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April 9, 1999
"In our system of government, nobody is truly independent. And if somebody really is independent, they are probably a danger." Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) at a hearing on the Independent Counsel law
******TAKE ACTION!!!!****** THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP CLEAN UP OUR AIR
1. Participate in the Clean Air Call-In Day: Monday April 12, 1999 Call the White House and tell President Clinton and Vice President Gore to support public health and clean up air pollution by:
1. adopting tough new clean car rules that would reduce the amount of auto pollution;
2. supporting the EPA's proposed rule to reduce haze pollution in our National Parks. WHITE HOUSE PHONE NUMBER: 1-202-456-1111 (you should press "0" to speak to an operator)
2. Contact Vice President Gore. Write your own letter and order some of our postcards to Gore for your friends--these are great for tabling, meetings, earth day, etc. Contact Michelle Artz (michelle.artz@sierraclub.org) (202/675-2397) to request cards--they're free and you are welcome to as many as you think you can distribute. Give them out to your family, your friends, co-workers, strangers in the street--whether you distribute 1 or 1,000, you'll be helping spread the word about Tier 2 and the importance of clean air.
3. Use the information in this message to craft a letter to the editor of your local paper. It's a great way to educate people in your community. If you need more information, contact Michelle Artz at michelle.artz@sierraclub.org or 202/675-2397.
TIER 2--ACT TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH FROM SMOG AND SOOT POLLUTION
Two years after our big win on soot and smog standards, the battle for cleaner air goes on. The Administration is now in the process of implementing the new smog rule by clamping down on auto pollution and dirty gasoline through new standards, called Tier 2. These new regulations will determine the quality of the air we breathe for years to come. For the health of our children and the health of our environment, we need to ensure that the new Tier 2 standards are as strong and effective as possible.
Our Clean Car Campaign has been working to make sure that the Administration does the right thing on Tier 2. Here is some background and an update on the issue, some information on what the Tier 2 campaign is doing and what you can do to help.
THE BACKGROUND
In July 1998 the Environmental Protection Agency reported to Congress that current auto pollution standards were not adequate to protect our health. Since then, the EPA has been working on proposed auto pollution and clean gasoline standards. We have urged the EPA to:
*Close the loophole that lets sport utility vehicles (SUVs) pollute more than cars;
*Set a national fuel sulfur standard to match California's;
*Promote clean advanced technology vehicles; and
*Require diesel and gasoline engines to meet the same standards.
In February, the EPA sent a proposed rule to the White House for review. The EPA did some things right, and some things wrong. The proposed rule includes some steps to close the light truck (SUV) pollution loophole, but would still allow automakers to avoid cleaning up their heaviest and dirtiest SUVs until 2009. The rule also leaves a loophole for diesels to be dirtier than cars. But, the EPA did set a national sulfur standard matching California's 30 part per million standard (the national average today is 330 ppm).
At the moment, the proposed rule is stalled in the White House Office of Management and Budget, which may be trying to stretch out the SUV pollution loophole and make more room for dirtier SUVs and diesels. Shortly after the rule finally does come out of OMB, there will be a public comment period and public hearings. We'll send an update out to you as soon as we learn more about timing for the comment period and locations for the hearings.
Once finalized, the new standards won't go into effect until 2004. This is our last bite at the auto pollution issue for years to come, so it is critical that the Administration gets it right.
Tier 2 and global warming-
Cars, SUVs and other light trucks also spew out carbon dioxide pollution which is causing global warming. Tier 2 standards can help reduce this pollution. Advanced technology vehicles will be cleaner and more efficient, but these vehicles can't run on dirty gasoline. Low-sulfur fuel will help get these vehicles on the road as will standards that promote these vehicles. To slash global warming pollution we need to raise miles per gallon (CAFE) standards.
THE CAMPAIGN
The auto and oil industries are lobbying hard to make sure that the new standards protect THEIR profits instead of OUR environment and our children's health. The only way to make sure that the new regulations are strong and effective is to send a loud, clear message that we demand clean air for our children and our environment.
The Tier 2 Campaign is targeting Vice President Gore, as we did when our children's health was at stake in 1997. We've reached a critical point in the campaign--now more than ever the quality of our children's air rests in the hands of Vice President Gore and President Clinton. Now more than ever we need your help to let the Administration know that Americans want a clean, healthy environment for our children.
