** Thank you! **
GLOBAL WARMING: WETTER, WARMER WINTERS IN THE NORTHWEST
New Model Predicts Threats to Fish Habitat, Farming, Skiing
A new computer model is predicting that global warming could have severe effects on the natural ecosystems and economy of the Pacific Northwest.
The model, created by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, predicts that the Northwest will have significantly warmer and wetter winters in 80 years unless carbon-dioxide pollution is reduced. While warmer and wetter weather may sound benign, government scientists concluded that Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana could suffer severe environmental and economic damage.
Assuming nothing is done to curb pollution, the model predicts a 50 percent decrease in snow cover over the entire state of Washington, a 50 to 90 percent decrease in snowpack near the existing snowline in Washington state, an increase in winter precipitation in the form of rain, an average increase of winter temperatures of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and an average increase of summer temperatures of 2 degrees Fahrenheit.
The reduced snowpack in the winter would mean less water available in the summer months. That could spell major trouble for salmon runs already under the gun from dams, logging, and pollution. It would likely spark an even bigger conflict over how already limited water resources of the area are divided. The ski season would be shorter and wetter, and resorts at lower elevations could find themselves out of business.
BLM ANNOUNCES UTAH WILDERNESS RE-INVENTORY RESULTS
The Bureau of Land Management today released a new field inventory that identifies 2.6 million acres of public lands in Utah that have wilderness characteristics.
The inventory, ordered by Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt in 1996, focused on lands within legislative Utah wilderness proposals such as H.R. 1500 and H.R. 1745.
Babbitt said today that he has directed BLM to initiate a statewide planning effort to determine if additional Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) should be established based on the new findings.
"This issue has been at a stalemate for nearly 20 years because the various interests involved are so far apart on the fundamental issue of how much public land in Utah has wilderness characteristics," said Babbitt. "We now have current, detailed information regarding on the ground conditions that will help get this issue off dead center and allow progress to be made toward ultimate resolution."
Secretary Babbitt announced the planning effort after discussing it earlier this week with Utah Gov. Leavitt and members of the Utah Congressional delegation.
This new planning will determine if additional lands should be placed under special protective status as WSAs.
The public can access the 1999 Utah Wilderness Inventory Report to the Secretary through the Internet at www.access.gpo.gov/blm/utah/index.html.
TIER II NEWS: THE AUTOS AND OILIES FIGHT OVER CLEANING THE AIR
As the Environmental Protection Agency moves to complete its work on the Tier II auto pollution and clean-gasoline standards, the auto and oil industries are going head-to-head. As reported in earlier SC-ACTION's, Tier II standards will go into effect in 2004 and determine how clean our cars, light trucks and gasoline will be well into the next century.
One of the critical issues in the Tier II battle is cleaning up gasoline by slashing sulfur levels. Of course, the oil industry is pointing its oily finger at the automakers, urging EPA to target them. And,the automakers are telling EPA to clean up the gasoline, saying they've done their share.
What's the answer? Both the auto industry and the oil industry must clean up their acts. We need a tough pollution standards for cars and light trucks and a national sulfur standard that ensures that all Americans get the benefits of cleaner gasoline.
February 3, 1999
"No country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more." - Mark Twain, The Gilded Age
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: SUPPORT PROTECTING AMERICA'S SPECIAL PLACES & OPEN SPACES
TAKE ACTION: SAVE OUR HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS!
1. Campaigning Matters!
2. Taking a Stand on the Frontpage of the Ft. Lauderdale News
3. Tier II Postcard Update: Big Splash at the White House
4. 1999 Houston Hunting Show Success!
TAKE ACTION
TAKE ACTION: SUPPORT PROTECTING AMERICA'S SPECIAL PLACES & OPEN SPACES
Thanks to your letters and phonecalls, support for the Clinton Administration's "Lands Legacy/Livable Communities" Initiative is building on Capitol Hill. Several members of Congress are considering bills that follow the Clinton Administration's lead and provide major funding for protecting America's wild places and open spaces.
Your letters to the editor will help to educate the public about the current opportunities to protect wild places and open spaces, and will show our decision-makers that the American people support these goals. Thank you!
