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Nov. 22, 1999
"We're seeing some things that otherwise might have been caught by inspectors going unpenalized," Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter, describing Texas' lack of environmental enforcement. Associated Press, 11/21.
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: RED STORM RISING:
Sierra Club observes Nikitin trial in Russia.
1. IT'S A WRAP: A look at the year that wasn't in Congress.
2. TREKKING ACROSS AMERICA: Lewis & Clark campaign retakes America.
3. ROOM FOR GROWTH: Cincinnati Sierra Club puts together effective smart growth media.
NOTE: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday and a subsequent staff meeting, the next Sierra Club SC-ACTION will be published on December 6.
TAKE ACTION
SIERRA CLUB SENDS OBSERVER TO TRIAL OF RUSSIAN WHISTLEBLOWER
Tomorrow, the Criminal Court of St. Petersburg City once again begins examining the case of the first rank (ret.) captain Alexander Nikitin, who has been charged for the eighth time with espionage. Nikitin faces a possible prison sentence for exposing Russia's illegal practice of dumping nuclear waste into the Bering Sea. Stephen Mills, Director of Sierra Club's International Program will attend the trial.
Nikitin is a featured environmental defender of the Sierra Club's Human Rights and the Environment Program.
"In the new Russia, ideas were not supposed to be silenced," said Mills. "Today, however, people who advocate a safe environment are considered dangerous enemies of the state. The fact that concealing information about environmental hazards is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail appears to be of little concern to Russian authorities."
Despite a constitution that protects environmental whistleblowers and declassifies environmental information, environmental and human rights advocates are increasingly becoming targets of official harassment and persecution.
Nikitin, an employee of the Norway-based environmental group The Bellona Foundation, and a former nuclear engineer in the Russian navy, worked with Bellona to produce a bleak report entitled, "The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination." Released in November, 1996, it describes the problems the Russian fleet is experiencing with its nuclear powered vessels and with the storage of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste that the operation of these vessels generates. This important report has been banned -- the first book to be illegal in post-Soviet Russia.
"Both Amnesty International and the US State Department have said that the Nikitin case continues to be characterized by serious violations of due process, and suggest that his detention is politically motivated," said Mills. "A State Department human rights report also notes that Nikitin's defense team demonstrated that all the information used in the Bellona report is freely available in open sources. This counters Russian claims that Nikitin used secret documents."
***Now is the time to take action on behalf of Nikitin. Call, write, or e-mail the Russian Embassy to urge a fair and open trial. You can also express your concern that environmentalists in Russia be allowed to speak freely and to organize to protect the environment.
Embassy of the Russian Federation Chancery 2650 Wisconsin Ave. NW Washington, DC 20007 Tel. (202) 298-5700/01/04 Fax (202) 298-5735 e-mail: webmaster@russianembassy.org ***
1. CONGRESSIONAL YEAR IN REVIEW
This was the Congress of missed opportunities. However, it also could have been a lot worse, but wasn't, thanks to the tireless efforts of Sierra Club activists, our Congressional allies and the Clinton-Gore Administration. Together, we succeeded in averting the worst anti-environmental proposals.
Here's a quick rundown on where each program stands:
Fighting Sprawl: Community Open Space Bonds bill languished. This is an innovative proposal for a federal partnership with local communities to help them plan for smart growth and fight sprawl.
Protecting our Wilderness: Although bills to designate 9.1 million acres of wilderness in Utah, protect the Northern Rockies Ecosystem, and permanently put the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits to oil drilling were introduced, and gathered a record number of cosponsors, the Congress failed to act on them.
Protecting our Forests: A bill to end commercial logging of our National Forests was introduced, gaining strong bipartisan support and a record number of sponsors, but the Congress did not adopt the legislation, and instead pushed bills that would further expose our National Forests to damaging logging.
Cleaning Up Factory Farms: A bill was introduced to ensure factory farms follow the Clean Water Act, have increased accountability, employ adequate emergency shutoff devices and build failsafe containment structures for wet waste operations. Unfortunately, this bill has sat in committee without action.
