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DEFENDING ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
May 22, 2003
"Yesterday, Christie Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced she is resigning. Apparently, President Bush was shocked. He didn't know that there was an Environmental Protection Agency." -Conan O'Brien, last night on the Late Night with Conan O'Brien Show
(1)POLITICAL: Whitman Steps Aside
(2)SIERRA CLUB NEWS: New Sierra Club President Sworn In
(3)NATIONAL FORESTS: McInnis Losing Old Friends
(4)TAKE ACTION: Make a Call or Write a Letter this Memorial Day
1. Whitman Steps Aside
Unfortunately for Christie Todd Whitman, her reign as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency did nothing to build on her record. She came into office with a reputation as an environmental champion, but in the end, even Whitman was no match for big corporate interests within the Bush Administration. The next question is, who is going to fill Whitman's shoes and be the recipient of thousands of Sierra Club Take Action emails?
Sign up for Take Action here:
https://whistler.sierraclub.org/action/?alid=266
Read the Whitman story in the San Francisco Chronicle: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/22/MN252797.DTL
2. New Sierra Club President Sworn In
This past weekend the Sierra Club elected long-time Bay Area environmental and political activist Larry Fahn to serve as its 50th president. Fahn has held local, regional, and statewide posts with the Club for nearly 25 years. Fahn's priority for the next year is to help educate the American public about the Bush administration's efforts to weaken forty years of environmental progress.
Read the story in the Marin Independent Journal: https://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24407~1408304,00.html
3. McInnis Losing Old Friends
Rep. McInnis (R-CO) is losing old friends with his work on the latest logging bill approved by the House of Representatives. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act does not use real solutions to protect homes and communities from forest fires and it has cost Rep. McInnis his friend of 35 years, Don Vanderhoof, the mayor of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
Read the story here:
https://www.postindependent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030522/VALLEYNEWS/305210003
4. TAKE ACTION: Make a Call or Write a Letter this Memorial Day
While your Senators are home for their Memorial Day break, urge them not to make the same mistake as the House of Representatives AND URGE THEM TO OPPOSE the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act." CALL THEIR LOCAL OFFICE or better yet, WRITE THEM A LETTER telling them the bill approved by the House seeks to waive environmental review, undermine meaningful public participation and interfere with our courts in order to favor big timber companies over community protection.
The administration wants to use last year's dramatic fire season to advance timber industry proposals. Instead, the Congress should require the Forest Service and BLM to help at-risk communities thin small diameter trees and brush in the 500-meter Community Protection Zone. Private landowners should get assistance in reducing hazardous fuels on their property within this crucial defensible zone.
"Fishermen used to go out and catch these phenomenally big fish, but they cannot find them anymore. They're not there. We ate them." -Ransom A. Myers, a fisheries biologist explains the results of a new study published in the journal Nature that reports the world's industrial fishing fleets have, over the last fifty years, stripped some ninety percent of the biggest species of fish from our oceans.
(1)FOREST FIRES: Protecting Communities not the Priority
(2)NATIONAL FORESTS: Judge says Nuh-Uh to Logging Plan
(3)WILDLANDS: Deal too Sweet for Governor Bush
(4)TAKE ACTION: Stop Congress from Gutting the Sea
1. Protecting Communities not the Priority
Earlier today the House of Representatives passed a forest bill that ignores solutions and does next to nothing for protecting communities at risk. The McInnis-Walden bill, like the Bush administration's so-called Healthy Forests Initiative, does not focus scarce federal funding and resources where they would do the most good: in the Community Protection Zone adjacent to at-risk communities. Instead, the bill allows the Forest Service and Department of Interior to conduct misguided logging projects deep in the backcountry in the name of "fuel reduction."
See a map of 13 forest communities at risk who asked Rep. McInnis (R-CO) to amend his bill and prioritize solutions that would enable communities to protect homes and lives where there is imminent danger: https://www.aspenwildernessworkshop.org/news/Communities_Risk2.pdf
2. Judge says Nuh-Uh to Logging Plan
In good news yesterday, a judge in Northern California ruled against logging giant Pacific Lumber and its 100-year logging plan. The plan covered 211,000 acres in Humboldt County, California. Although the state Forestry Department had approved the plan, environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, sued because endangered species and watershed habitats were not sufficiently protected.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/20/MN130497.DTL
3. Deal too Sweet for Governor Bush
Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed a law backed by the sugar industry today that will slow the clean up of the Everglades. The Everglades is home to many endangered species and is a large source of drinking water for Floridians; it is now in jeopardy of losing federal funding. Initially nicknamed the Everglades "Forever" Act, activists are now calling it the Everglades "Whenever" Act.
Read more here: https://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=9&u=/nm/20030520/sc_nm/environment_everglades_dc
4. TAKE ACTION: Stop Congress from Gutting the Sea
Your calls are needed to your Senators and Representatives to prevent the Bush Administration and their congressional allies from gutting the Endangered Species Act. The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on legislation next week, the FY 04 Defense Authorization Act, that contains provisions seeking to exempt the Pentagon from the critical habitat conservation provisions of the ESA and undermine the conservation of critical habitat, a key factor in endangered species recovery, nationwide. Both the House and the Senate are scheduled to vote this week on this important issue.
PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSPERSON AT: 202-224-3121
If you do not know whom your Senators or Congressperson are then visit: https://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
TELL THEM:
* To oppose the provisions of Defense Authorization Bill that exempts the 25 million acres of public land managed by the Pentagon from the critical habitat conservation measures of the ESA.
* To oppose the provisions of the Defense Authorization Bill that shifts the standard for designating critical habitat on all lands from the current "prudent" to "necessary."