BACKGROUND:
Last month, President Clinton proposed the "Lands Legacy" and "Livable Communities" initiatives, two major funding initiatives to preserve our wild places and stop urban sprawl. The proposals would direct more than $2 billion to programs designed to aggressively seek funding for acquisition of new federal parklands, wildlife refuges, forests and other public lands, and to help communities plan and take action to stop sprawl and protect open space. A major portion of funding for this initiative would come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which would be fully funded at $900 million under the administration's proposal. Money for land acquisition under the LWCF comes directly from the revenues derived from off-shore oil drilling. This funding is supposed to be dedicated to protecting special places, but has historically been drastically underfunded.
At the end of the 105th Congress, several dangerous bills were introduced that distort the intention of the LWCF. The bills direct funding to go directly to coastal states based partially on the amount of drilling allowed off-shore. This creates a perverse incentive to step up oil drilling off our coasts in the name of environmental protection and land acquisition! While we support the goal of funding programs to protect wildlife, programs that create incentives for stepped-up offshore oil production are not the way to achieve it! Senator by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has already re-introduced S.25 and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is expected to offer a new House bill shortly.
But there's good news, too. Several members of Congress have indicated that they are interested in fighting this dangerous bill and in providing adequate funding for wildlife programs and habitat acquisition without increased offshore oil drilling. More news on that coming soon. For now, let's keep those letters to the editor coming!
TAKE ACTION: SAVE OUR HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS!
Congress is back in action, and rearing it's ugly head is a bad memory from the 105th. So called "Regulatory Reform" is coming to the floor again, early next week. Never heard of it? Practiced selective amnesia? Wise move - but it's serious, and it's moving. Read on to learn about why this is such a threat to our health and the environment.
Please contact your representative, and tell them to oppose HR 350. It's our first chance to show the new(est) House leadership that they cannot fiddle with environmental laws!
* We oppose HR 350, the Mandates Information Act. The bill would delay important new public health and environmental protection programs, strangling agencies in new red tape.
*The bill creates a new point of order that could shut down debate on a bill if any member claims it would cost the private sector more than $100 million.
*The bill allows an "easy out" for anti-environmental members of Congress to sink key programs without having to vote against them directly -- and bear the wrath of the voters in their home towns. If HR 350 passed into law, any single member of Congress could raise a "point of order" against any program that would impose costs greater than $100 million on the private sector. And then, members of Congress would cast -votes on the "point of order" -- not the program itself, allowing them the opportunity to claim they didn't directly oppose the environmental program.
*The bill elevates costs to businesses over benefits to public health. This one-sided equation would require an analysis of the costs of protection programs like Clean Water, Clean Air and safe food -- but ignore their far-reaching benefits. The cost analysis, for example, of a bill like a better meat inspection measure would show a burden on the beef packing industry, but ignore the widespread benefits to public health.
*The issue here is not whether Congress should impose mandates; the issue is whether Congress must have a full, open, democratic debate about environmental protection measures. The sponsors of the so-called Mandates Information Act seem to believe the answer is "no." What are they afraid of?
*We have pro-environmental members of the House who are planning to help. Henry Waxman will offer his Defense of the Environment Amendment to this bill, which places a safeguard requiring open debate and an independent vote on the House floor when legislative efforts to weaken our laws come to the House floor. Sherry Boehlert also plans an amendment, which would strike the sneak route of the point of order.
CAMPAIGNING MATTERS!
In 1998, the Sierra Club Political Committee conducted an Independent Expenditure Campaign (IEC) on behalf of a U.S. Congressional candidate Dennis Moore and against an environmental enemy, former Congressman Vince Snowbarger, in the heartland of America (KS-03). The campaign involved political radio ads, mail and volunteer get-out- the- vote phone calls and literature drops. Now, as a Congressman, Dennis Moore partially credits us with his victory. In contacting the new Congressman on a piece of bad legislation (Reg Reform bill H.R. 350), the lobbying team in D.C. were surprised to find that this conservative Democrat had already signed on as a co-sponsor of a good amendment to the reg. reform bill (the Waxman "Defense of the Environment" amendment) without any prompting from the Sierra Club!
It all goes to prove that politics does matter folks!
Taking a Stand on the Frontpage of the Ft. Lauderdale News
Today's Ft. Lauderdale News frontpage article, entitled "Miami sees development as (Virginia) Key to success, had a large (4"x6") photo of Jon Ullman standing on the beach, hands on his hips and includes a large headline (48 point type) which reads "TAKING A STAND" placed directly underneath the photo and caption. The sub-headline reads "Miami officials, activists at odds over waterfront."
It doesn't get much better. Congratulations to our new Miami Field Rep.