Protecting America's Lands: Congress appropriated half of the $900 million requested by the President to fund the Land Legacy program. Congress also began action on a Land and Water Conservation Fund bill to provide secure funding for land and wildlife protection. Although the bill has made progress, the version pending in the House still has troubling tradeoffs that would create new incentives for states to open their shorelines to oil drilling.
Global Warming: Congress barred the Administration from taking the single biggest step to curbing global warming--raising automotive fuel economy standards. It also blocked the Administration from taking other needed actions to curb global warming.
Family Planning: Congressional leadership attached the "Global Gag Rule" to the bill repaying U.S. debts to the United Nations. The rule will bar family planning organizations abroad from receiving U.S. funds if they provide legal abortion services or participate in public debates on abortion policies. Clinton can waive the rule, but at the cost of millions of dollars in foreign aid.
The compromise also includes burdensome requirements for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to report on how much money is spent by every group it funds to advocate or provide abortion services.
*** Please work to make sure the next Congress is greener and cleaner. The best way to do that to send letters to the editor of your local newspapers.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
--If your Representative or Senator has supported our efforts, thank them for their work in protecting the environment for our families and for our future.
--Recognize members of Congress who have sponsored legislation that touches on the above areas. Encourage them to redouble their efforts to pass that legislation next year.
--In your letter, encourage people to call or write the member of Congress and thank them for their efforts.
--Encourage people to support a pro-environment Congress and President for 2000 who will do things such as addressing global warming, protecting our wild forests and encouraging smart growth.
--If your Representative or Senator has hurt our efforts, call them to task. Let them know that local voters care about protecting our environment and will hold them accountable on Election Day if they do not clean up their act in 2000.
--Encourage people to write or call that member of Congress and let them know they will remember the environment on Election Day. --Encourage people to support a pro-environment Congress and President for 2000 that will do things like address global warming, protect our wild forests and encourage smart growth.
2. LEWIS & CLARK RETAKES AMERICA
Nearly 200 years to the day of their original expedition, Lewis & Clark are captivating America once again. The response to the Sierra Club's campaign has been phenomenal, judging from the early press coverage.
Highlighted by an article and map in America's largest newspaper, USA Today, the Sierra Club's effort with President Chuck McGrady and Executive Director Carl Pope travelling to different locations has proven effective.
There was great coverage in Washington State, with huge articles in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Vancouver (WA) Columbian.
In Nebraska, the Lewis and Clark report focused on three main areas: The Sand Hills including the Dismal River and East and West Steer Creek, The Niobrara River, and the Missouri River. The Omaha World Herald, Metro News, and KETV-7 attended the press conference along with seven member/volunteer supporters. Carl and Melissa Gardner, Missouri River Group Chair, were aldo featured on two radio news shows.
The following report from Sybil Ackerman of the NW Field Staff summarizes a lot of the postive attitudes on the event:
"We had a terrific time yesterday in Portland with the Lewis and Clark Rollout.
Carl Pope spoke about the importance of our campaign and Bill Arthur then followed up with some on the ground examples of the areas that we know and love here in Oregon and SW Washington. We had representatives who were volunteers from all of the highlight sites at the press conference as well. It was a fun event and I want to thank everyone for being there.
We were on the evening news with KOIN 6 news with a feed through to Fox 49 (I believe). We were on the OPB public broadcasting radio and also on the KEX newsradio. We should also have an article in the Oregonian, the Columbian, and I was just interviewed for a radio show in Astoria KAST that will air three times over the weekend.
Not nearly as good as Rogers Steller turnout for Idaho, but it was fun none the less!"
3: SMART GROWTH IN CINCINNATI
Glen Brand, director of the Sierra Club's Cincinnati office, has been getting great coverage with smart growth stories, generating two stories and a well-written Letter to the Editor into the Cincinnati City Beat on consecutive days. The headlines demonstrate the positive nature of the coverage:
"New Regional Group Targets Sprawl" "The Call of the Mall: A new mega-mall near Monroe beckons, but not everyone is listening" "Wider Isn't Better"
Brand was the primary focus of "New Regional Group Targets Sprawl"; excerpts follows:
Tristate traffic is getting worse. Farm land is disappearing under new housing located far from traditional cities and public transportation. And existing cities and suburbs are losing residents and business to the new suburbs.
