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May 18, 1999
"The Humbug Marsh is one of those places in the country that is a community treasure. It cannot be allowed to be lost to development." - Mackinac Chapter Director Alison Horton (see story #3)
1. TAKE ACTION: FIGHT FOR CLEAN AIR--Comment on the Tier 2 Standards!
2. CLEAN AIR: Background Points When Commenting on Tier 2
3. SPRAWL WARS: Michigan Treasure Threatened
TAKE ACTION
1. FIGHT FOR CLEAN AIR--Comment on the Tier 2 Standards!
In yesterday's action alert, you read about the D.C. Circuit Court decision which overturned the national clean air standards. This decision makes our support of the proposed new Tier 2 auto pollution and clean gasoline standards even more vital.
While Friday's ruling may embolden our opponents to fight the Tier 2 proposal, the decision doesn't directly affect the new automobile pollution and clean gasoline standards. The fact is that regardless of what standard is used, our air is far from clean and we need Tier 2 now more than ever.
Our best defense is a good offense. Show your support for slashing car and SUV pollution--use the EPA public comment period (now through August 2) to demand clean air!
***Here's how you can comment on TIER 2***
A) ATTEND PUBLIC HEARINGS
EPA is holding four public hearings in June. If you live in or near Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver or Cleveland we urge you to let EPA hear from you in person. Contact Michelle Artz at michelle.artz@sierraclub.org if you think you might like to participate or would like more information.
PUBLIC HEARING SITES AND DATES:
PHILADELPHIA, PA-June 9 and 10
Top of the Tower, 1717 Arch Street, 51st Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103
ATLANTA, GA-June 11
Renaissance Atlanta Hotel, 590 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA, 30308
DENVER, CO-June 15 Doubletree Hotel, 3203 Quebec Street, Denver, CO, 80207
CLEVELAND, OH-June 17
Holiday Inn Lakeside City Center, 1111 Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44144
B) SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS (electronically or by US mail):
WRITE: Public docket No. A-97-10 US Environmental Protection Agency Air Docket (6102), Room M-1500 401 M Street, SW Washington, D 20460
E-MAIL: tier2.comments@epa.gov
C) CALL THE EPA TOLL FREE: 1-888-TELL-EPA (1-888-835-5372)
2. CLEAN AIR FIGHT -- SOME POINTS FOR COMMENT:
Even though the proposed standards are strong, there are a few key ways they could be even better. Here are some important points for comment:
*No breaks for the heaviest and dirtiest vehicles: Sport Utility Vehicles and other light trucks between 6,000 and 8,500 pounds to pollute more than cars until 2009 -- 2 extra years. These super-polluters should be included in the same program as cars by 2007, just like lighter SUVs.
*Include heavier trucks used as passenger vehicles in these standards. Tier 2 regulations will only apply to vehicles 8,500 lbs and below. The EPA should include all passenger vehicles--from the Honda Civic to Ford's new "Valdez" (Excursion)-- within the Tier 2 program.
*Close the open door for dirtier diesels:
The EPA is leaving the door open for diesel engines that are dirtier than gasoline engines. EPA's proposed standards would require cleaner diesels -- but not clean enough.
*Speed up the gasoline clean up:
The proposed phase-in of the national sulfur standard would allow a per gallon sulfur cap of 300 PPM in 2004--this is much too high!
(For more information on Tier 2 standards, e-mail michelle.artz@sierraclub.org, or visit the clean car campaign webpage at www.toowarm.org)
3. MICHIGAN SIERRA CLUB FIGHTS SPRAWL!
The Sierra Club got great coverage in Detroit last week in our fight to save Humbug Marsh, 400 acres of wetlands and woods, home to osprey and eagles, rich spawning ground for walleye and other fish, and a stopping spot for migratory ducks and song birds.
From the story: "The Humbug Marsh has soared to national prominence with the area's inclusion on the Sierra Club's list of the 50 most endangered ecosystems in the United States. The nationally respected group included the area with the likes of the Everglades in Florida and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska."
Humbug Marsh faces serious damage if a proposed development of 350 homes and a golf course are built next to the wetland. Michigan chapter director
Alison Horton said it best: "The Humbug Marsh is one of those places in the country that is a community treasure. It cannot be allowed to be lost to development."
