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DEFENDING ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
July 1, 2004
"It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful... so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind." - César Chávez, legendary founder of the United Farm Workers
(1) PARTNERSHIP: Going into Labor
(2) COMMUNITY: Comunidades en Peligro
(3) TAKE ACTION: Phase out Snowmobiles in Yellowstone
1. PARTNERSHIP: Going into Labor
Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope was recently honored as a new board member at the kick off of American Rights at Work, a new organization that aims to raise the visibility of the struggles workers face when trying to form a union. Environmental groups and labor unions have long found common ground on efforts to promote citizen action, hold corporations and elected officials accountable and fight for safe workplaces and healthy communities. Unions and environmentalists work together to form solutions that are good for both workers and the environment--like more public transportation, affordable housing near jobs and alternative technologies like wind and solar power.
Learn more about American Rights at Work: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,79xo,km3,jfce,gzmo,irqz,5w4u
Read more about workers rights and the environment: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,79xo,km3,3lig,953n,irqz,5w4u
2. COMMUNITY: Comunidades en Peligro
This week the Sierra Club released its first-ever Latino Communities at Risk Report, along with a companion Spanish- language television ad, that details the cumulative impact of harmful Bush administration environmental policies on Hispanic communities. Scientific studies have shown that Hispanic communities - many located in the most polluted areas of cities and agricultural regions - are disproportionately affected by industry and pollution. Every community deserves environmental protection. So why isn't the Bush administration strictly enforcing existing laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that would protect every community and its children from polluted drinking water and air pollution?
Read the report in Spanish or English and see the television ad here: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,79xo,km3,g390,kuwf,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Phase out Snowmobiles in Yellowstone
The National Park Service recently announced its intention to re-study the future of winter use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. During 14 years of study, the Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency have twice reached the same conclusion, and have reached it independently: shifting winter visitors from snowmobiles to snowcoaches will give Yellowstone National Park its strongest protection. In all comments to date, the public has expressed its strong desire to phase out snowmobiles. We must continue to demonstrate unwavering support by encouraging the Park Service to support a full phase out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
Comments will be accepted through July 13, 2004. Click here to take action now: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,79xo,km3,i12d,lpkd,irqz,5w4u
"The Interior Department is in the process of expunging the word 'wilderness' from the dictionary." - Jim DePeso, policy director of REP America (Republicans for Environmental Protection), at the fall 2003 conference "Wild Ideas: George W. Bush on Wilderness and Wildlife."
(1) ENERGY: Ball Back in Lower Court (2) COMMUNITY: Beers and Peers
(3) TAKE ACTION: Fight for a Responsible Transportation Bill
1. ENERGY: Ball Back in Lower Court
The Supreme Court last week refused to rule on whether Vice President Dick Cheney must produce documents in Sierra Club's Energy Task Force lawsuit and sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration. This means the public remains in the dark about the Bush administration and energy industry executives' secret meetings while crafting the energy policy. Instead of using clean, renewable energy sources, the policy favors increased oil, gas, coal, and nuclear production that does nothing to reduce our oil dependence and protect consumers' health.
Get more information on the lawsuit here: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,78ba,km3,9n96,djup,irqz,5w4u
2. COMMUNITY: Beers and Peers
Young professionals and college students in Atlanta get together at a new monthly event where the beer flows and the discussion is lively. Four women who staff the Sierra Club's local office started the event called "Sierra Club and Beer" that brings together hundreds of activists and their friends into Atlanta's environmental fold. The event fits perfectly with a new nationwide Sierra Club campaign called Building Environmental Community. The ten-year program is designed to inspire people to be more active citizens and educate them on the Bush administration's attack on environmental protections and how that affects real people in real neighborhoods.
Learn more about Building Environmental Community: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,78ba,km3,4mks,1zvk,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Fight for a Responsible Transportation Bill
Congress is currently considering a $300 billion transportation bill that would be very bad for the environment. Unfortunately, as it is currently written, the bill would increase air and water pollution and restrict the local community's ability to decide where and when local roads and highways should be built. This will erode years of progress in cleaning up the air and building a smarter transportation system. Call your Senator and Representative and leave a simple message for them: Please fight for a transportation bill that keeps the air clean and the public involved in local decisions, and fight any attempts to weaken our environmental protections.