Members of a new anti-sprawl group say local governments need to rethink their planning and development policies to stop this sprawling pattern of development.
"What may have been good 25 years ago has turned out to be a disaster in 1999," says Glen Brand, the director of the Sierra Club's Cincinnati office.
Brand and a few dozen others have joined forces to create the Smart Growth Coalition of Greater Cincinnati. Citizen activists, planners, environmentalists and others want to inject new ideas into local planning - ideas they say are desperately needed. In 1998, the Sierra Club named Cincinnati the fourth most sprawl-threatened U.S. city.
The coalition's central goal is to devise a regional plan that, while flexible, sets a course for the Tristate for the next 20 years - a course away from sprawling development and unrestrained road building and toward cities and suburbs with more transportation options and open space, for example.
Brand defines sprawl as "uncontrolled and unplanned development." It's the difference between Mariemont, a pedestrian-friendly community built in the 1920s, and Florence, a 1980s and 1990s city lacking sidewalks to connect housing to shopping and other places. Unlike Florence, Mariemont was built to allow cars and people to coexist with some harmony, Brand says.
"It still works 70 years later," he says, adding that Mariemont isn't the perfect example but is a good rule of thumb.
"What do you think: Is free trade worth environmental risks?" -- "For Kids Only: WTO, What's the Big Deal?" Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11/18/99
Friday is the ALL ACTION edition of the SC-ACTION, including actions that you can take on Sierra Club campaigns. Please check out the action items below:
(1) FEATURED ACTION: SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE: Gearing Up for the WTO Summit
(2) Global Warming: Urge Your Representative to Sign the Clean Car Letter
(3) End Commercial Logging
(4) Stop Superfund Rollback
(5) Help Save the Coral Reefs of Vieques, Puerto Rico
(6) Speak Up Against Human Rights Violations
(7) Protect Roadless Forests
(8) Population -- SEE UPCOMING NOV. 22 SC-ACTION FOR NEW ACTION ITEM
FEATURED ACTION ITEM FOR THIS WEEK:
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE: Gearing Up for the WTO Summit
Sierra Club activists across the country are getting into the act to protest the World Trade Organization Summit in Seattle beginning Nov. 30. Designed to promote global trade, the WTO has -- in its first few years of existence -- hammered rules affecting sea turtles, food safety and clean air as "illegal trade barriers." Tens of thousands of protestors are now expected to turn out for what Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope predicts will be one of the biggest confrontations between the American people and their government since the 1970s.
In Los Angeles, activists Joan Jones Holtz and Martin Schlageter helped rally more than 100 activists to stage a "Boston WTeaO Party" to protest commerce secretary Bill Daley's "free trade road show" bus trip to Tinsel Town. With signs emblazoned with the "Spirit of `76 Patriots" and proclaiming "No Globalization without Representation," Holtz, Schlageter and other protesters dumped "WTO-Dirty Gasoline" and "WTO Obsolete Computers" into a "WTO Dumpster" to protest various decisions of the WTO that undercut health and safety standards.
Meanwhile, activist Peter Grant staged the "Last Great Maple Syrup Pancake Breakfast" in the hometown of the maple syrup industry, Manchester, Vt., on Monday, Nov. 8. Grant drew loggers, maple-syrup workers, representatives from the state's two senators' offices and others to learn more about how an imported tree-eating bug called the Asian long-horned beetle threatens Vermont's sugar maples. The breakfast was covered on both the CBS and NBC affiliates.
Now it's time to prepare for Seattle. The action starts on Monday, Nov. 29, with the Health and Environment Day Peoples' Tribunal. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) will chair a panel of international parliamentarians taking testimony on the WTO's environmental impacts. At noon, we march to the Seattle Convention Center for the "Make Trade Clean, Green, and Fair" rally. Carl Pope will be joined by environmental leaders around the world -- and help conclude the rally with another "Boston WteaO Party." On Tuesday, environmentalists will gather at Denny Playfield to join the "People's Rally & March for Fair Trade."