"I have seen and I have smelled, and I have lived with the negative impacts." --Scott Dye, family farmer turned Sierra Club "Big Pig" activist
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: PROTECT AMERICA'S WATER - FAMILY FARMS NOT FACTORY FARMS
SPRAWL TOUR ROCKS IN INDIANA and OKLAHOMA
TAKE ACTION
PROTECT AMERICA'S WATER - FAMILY FARMS NOT FACTORY FARMS
Drink water? Eat meat? If you do, get involved in the Sierra Club's campaign to stop concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), the giant, industrial-style livestock operations that are poisoning our water, polluting the air and crushing family farmers.
Animal waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers and streams in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Catastrophic waste spills and chronic overapplication of animal waste to the land have killed billions of fish just in the last few years, and wreaked havoc on rivers, the Gulf of Mexico and drinking-water supplies.
CAFOs also contribute to an emerging health threat:the increasing resistance of common bacteria to antibiotics. Public-health experts worry that the overuse of growth-promoting drugs on factory farms may diminish the ability of commonly used drugs to cure infections in people.
Factory-style livestock production is causing the demise of independent family farms. Already in the chicken industry, a few major corporations own and produce the nation's chickens. In the last 15 years, the number of U.S. hog farms has dropped from 600,000 to 157,000, but the total hog inventory has remained the same because of the increase in these large-scale corporate farms.
Some 25 Sierra Club chapters have worked to solve these environmental threats, often in coalition with family-farm organizations whose members' livelihoods are threatened. They've helped win moratoria on CAFOs in Frederick County (Maryland), North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Georgia, South Dakota, Mississippi and other states, and have campaigned to strengthen state water-pollution protections. More than 10,000 Sierra Club members sent postcards from Sierra magazine urging Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to take action.
Our CAFO campaign advocates a moratorium on new CAFOs until adequate protections are in place to prevent water pollution. Protections should include individual Clean Water Act permits for factory farms, incentives to get rid of failed waste technologies such as lagoons, and provisions that make the well-financed corporations that own the animals -- not just the individual farm operators -- liable for the environmental damage their animal factories cause.
For more information on the CAFO campaign, contact Ken Midkiff (ken.midkiff@sierraclub.org) or Ed Hopkins (ed.hopkins@sierraclub.org).
***** TAKE ACTION! *****
Federal CAFO regulations are 25 years out of date, and factory farms are quick to jump from state to state looking for places with weak environmental protections and cheap operating costs. We need to strengthen federal protections. Please write a letter to your representative asking him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 684, the Farm Sustainability and Animal Feedlot Enforcement Act, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). Co-sponsors include Reps. Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Pallone (D-N.J.), Rivers (D-Mich.), Dicks (D-Wash.), Udall (D-Colo.), Tauscher (D-Calif.), Stark (D-Calif.), Meehan (D-Mass.), and Inslee (D-Wash.).
SPRAWL TOUR ROCKS IN INDIANA and OKLAHOMA
The Sierra Club's Challenge to Sprawl Campaign 1999 National Tour kicked off last week with the release of "Permitting Disaster" reports in Indiana and Oklahoma, as well as sprawl forums in both states.
In Indianapolis, the Livable Communities forum, served as a springboard to release "Permitting Disaster." The event was held at the proposed 96th Street mall development that threatens critical wetlands on the White River.
The Indianapolis Star headline was, "Wetlands destruction permits targeted -- A Sierra Club report shows most requests [were] granted despite history of floods in [the] area." Chapter wetlands project director Susan Thomas was quoted saying, "If a county has been declared a disaster area numerous times, why are we continuing to grant permits? Why are we putting people at risk? Every time we fill an area in, we're taking away the ability to hold water."
The event got local TV, radio and some state newspaper coverage.
On Thursday, the tour went to Oklahoma, where Brett Hulsey represented the Club as the only environmentalist on a panel on sprawl and development in Oklahoma City, one of America's most sprawling cities. Friday, our Tour de Sprawl highlighted flooding, traffic and restore-the-core issues.
Saturday's Norman Transcript headline read: "Tour de Sprawl points out poorly planned development -- Sierra Club members, concerned citizens visit some problem areas."
The tour highlighted the problems of Karen Mercer, whose home was flooded by the South Canadian River. "Flooding never really concerned us," she said. "We thought we were safe."
Oklahoma Chapter Conservation Chair Mike Opitz said, "We have to protect every acre of wetlands in high flood areas like this one...It is irresponsible to destroy nature's sponges and build in places that flood."
KFOR-TV ran a long piece on the tour over the weekend. Public TV featured the restore-the-core part of the tour on the Friday night news.