Miami officials, still fretting over a fading fiscal crisis, have a grander plan for the city's only public beach: an ecology-tourism campground with sites going for as much as $125 a night. The Sierra Club, as part of the Public Parks Coalition of Miami-Dade, are trying to bring pressure on the city to preserve its public lands on Biscayne Bay as urban parks akin to New York's Central Park, the Boston Public Garden and Baltimore's renovated inner harbor, with education centers, museums and limited commercial development.
As he walks between the rotted pilings at Virginia Beach, Jonathan Ullman of the Sierra Club expresses his fears of what the city might do to its only public beach. "This property was not deeded over to the city of Miami for a private venture," said Ullman, of Key Biscayne. "The (city) commission doesn't understand the value of preserving public lands like this. They always think for the moment, not of the big picture."
Tier II Postcard Update: Big Splash at the White House
Thanks to all of you who responded to our action alerts about the Tier II postcards. If you ever wondered for a minute what happens to the cards you send to the White House, here's your answer . . . .
A Sierra Club intern has a contact in the Vice President's office, and the word is that the White House is being inundated with our Tier II postcards. The effort is "astonishing" said the source. This person actually recalled exactly what the cards looked like, from memory, because they had seen so many cards.
This is exciting news from the inside!! Vice President Al Gore pays great attention to activist campaigns, we are told. Several times a week, his staff prepares detailed reports on campaigns such as Sierra Club's Tier 2 cards. The report includes a copy of the card, how many were received that day, from whom, from where. Your Tier II postcards have been noticed, counted, and reported on many times. Congratulations!
With your continued support for this campaign, Vice President Gore will have no choice but to do the right thing -- help ensure that Tier II auto pollution and clean gasoline standards clean the air for our kids. Thanks again, and keep up the good work.
1999 Houston Hunting Show Success! >From Marge Hanselman, Houston Volunteer
The Houston Group of the Sierra Club made history or at least raised some eyebrows when they erected and staffed their first booth at the 1996 Hunting Show in Houston. Armed with the national SC hunting booth and the Natural Allies printout from the Sierran, we talked to reluctant hunters about our conservation issues, knowing that without habitat here in Houston, there would be no hunting, birding, or green space! The reception was frosty but it was at that show that Houston Sierra Club made a connection with one of the local national director of NRA, not an anticipated outcome but one that has been fruitful and beneficial to all. A meeting between our two groups followed and for the last three years, our two groups have been working toward preservation of the Katy Prairie, America's largest winter home for migratory waterfowl.
In the last 18 months, a particularly thorny issue here has come to a boiling point. The City of Houston had purchased 1500 acres for a third airport in 1984 smack dab in the middle of the flyway. The Sierra Club has opposed this proposal for 15 years. What could all the hunters, NRA members, and local conservationists do to end this controversy once and for all? We all went to work- lobbying, sending letters, and forming a huge coalition with 50 groups who supported our position. Sue King, a long time national NRA director, worked especially hard this past year with us, speaking out at press conferences, meeting with City officials and rallying her members to action. The Houston group recently awarded Ms King our Special Service Conservation Award for 1999. The alliance has received some national attention- Osgood Files recently aired a segment on the airport battle and our alliance with hunters and the NRA.
So in another historical first, the Houston Sierra Club and the NRA so-hosted a booth at the three day 1999 Hunting Show recently (January 28-31). The national hunting and fishing booth was delivered, as was the national NRA booth. We assembled a crew of outgoing SC, hunters and NRA members and went to work. There never has been a lack of hunter support for our cause against the airport but our goal this year was to join forces and get 1000 postcards to send to the City Council to support our mutual position. A few hunters were amazed that we were together in a booth but on the whole, there was overwhelming support. Our goal was met and then some- when the dust settled, we had 1675 postcards to send. One hunter came up and said her mother called her from NYC and said she heard all about our battle and that she should DO something. She signed her card and we were thrilled to learn that we had hit the national news!
This hard working alliance is facing massive opposition from the developers and investors who want to build housing developments and malls in this fragile prairie eco-system. The new mayor, Lee Brown, has supported our position and has pledged to win this battle. There will be a vote in February, and hopefully this long arduous battle will be over and we can work on all the many other conservation issues that we face in the Houston area. Perhaps we will end up with a wildlife refuge, a publicly accessible place, (rare in Texas where there is only 3% of land allotted to public use and most of that are highways!!) where residents and visitors can experience the awesome sight of millions of birds who spend their winters with us.
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