* Critical habitat works and is an essential tool for recovering America's at-risk fish and wildlife. The most recent data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that species that have had their critical habitat designated are more likely to be increasing in number and heading towards recover than species that have not.
* Critical habitat is scientifically valid. A review of the ESA by the National Academy of Science determined that the critical habitat requirements of the ESA "correspond to the understanding of conservation biology that certain habitat is essential for species survival."
"There are three kinds of people - those who can count and those who can't." - Yogi Berra
(1)HUMAN RIGHTS: What's Next?
(2)WATER: Victory in Virginia!
(3)NATIONAL FORESTS: Out in the Woods
(4)TAKE ACTION: Communities Left Unaided
1. What Next?
A Sierra Club report released in January highlighted multinational oil company, Unocal's shameful record of environmental and human rights violations in the construction of the Yadana gas pipeline in Burma. Thousands of villagers were violently forced from their homes to accommodate the project. And now the Bush Administration is coming to Unocal's defense. It's filing a "friend-of-the-court" brief in a lawsuit against the company. The Administration doesn't just want to help Unocal - it wants to make it harder to hold U.S. multinationals accountable for their behavior overseas. At a time when we need our corporations to act as good ambassadors abroad, we should get tough with corporations that represent the worst of America.
Read more about Unocal's security contracts with human rights abusers on page 11 of the Sierra Club's International Right to Know Report at: https://www.sierraclub.org/human-rights/irtk/irtk_report_jan03.pdf
2. Victory in Virginia!
After seven years and more than 10,000 comments and post cards opposing the King William Reservoir, victory is here. The Virginia Sierra Club led the charge to stop a reservoir that would have destroyed more than 430 acres of wetlands. Yesterday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission denied the City of Newport News a critical permit needed to withdraw water from the river.
Get local with the Daily Press: https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-scuttlemay15,0,5350687.story?coll=dp-headlines-topnews
3. Out in the Woods
The General Accounting Office (GOA) has confirmed what the Sierra Club has been saying all along about environmental challenges to wildfire prevention projects. The GAO looked at more than 750 wildfire projects in the past two years and found that three-quarters of them were never challenged. If that's the case, why then would House Republicans be moving to pass a wildfire bill that would limit environmental review and court challenges on logging and brush-clearing projects?
Read the story in the San Francisco Chronicle: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/15/MN272143.DTL
4. TAKE ACTION: Communities Left Unaided - McInnis/Walden Logging Bill Headed for Vote on Tuesday, May 20
The deceptively-named "Forest Health Restoration Act" is headed for a floor vote in the next week. This bill does nothing to honestly protect lives and communities from forest fires and is actually a vehicle to increase commercial logging. The US Forest Service Fire Research lab has found that the best method to protect homes from a forest fire is by creating defensible space 100 feet around a home and 500 meters around communities. 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. Representative George Miller (D-CA) will be offering a substitute amendment providing an alternative that better protects communities. Please urge your Representative to support the Miller substitute. The House is scheduled to vote next Tuesday, May 20. Call early and often! This bill is too bad not to act!
TAKE ACTION HERE: https://www.sierraclub.org/action/?alid=269&st=curr
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Ghandi
(1)FUNDRAISING: With Belp from the Band BOSTON, Sierra Club Rocks On
(2)FACTORY FARMS: Don't Dive in This Pool
(3)WILDLANDS: Outdoor Retailers May Take a Hike
(4)TAKE ACTION: Stop the Budget Disaster
1. With Help from the Band BOSTON, Sierra Club Rocks On
Tom Scholz, the founder of the popular rock band BOSTON, announced today that the group will use their popularity and power to make the world a better place. The band will benefit the Sierra Club by donating $1.00 from every ticket sold on its upcoming nationwide summer tour. The Sierra Club will use the donations in its efforts to protect America's communities by fighting for clean air and water, fighting to clean up toxic waste sites, and safeguarding America's majestic landscapes.
2. Don't Dive in This Pool
Word is getting out about severe health problems associated with factory farms. A recent New York Times article highlighted individuals who live near large factory farms and are experiencing health ailments. The sources of sickness often times are cesspools that sit out in the open air, releasing toxic chemicals such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. These pools are the result of millions of gallons of animal waste each year across the country. And by the way, the Bush Administration has been ignoring this problem and is actively working to make testing for air pollution voluntary for factory farms.
Read the story here (registration required): https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/health/11HOGS.html
3. Outdoor Retailers May Take a Hike
The Outdoor Retail semiannual trade shows may be looking for a new home after Governor Leavitt of Utah settled with the Bush Administration to remove 6 million acres of Utah wilderness from protection. The shows bring in $24 million a year to Salt Lake City and Utah, making the Outdoor Retail Shows the state's largest trade shows. To make a statement about the economic importance of protecting wilderness, the Outdoor Industry Association is threatening to pull out of the state, if that's what its members (including the Sierra Club) want. Look for a vote this summer.
Get the whole story here: https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,495032828,00.html
4. TAKE ACTION: Stop the Budget Disaster
Americans want clean air and safe water, but it won't happen unless our government cracks down on polluters. Although clean-up technologies are ready and available, they are not funded or enforced in many communities. Now the Bush Administration and Congress want huge, permanent new tax cuts that would further weaken our already compromised environmental protections. Help the Sierra Club and moveon.org to stop the tax cuts that would weaken environmental protections. CALL your Senators TODAY - "Get your priorities straight - No tax breaks for millionaires!!"
Call the Capital at - 1-888-280-6279 or US Capitol Switchboard - (202) 224-3121
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