As Sierra Club members around the country know, "Sprawl Costs Us All!" Smart development is a necessity: "One of the issues here is looking to the health and vitality of an urban environment," Horton said. "It is clear the quality of life for everyone is damaged with these types of developments. (It's about) re-energizing urban areas, not the disintegration of the urban core that creates living space."
"Unfortunately, by embracing unrestricted trading, the administration is pandering to the fossil fuel lobby, alienating allies in Europe and the developing world, and ignoring what nature requires to keep this planet hospitable to civilization." ---from "TRADING AWAY OUR CHANCES TO END GLOBAL WARMING" By Ross Gelbspan, Boston Globe 05/16/99
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: POLLUTERS CHEER COURT RULING AGAINST CLEAN AIR
TRADING AWAY OUR CHANCES TO END GLOBAL WARMING
UTAH: WILL CLINTON APPOINT A BAD JUDGE?
ARIZONA: SAVE THE PEAKS, STOP THE MINE
TAKE ACTION
Two summers ago, Sierrans fought the good fight for clean air -- and won. Sierra Club grassroots activists pushed for standards to reduce the amount of soot and smog in our air. Industry lobbyists were smarting from their losing campaign, in which they spent millions to defeat the new standards. They'd lost in the court of public opinion, but they wouldn't stop there. They finally found a backdoor attack on clean air: a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, the government branch charged with carrying out the standards.
Friday, a key Federal court sided with polluters, just going to show that in Washington, any bad idea can find a friendly forum -- especially when there are Reagan appointed judges to be had.
A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court on Friday overturned our new clean air standards, and by doing so, they threw decades of standard setting to protect public health into disarray.
What's at stake? The health of our kids!
Nearly 5 million American kids suffer from asthma, a disease that's worsened by air pollution. And the rates of asthma have doubled from 1980 to 1993, which makes these standards even more critical. Elderly people are also at risk. Harvard University data show that the lives of 64,000 Americans were being shortened by soot.
The court didn't question the science behind these standards -- it was impecabble -- but it raised questions about whether EPA should be setting the standards in the first place. The real issue is, Why do these industries need to use backdoor tactics to derail needed clean-up efforts? And why has the court ignored the majority of Americans who demand clean air for their kids? We'll right this wrong only if people outside the Beltway weigh in. You can help by registering your own outrage about what a small panel of Washington insiders did to threaten kids' health -- and your letter to the editor will help us move forward on the next clean air fight -- to cut emissions coming from vehicles -- the "Tier 2" Clean Car tailpipe standards. You'll see more in an upcoming issue of the SC-ACTION on this subject, but for now, take action and send in a letter to the editor!
TRADING AWAY OUR CHANCES TO END GLOBAL WARMING
Excerpts from Boston Globe by Ross Gelbspan, a journalist and author of ''The Heat Is On ''
Announcements of the ''hottest year in recorded history'' are becoming annual events. The escalating losses from severe storms, droughts, and floods is sending shock waves through the property insurance industry. Last year's 9,000 hurricane casualties in Central America and the $1 billion in damages earlier this month from 318-mile-an-hour tornadoes are two recent examples. The signs of warming-driven changes to our climate have become impossible to ignore. Despite congressional opposition, the United States will ultimately have to join the rest of the world in tackling the potentially catastrophic problem of global warming by cutting emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from coal and oil burning.
But the Clinton administration's mechanism-of-choice for those reductions centers around a dubious system of international ''emissions trading'' designed to find the least costly ways for wealthy nations to reduce emissions....
Companies are researching schemes to pay others to preserve or increase their own emissions. The World Bank is attempting to price emissions to jump-start a trading market. Even the Environmental Defense Fund plans to make money by brokering carbon trades....
Unfortunately, by embracing unrestricted trading, the administration is pandering to the fossil fuel lobby, alienating allies in Europe and the developing world, and ignoring what nature requires to keep this planet hospitable to civilization. Most European and developing countries are angered by the Clinton administration's insistence on achieving virtually all cuts through trading - with no meaningful reductions at home.
The recognition is growing, moreover, that trading is simply inadequate to the climate crisis. ''International carbon trading is a scam that is going to give emissions trading a bad name,'' said John Henry, a Washington-based entrepreneur who made sizable profits brokering trades for the domestic US sulfur dioxide trading program.
A meaningful regulatory response would remove barriers to free energy competition, especially protections for dirty, utility coal-burning plants. It would also establish a progressively more stringent fossil fuel efficiency standard....
