTION: The Energy Bill - You make the Call
1. Sugar-Coated
For Earth Day, Sierra Club Executive Director, Carl Pope, travelled to Miami to help the Florida Chapter stand up against state lawmakers who want to rewrite the Everglades Forever Act that would restore this natural treasure. The lawmakers have been working with the sugar industry who, since 1996 have been sweetening the deal by pouring more than $26 million into the campaigns of state politicians and political committees who are in favor of putting the restoration on hold.
See Carl in the Lakeland Ledger at: https://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030422&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=304220389&Ref=AR
2. Spankin' the Administration
The Bush Administration is holding six public hearings around the country focusing on environmental health for aging babyboomers. The Administration has proposed what has been dubbed the "Senior Death Discount," which would discount the lives of seniors 37 percent when new environmental rules are calculated by the Federal government.
According to today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, at the recent hearing in Pittsburgh, one Sierra Club activist "turned the [Environmental Protection] [A]gency and the Bush administration over her knee to give them a virtual spanking for seeking to weaken clean air rules and for discounting the value of seniors' lives."
Read the rest of the article here: https://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030424seniors4.asp
3. There's No Place Like Home
We couldn't have written a better Earth Day editorial ourselves than what was featured in Earth Day's home state, Wisconsin. The Capital Times highlights the progress America has achieved in cleaning up our air and water and protecting our land legacy. And then, it shifts gears and takes a glimpse at how the Bush Administration has stopped the momentum. Read it the whole editorial here: https://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/editorial/47387.php
4. TAKE ACTION: The Energy Bill - You make the Call
Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed an energy bill that takes the country backwards to production methods that will pollute our environment and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Efforts to cut our country's dependence on oil, increase our use of clean, renewable energy sources, protect consumers from further Enron-like debacles, and multiple provisions to protect our nation's special places were all voted down.
Now similar energy legislation is working its way through the Senate. Call your Senators and tell them that now more than ever, our country needs an energy bill that cuts our nation's dependence on fossil fuels and takes us towards a clean and sustainable energy future. Tell them to support efforts to cut our dependence on oil, generate more of our electricity from clean, renewable energy sources, protect consumers from abuse by utility companies and protect our country's natural heritage by preventing oil drilling in places like the Gulf of Mexico's Outer Continental Shelf.
US Capitol Switchboard - (202) 224-3121
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