Contact your Senator or Representative at: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,78ba,km3,674q,4mfc,irqz,5w4u
"I'll sum it up in one word: tuna. That's right, my friends, tuna. I read that there's mercury in tuna, and it's just not safe to eat it anymore. Oh, sure, there's mercury in a lot of other fish, but I don't care about those other fish. I care about tuna. How am I supposed to live without tuna? What am I supposed to have for lunch?! I've been ordering tuna for lunch every day since I was ten years old. This has been the only decision of my life that I can make every day with any degree of certainty and feel good about it." - Larry David, actor and comedian, goes from radical narcissist to radical environmentalist in Rolling Stone magazine.
(1) SPRAWL: Alligator to Zoomburb
(2) CLEAN AIR: The Blame Game
(3) TAKE ACTION: Tell your Representative to Support a Strong Mercury Rule
1. SPRAWL: Alligator to Zoomburb
Yale professor Dolores Hayden is releasing a new book next month called "A Field Guide to Sprawl" that assigns words to kinds of development gone bad. After noticing that her graduate students had difficulty describing the everyday sprawling American landscape without resorting to overused buzzwords, Hayden conceived the idea for a dictionary. A "toad," for example, is Hayden's abbreviation for a temporary, obsolete, abandoned or derelict site. A "snout house" is a dwelling with jutting, full-frontal garages. The book takes aim at poorly planned developments that threaten our environment and our quality of life.
Find out what a zoomburb is in the New York Times article "Defining Sprawl: From A to Z": https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,74ig,km3,8r7c,ecrg,irqz,5w4u
2. CLEAN AIR: The Blame Game
We say "Imperial" and you think "regal" or "majestic" ... right? Not so for the residents of California's Imperial Valley, where residents live with some of America's worst air pollution, not to mention California's highest number of children hospitalized with asthma. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the Bush administration had falsely blamed Mexico for unhealthful air quality in the Imperial Valley. As a result, the administration must impose more stringent pollution control measures on the U.S. side of the border.
Read about the Sierra Club's clean air campaign: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,74ig,km3,lytx,luu2,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Tell your Representative to Support a Strong Mercury Rule
Please ask your U.S. House Representative to urge the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put forth a strong mercury proposal that is protective of human health, wildlife and the environment. Representatives Jim Cooper (D-Ten) and Tom Allen (D- Maine) are circulating a letter urging EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt to reconsider and strengthen the EPA's January 2004 mercury proposal. Unfortunately, despite more than a decade of research highlighting the need to reduce mercury pollution, the Bush administration's mercury proposal would delay pollution reductions and not even be fully effective by 2025. In contrast, enforcement of the Clean Air Act would require much sharper cuts in mercury emissions much sooner than the current EPA proposal.
The public comment period on the proposed mercury rule ends next Tuesday. Please take action today by calling your Representative and asking him/her to sign the Cooper-Allen mercury letter: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,74ig,km3,idbe,kjh6,irqz,5w4u
"We have no interest in having SUVs in the city. They're dangerous to others and take up too much space." - Paris Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin, on a resolution passed by the city council that could lead to a ban on the vehicles in about 18 months
(1) ENERGY: Going Postal
(2) LANDS: Road Awakening
(3) TAKE ACTION: Protect Otero Mesa from Drilling
1. ENERGY: Going Postal
This week General Motors announced they will lease their first fuel cell minivan to the U.S. Postal Service for mail deliveries. Several carriers in Washington D.C. have already test driven the minivans, and the fleet will go into regular use in September. GM considers the postal service the "perfect partner" for testing fuel cells because of the real world conditions of its deliveries. The postal service has already done its part to offer a clean alternative to power its vehicles by including nearly 34,000 vehicles that run on alternative fuels in its existing fleet.