Schemes like ''emissions trading'' look neat on paper. Unfortunately, they will not slow the melting of the earth's glaciers, the breakup of Antarctic ice shelves, rising sea levels, warming-driven migrations of disease, the intensification of El Ninos, and the relentless increase in floods, droughts, and severe storms. To do that we must restore the 10,000-year-old balance of our atmosphere that we are destroying with the 6 billion tons of carbon we emit every year.
UTAH: CLUB ACTIVISTS FIGHTING ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL JUDGE'S NOMINATION
President Clinton continues to be pressured by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah to nominate a strongly anti-environmental politician to fill a vacancy in the federal judiciary. Ted Stewart, Chief of Staff to Utah's Republican Governor Mike Leavitt, has taken credit as the author of a recent lawsuit which sought to prevent the Department of the Interior from conducting a sorely needed wilderness re-inventory in Utah. Stewart opposed President Clinton's designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Reacting to the announcement, Stewart said, "that was a day of infamy for some of us." Ted Stewart has gone on record in opposition to Administration efforts to raise livestock grazing fees, eliminate money-losing timber sales, and institute hard-rock mining royalties.
Federal judges are appointed for life. Important decisions relating to the protection of America's wilderness are made by federal judges in Utah, and the bad ones are very difficult to overturn.
Senator Hatch has threatened to hold up other judicial nominations until he gets his way. The efforts of Sierra Club members and others to stop this nomination have so far succeeded in preventing the White House from succumbling to this pressure.
ARIZONA: SAVE THE PEAKS, STOP THE MINE
The Sierra Club and the Flagstaff Activist Network commemorated the birthday of the infamous 1872 federal Mining Law on May 10 by staging a demonstration on the flanks of the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona's highest mountains.
Local TV and press attended to capture pictures of huge, colorful banners saying "Save the Peaks" and "Stop the Mine". The National Forest around the mountain is threatened by a proposed expansion of the White Vulcan pumice mine.
The City of Flagstaff, Coconino County and every Native American tribe in northern Arizona, including the nation's largest tribe - the Navajo Nation -- have opposed mine expansion.
To the Native Americans, these mountains are religious shrines. As the tallest point in Arizona, the San Francisco Peaks have been natural landmarks for visitors and residents of the Colorado Plateau for eons.
The Forest Service is considering a 74,380 acre mineral withdrawal to prevent future mining around the Peaks, and is taking public comment.
"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create." -- Leonard I. Sweet
1. TAKE ACTION Help Prevent Factory-Farm Pollution: Urge Your Senators and Reps to Support Strong Clean Water Act Permits
2. POLL FINDS BROAD SUPPORT FOR ANIMAL FACTORY POLLUTION LIMITS
3. UDATE ON ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL RIDERS Some Dangerous Provisions Stripped, Others Still Attached
4. DAN QUAYLE'S SPELL CHECKER
TAKE ACTION
Help Build Congressional Support for Prevention of Factory-Farm Pollution
In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to publish a draft model Clean Water Act permit that state environmental agencies will use to issue permits to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Most of these facilities have never had permits, as the Clean Water Act requires, so this is an important step.
But the EPA is already under considerable pressure to back off; 52 members of Congress, including House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas), recently wrote a hostile letter to Vice President Al Gore opposing new environmental regulation of the livestock industry.
We need to demonstrate to the EPA that there is support in Congress for enforcing these permits. The Club has been working with Reps Lane Evans (D-Ill.) and George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to circulate "Dear Colleague" letters.in support of strong and effective permitting requirements.
The more members sign on, the stronger a signal we send.
The Dear Colleague letters, to EPA Administrator Carol Browner and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, urge that the model permit include the following:
--land-application standards to prevent manure runoff from fouling waterways with excessive nutrients;
--standards for manure storage facilities to prevent leaks, spills and odors;
--public participation and comments on draft permits;
--no exemptions for large-scale poultry operations, which have escaped regulation in the past because they apply dry litter to the land;
--siting restrictions so that new facilities are not located near ecologically vulnerable areas.
Please urge your representative and senators to sign on to the Evans/Miller letter in the House or the Harkin letter in the Senate. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or write: U.S. House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515; U.S. Senate, Washington DC 20510.
ANIMAL FACTORIES STINK, SAY VOTERS
A poll commissioned by the Clean Water Network and nine other organizations including the Sierra Club shows that not only are most American voters unfavorably disposed toward animal factories, they say they would support political candidates who would enforce pollution limits on these facilities.