"The modern spectacle of vanished forests and eroded lands, wasted petroleum and ruthless mining is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors." - Kirk Russell, American conservative thinker, 1953
THE END COMMERCIAL LOGGING SPECIAL EDITION!
I. Why end commercial logging? PROTECT OUR WILD HERITAGE!
II. TAKE ACTION: Urge your Member of Congress to support the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act!
PROTECT OUR WILD HERITAGE - STOP LOGGING OUR NATIONAL FORESTS
America's first National Forests were established over one hundred years ago, and today we have 155 of them, stretching across 191 million acres -- an area the size of California, Oregon and Washington. But sadly, almost all of our old growth forests are now gone and industrial logging has turned our publicly owned National Forests into a patchwork of clearcuts and logging roads. Commercial logging has taken a harsh toll on the land, draining nutrients from the soil, washing topsoil into streams, destroying wildlife habitat and intensifying the severity of forest fires.
Healthy forests purify drinking water, stabilize hillsides, and protect us from floods. Hillsides with clearcuts or logging roads lose their ability to absorb heavy rains. Several Forest Service studies in the Northwest found that over 70% of mudslides and landslides in some areas were linked with logging roads.
Americans love to hike, camp, fish, hunt and canoe in our National Forests. And it's no wonder: with 4,400 campgrounds, 121,000 miles of trails and 96 Wild and Scenic Rivers, our National Forests are truly America's favorite playground. The Forest Service predicts that in the year 2000, recreation, hunting and fishing in National Forests will contribute 38 times more income to the nation's economy than logging, and will create 31 times more jobs.
National Forests are our link with America's wild heritage. Although only 4 percent of America's old growth forests are still standing, 75 percent of them are within National Forest borders. And a forest is more than just its trees. More than 3,000 species of fish and wildlife and 10,000 plant species -- including 230 endangered plant and animal species -- rely on National Forests for habitat.
Many people assume our National Forests are off-limits to logging. They aren't. In fact, not only is commercial logging allowed, it's encouraged -- with taxpayers paving the way. From 1992 to 1997, the General Accounting Office said taxpayers lost $2 billion on the logging program. More than 440,000 miles of roads now scar our National Forests; the overwhelming majority of those roads were built for the logging industry and paid for by the American taxpayer.
Ending commercial logging in our National Forests is an idea that's gaining momentum. The Forest Service's own nationwide poll found 59 percent of Americans who expressed an opinion oppose timber sales and other commodity production in National Forests.
Government decision-makers are beginning to respond to public support for forest protection. In February 1999, the U.S. Forest Service placed an 18-month ban on new road-building in pristine areas in some of our National Forests. In April 1999, U.S. Representatives Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Jim Leach (R-IA) introduced the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, which would eliminate the commercial logging program on federal public lands, promote restoration, and help communities that receive logging revenue develop a more diverse and stable economy.
We have a choice. Our legacy can be polluted streams and forests of stumps, or National Forests that work as nature intended -- filtering pollution out of our water, protecting us from flooding, providing wildlife habitat and a place for us to play and find a little peace. It will take generations for our National Forests to recover -- and that's if we start restoring them immediately. We cannot be timid or take half steps. We must stop logging our National Forests now.
TAKE ACTION
The National Forest Protection and Restoration Act will be re-introduced next week. There is still time for your Member of Congress to be an original co-sponsor. But, they need to hear from you!
Write a letter or call your Member of Congress through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urge him/her to co-sponsor the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act.
Send letters to: The Honorable Rep. ______ US House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515
"Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads." -Henry David Thoreau
TAKE ACTION!
Support the Sierra Club's Wildlands Campaign -- Urge your Representatives to co-sponsor wildlands protection bills!
When Lewis and Clark set out to discover the West nearly two hundred years ago, America was a vast expanse of wildlands. Today, remaining wild places still provide beauty, solitude, clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation for us all. But developers, polluters, and logging and mining companies continue to threaten our remaining natural heritage. The Sierra Club's Wildlands Protection and Restoration Campaign has adopted an ambitious agenda to secure lasting protection for 100 million acres of wild America in the next decade, and to protect the integrity of our National Wilderness Preservation System and other wilderness-quality lands. As part of this campaign, we will highlight several "Shining Examples" of America's wildlands -- areas where wilderness still thrives and seamless ecosystems provide homes for an abundance of wildlife -- where action is needed if these special places are to be saved for future generations.