Learn more about fuel cell technology and clean energy solutions: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,72eh,km3,ez5z,j04e,irqz,5w4u
2. LANDS: Road Awakening
In a stunning bipartisan effort, the House of Representatives voted to limit money to build logging roads in the Tongass National Forest this week. The Tongass National Forest, part of the world's last intact temperate rainforest, is under increased threat as the Bush administration moves forward with nearly 50 timber project in roadless areas. Centuries-old trees provide critical habitat for wolves, grizzly bears, wild salmon, bald eagles and other wildlife that have disappeared from many other parts of the country. During the last 45 years, the Alaska timber industry has logged over 1 million acres of old-growth forest and built 5000 miles of logging roads in the Tongass.
See how your Representative voted. Thank them if they voted "yes" for limited logging road subsidies in the Tongass National Forest: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,72eh,km3,lav3,343x,irqz,5w4u
3. TAKE ACTION: Protect Otero Mesa from Drilling
The Bush administration energy plan calls for fast- tracked energy development on public lands, including wild places in New Mexico like the rich and diverse lands of Otero Mesa and the Nutt Grasslands, home to many species and native plants. The administration is directing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to shortcut environmental laws to make this unnecessary energy development happen quickly. The reality is that the proposal continues to be a giveaway to the oil and gas industry and ignores Governor Bill Richardson's call for balanced energy development. Tell the BLM that America wants an energy policy that will protect our wildest public lands.
Email or send your comments to the BLM before June 28: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,72eh,km3,glop,deuk,irqz,5w4u
See a sample letter: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,72eh,km3,fwhm,k8j0,irqz,5w4u
"The administration is presenting as 'progress' proposals that delay action on air pollution, weaken health standards and undermine enforcement of the law. If there was ever a time for people to stand up and demand action, it is now." - Angela Ledford, director of Clear the Air, in today's New York Times. Clear the Air invited EPA's research firm Abt Associates to assess three plans to lower coal-fired power plant emissions. The firm found the Bush administration's plan to be the weakest.
(1) GLOBAL WARMING: Hybrid Kicks on Route 66
(2) CLEAN AIR: Clean Air Losing Streak (3) TAKE ACTION: Reject the Bush Administration Energy Bill
1. GLOBAL WARMING: Hybrid Kicks on Route 66
Route 66 may be part of American history, but the Sierra Club is taking it into a renewable energy future. As part of the "Hybrid Energy: I Will Evolve" tour, Sierra Club organizers are taking a Toyota Prius on the road from Chicago to L.A. On a recent stop in Springfield they met up with Susan Kelley, local resident and author of "Route 66: the Highway and its People," and FOX news joined the crew for a test-drive down the historic highway. The biggest single step we can take to save oil and prevent global warming is to make autos go farther on a gallon of gas. So why not drive a car that gets 50 miles a gallon?
Read more about the I Will Evolve tour: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6ynn,km3,n1g,g0vf,irqz,5w4u
2. CLEAN AIR: Clean Air Losing Streak
The Cincinnati Reds may be in first place, but the people breathing the area's air pollution are losing out. A new report from the firm Abt Associates, a consultant also used by the Bush administration, says that Cincinnati has the unhealthiest air in Ohio and is America's 10th worst city when it comes to heart attacks and premature deaths related to air pollution from coal-fired power plant emissions. The administration continues to weaken existing air laws by letting polluters off the hook.
Read more in the Cincinnati Enquirer: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6ynn,km3,7bli,8808,irqz,5w4u lants10.html
3. TAKE ACTION: Reject the Bush Administration Energy Bill
The House Republican leadership is bringing the flawed Bush administration energy bill up for yet another vote. Not content with opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and funneling billions of dollars to polluting corporations, they have added on new anti-environmental provisions that would make George Orwell proud. Think renewable energy means clean sources like solar and wind? Think again. This bill includes oil and gas drilling under the definition of renewable energy. Think the EPA has ultimate authority for holding oil refineries accountable for clean air standards? Not if this bill becomes law.
Urge your Representatives to reject this polluting energy bill and start over with real clean energy solutions: https://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,6ynn,km3,86t5,8cb9,irqz,5w4u
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