Four out of five respondents said they favor the creation of uniform national standards to limit air and water pollution from animal factories and two-thirds said they are likely to vote for a political candidate who will enforce such standards.
Those polled expressed concern about unhealthy drugs and chemicals in our food; air, water and soil pollution from animal factory waste; the frequency and volume of family farmers driven out of business by animal factories; and the abuse and inhumane treatment of animals.
The poll, conducted by Lake Snell Perry & Associates and released on May 12, reached 1,000 registered voters nationwide in March.
"This kind of backdoor attack on the environment is reminiscent of the worst days of the House under Newt Gingrich, when attempts to dismantle the environmental protections most Americans take for granted was carried out in the dark of night instead of in the bright light of democracy." -- House Minority Leader Gephardt on the riders attached to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, 5/12/99
1. TAKE ACTION: CLEANER CARS, SUVs AND GASOLINE: EPA NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU ON TIER 2!!!
2. HOUSE REPUBLICAN CHAMPIONS FIGHT BAD RIDERS
3. NORTH DAKOTA ROADLESS AREA UNDER THREAT
PLEASE TAKE ACTION
CLEANER CARS, SUVs AND GASOLINE: EPA NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU ON TIER 2!!!
Thanks to your hard work distributing postcards, writing letters to the editor and spreading the word, our call for strong new auto pollution and clean gasoline standards was heard. We asked for standards that would get the sulfur out of our gasoline, hold diesel vehicles to the same standard as gasoline vehicles, close the light truck loophole and promote advanced technology vehicles. Vice President Gore and the EPA responded.
These standards implement the new soot and smog standards we fought for (and won!) in 1997. The new auto pollution and gasoline standards would clean up America's cars and heavily polluting light trucks beginning in 2004. The plan would also clean our gasoline by establishing a national sulfur standard of 30 parts per million (ppm)--that's 300 hundred parts per million less than the current national average.
Even though the proposed standards are strong, there are a few key ways they could be even better. So, please send your comments to EPA, thank them for their commitment to cleaner air and ask them to address them to make the rule the best it can be. Here are some key points to make:
*No breaks for the heaviest and dirtiest vehicles: The proposed standards allow the heaviest Sport Utility Vehicles and other light trucks between 6,000 and 8,500 pounds to pollute more than cars until 2009 -- 2 extra years. These super-polluters should be included in the same program as cars by 2007, just like lighter SUVs.
*Include heavier trucks used as passenger vehicles in these standards. Tier 2 regulations will only apply to vehicles 8,500 lbs and below. Yet, with Ford's new Excursion on the way, we could see even more SUVs that won't have to meet these new Tier 2 standards. To prevent automakers from designing vehicles that miraculously "creep up" in weight to avoid the Tier 2 program, the EPA should include all passenger vehicles--from the Honda Civic to Ford's new "Valdez" (Excursion)-- within the Tier 2 program.
*Close the open door for dirtier diesels:
The EPA is leaving the door open for diesel engines that are dirtier than gasoline engines. Diesel exhaust has been identified as carcingenic. The auto industry plans to use diesel engines in SUVs to get a fuel economy boost. We need standards that don't give any breaks to diesel when it comes to air pollution. EPA's proposed standards would require cleaner diesels -- but not clean enough.
*Speed up the gasoline clean up:
The proposal includes a phase-in for the low national sulfur standard that allows the oil industry to reduce average sulfur levels incrementally, meeting a required level each year until the national average of 30 ppm goal must be reached in 2006. The incremental phase-in would allow a per gallon cap if 300 PPM in 2004, a level only slightly lower than the 330 ppm current average, and one which would still foul the catalytic converters in cars that fuel up with it leading to more pollution.
The EPA needs to hear from you! You can be sure that the oil and auto industries will be weighing in. We need to be sure that EPA doesn't weaken the standards and we must work hard to make them stronger. If people don't speak up, the proposed standards could be weakened, putting polluters' profits ahead of our children's health.
Here's how you can comment on TIER 2:
1. Attend Public Hearings EPA is holding four public hearings in June. If you live in or near Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver or Cleveland we urge you to let EPA hear from you in person. Contact Michelle Artz at michelle.artz@sierraclub.org if you think you might like to participate or would like more information.