Measures to protect several of these special places and create millions of acres of new Wilderness areas in Alaska, Utah, and the Northern Rockies have been or will be offered in the 106th Congress. The Sierra Club Wildlands Campaign strongly supports these measures and is actively seeking Congressional co-sponsors. You can help in these efforts by contacting your Member of Congress and Senators and urging them to become co-sponsors. Or if they already have, make sure to thank them! Brief background information on these bills follows. In a supplement to this message, you will find current co-sponsor lists, as well as Congressional contact information. Again, look for your Representative's name on these co-sponsor lists -- if it's there, show him or her your appreciation -- if it's not, ask for his or her support. Thank you for your help!
I. "Resources 2000" -- HR 798 & S. 446
This legislation, sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) in the House and Sen. Barabara Boxer (D-Calif.) in the Senate, will revitalize the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a crucial program for the acquisition of new National park, refuge and forest land, and for funding state and local programs that protect open spaces and provide outdoor recreation opportunities. In addition, the bill takes revenues from offshore oil and gas leasing and directs it to an array of other conservation programs, including wildlife protection, coastal protection and restoration, endangered species preservation, and farmland and open space conservation. It provides funding for urban park and recreation programs as well. Moreover, HR 798 and S. 446 would accomplish these extradordinary goals without providing incentives for stepped-up offshore oil and gas leasing, and without placing burdensome restrictions on the use of LWCF funds. The Sierra Club currently opposes other similar bills (HR 701 and S. 25) because they would impose such restrictions and create undesirable incentives. Please ask your Representative and Senators to contact Rep. Miller and get signed on to H.R. 798 or S. 446.
II. The Morris K. Udall Wilderness Act -- H.R. 1239
Introduced by Rep. Bruce Vento on March 23 with 115 co-sponsors, this bill will designate 1.5 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as Wilderness, permanently removing the threat of oil drilling in the Refuge's fragile coastal plain. Multinational oil companies constantly lobby Congress to approve oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge on Alaska's North Slope. The Refuge harbors an unparalleled diversity of wildlife, and is the last place in North America where the full spectrum of arctic life is protected in one seamless expanse. The Refuge provides critical denning habitat for polar bears and calving ground for the 129,000-member Porcupine caribou herd. The 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, the biological heart of the Refuge, is the prime target of oil companies' efforts, and the only portion of Alaka's North Slope not already open to oil drilling. Without a doubt, oil development activities would forever change the face of this fragile wilderness, and seriously threaten the healthy existence of a whole range of wildlife. Urge your Representative to contact Rep. Vento and become a co-sponsor of H.R. 1239, and ask your Senators to have Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) make them original co-sponsors of the bill that he will introduce very soon.
III. Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act -- H.R. 488
The Northern Rockies region, spanning much of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, still hosts all of the animal species present when Lewis and Clark first ventured across this spectacular landscape almost 200 years ago. But significant unprotected gaps remain throughout this distinctive system of parks and wilderness, and development interests continue to threaten the healthy survival of the region's spectacular wildlife. In February, Reps. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) reintroduced the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (H.R. 488), a bill that would designate up to 18 million new acres of official Wilderness in the Northern Rockies, and create several more million acres of new National Park and Preserve study areas. In addition, the bill would protect crucial "biological corridors" relied upon by the region's vanishing grizzly bear and elk herds, as well as an abundance of other wildlife. Support for the bill continues to grow -- please make sure your Representative knows how important this legislation is, and ask him or her to contact Rep. Shays and be added as a co-sponsor.
IV. America's Redrock Wilderness Act
Legislation to designate millions of acres in Utah as wilderness has been gaining momentum in Congress for years. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D- N.Y.) will introduce a bill soon -- hopefully by the end of this month -- so action is needed right away! The bill number will most likely be H.R. 1501 (the number traditionally given this legislation, H.R. 1500, was swiped by Rep. James Hansen. Apparently he thinks he can slow the bill's momentum by taking its number - not a chance!). The bill offered by Rep. Hinchey will reflect the results of a new inventory of Utah wilderness conducted by citizens -- 9.1 million acres! Last year the bill was introduced with 106 original co-sponsors. Already, 95 Members of Congress have agreed to sign on. If your Representative isn't one of them, ask him or her to contact Rep. Hinchey and get signed on as an original co-sponsor. A Senate bill will be introduced soon by Sen. Durbin. Ask your Senators to contact Sen. Durbin and sign them on as co-sponsors.
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