PUBLIC HEARING DATES: Philadelphia, PA June 9-10 Atlanta, GA June 11 Denver, CO June 15 Cleveland, OH June 17
2. Submit written comments (electronically or by us mail):
WRITE: Public docket No. A-97-10 US Environmental Protection Agency Air Docket (6102), Room M-1500 401 M Street, SW Washington, D 20460
E-MAIL: tier2.comments@epa.gov
3. Or you can call the EPA toll free:
1-888-TELL-EPA (1-888-835-5372)
Thanks!!
2. HOUSE CHAMPIONS FIGHT ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL RIDERS
As reported earlier, the Supplemental Appropriations bill -- which will provide emergency funding to Kosovo and victims of Hurricane Mitch -- passed through the House and Senate with anti-environmental riders attached. While the House and Senate were meeting in conference committee to iron out the differences in their two versions of the spending bill, Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (NY-23) took the heroic step of sending a letter to the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Bill Young (FL-10), asking that the final Supplemental Appropriations bill would be kept free of any anti-environmental riders. Nineteen Members of Congress joined Rep Boehlert in his efforts:
* Rep. Greenwood (PA-08) * Rep. Franks (NJ-07) * Rep. Quinn (NY-30) * Rep. Gilchrest (MD-01) * Rep. Nancy Johnson (CT-06) * Rep. Frelinghuysen (NJ-11) * Rep. Roukema (NJ-05) * Rep. Morella (MD-08) * Rep. Shays (CT-04) * Rep. Horn (CA-38) * Rep. Campbell (CA-15) * Rep. Ramstad (MN-03) * Rep. Kuykendall (CA-36) * Rep. Kelly (NY-19) * Rep. Ehlers (MI-03) * Rep. Forbes (NY-01) * Rep. Leach (IA-01) * Rep. Bilbray (CA-49) * Rep. Castle (DE-AL)
Please call Rep. Boehlert and these Members of Congress to thank for their efforts at 202.224.3121!
A late-evening update on the riders: the ESA rider has apparently been dropped out, the original three riders (stalling government efforts to protect Glacier Bay, reform hard-rock mining practices and oil industry tax breaks) remain in the bill. Senator Gorton (R-WA) is insisting on pushing ahead with his mining industry bailout amendment. The conference committee is expected to meet late into the night. You can help by calling your representative and senators and asking them to vote against the Kosovo funding bill until the anti-environmental riders are removed.
3. NORTH DAKOTA ROADLESS AREA UNDER THREAT
America's roadless areas are the last bastions of unprotected wilderness and provide fish and wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, magnificent scenery and backcountry recreation. Earlier this year, the Forest Service announced a moratorium that restricted road building in some of our nation's roadless areas. Unfortunately, the moratorium is both temporary and full of political loopholes that leave tens of millions of acres of America's scenic wilderness wide open to logging, mining, and road building.
One of North Dakota's few remaining roadless areas in the state's western badlands is threatened by development. Billings County is planning a major new county road through the Wannagan Creek Roadless Area in the Little Missouri National Grasslands. Our National Grasslands are managed by the U.S Forest Service which implemented a moratorium on new roads in some roadless areas including the Wannagan Creek Roadless Area. This roadbuilding proposal violates the moratorium.
The proposed route cuts through the heart of the Wannagan Creek Roadless Area which is famous in North Dakota for having one of the state's few elk herds. The road will separate Wannagan Creek from the adjacent Petrified Forest Wilderness in Theodore Roosevelt National Park by following the park's west boundary. This assault on Wannagan comes on the heels of the decision two months ago by the Forest Service to allow an oil well in the Bennett-Cottonwood Roadless Area. The Sierra Club is working to halt this destructive roadbuilding project.
On a national level, Reps. Steve Horn (R-CA) and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) are currently circulating a letter in the House of Representatives to urge the Clinton Administration to protect all roadless areas in the National Forest System. Approximately 60 million acres of roadless lands remain at risk to logging, mining and oil and gas development.
For more information on the Wannagan Creek Roadless Area in North Dakota contact Kirk Koepsel in the Northern Plains Sierra Club office at 307/672-0425. To find out about the Sierra Club's national efforts to protect roadless areas, contact Sean Cosgrove at 202/547-1141.
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| * * * COMPANIES & PRODUCTS * * * |
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| * * * IN-HOUSE RESOURCES * * * |
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