TAKE ACTION
For those who can't get to Seattle, now is a good time to place that letter to the editor you've been thinking about. Please make two points:
* the WTO hurts our health and heritage
* President Clinton should take action to "make trade clean, green, and fair."
See our web page for more info at www.sierraclub.org/trade.
(2) URGE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO SIGN THE BOEHLERT/DICKS CLEAN CAR LETTER
Every day, the science on global warming is growing stronger and the evidence is becoming clearer. It is time to take the biggest single step the United States can take to curb global warming -- raising miles-per-gallon standards for SUVs, minivans, pickups and cars. But, a House-based rider has frozen the standards in the Transporation Funding bill since 1996. This year, thanks to your help, 31 senators signed a letter to the president supporting raising miles-per-gallon standards and 40 senators voted for the Clean Car Resolution. Now we are taking the fight to the House.
PLEASE call or write your Representative and urge them to sign the letter that Reps. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), Dicks (D-Wash.), Greenwood (R-Pa.), and Waxman (D-Calif.) are circulating in support of fuel economy standards. The Boehlert/Dicks letter to President Clinton urges him to "work with Congress to implement" the law setting automotive fuel economy standards. The anti-environmental rider that has frozen CAFE standards since 1995 starts in the House. It is time to stop it! Please contact your representative and urge him or her to sign the Boehlert/Dicks Clean Car letter.
For more information contact Ann Mesnikoff, ann.mesnikoff@sierraclub.org.
(3) HELP END COMMERCIAL LOGGING - CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Did you know that massive landslides are 70 percent more likely to start from clearcuts or logging roads? That's just one more reason to end the Forest Service's commercial logging program. Write a letter or call your member of Congress through the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urge him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 1396, the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act. For more information contact Sean Cosgrove at (202) 547-1141.
(4) STOP SUPERFUND ROLLBACK!
Two anti-environmental Superfund bills have recently passed out of Committee and are now being reconciled in order to bring the legislation to the House floor, maybe as early as next week. Both H.R. 2580, which passed out of the Commerce Committee, and H.R. 1300 which passed out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would severely weaken environmental and public health protections surrounding our nation's most hazardous waste sites -- Superfund sites.
These bills would open up loopholes in the Superfund law that would allow owners of polluted property to avoid paying for its cleanup. The legislation would severely weaken the "polluter pays" principle upon which Superfund was founded---leaving the American taxpayers to pick up the costs of cleanup. The bill also would relax cleanup standards that would leave sites still polluted even after they have been dubbed "clean." Call your representative and tell him or her you want our nation's Superfund sites cleaned-up and therefore you oppose H.R. 1300 and H.R. 2580!
(5) HELP SAVE THE CORAL REEFS OF VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
The 41 Sierra Club members in Puerto Rico need your help. Earlier this week, the Sierra Club signed on to a letter to President Clinton urging him to halt the U.S. Navy's live-fire and bombing activities on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. The island holds a truly unique and valuable ecosystem, including three of the world's seven surviving bioluminescent bays and some of the healthiest and most diverse coral reefs found in U.S. Caribbean territorial waters. The island also provides important habitat for numerous endangered species, including manatees, brown pelicans and several species of sea turtle.
The Navy's use of a 12,000-acre firing range on Vieques has caused significant harm to the island's fragile marine ecology and has been a major source of controvery since the 1960s. This week, protests have heated up as the next carrier battle group prepares to train at Vieques. President Clinton needed to take action by the end of this week to keep the Eisenhower battle group out of Vieques. While a short-sighted compromise might have already been reached (at this point, in time we are unable to leard what that decision is), we should keep the pressure on the administation to halt this destructive practice permanently. Nothing short of banning all Navy bombing in Vieques will protect this valuable environment.
Please call the president at (202) 456-1111 and urge him to halt all U.S. Navy live fire and bombing activiites in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
(6) SPEAK UP AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
On May 2, the Mexican military arrested Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, two environmentalists who organized their communities to curb logging in the old-growth forests of the Sierra de Petatlan in southwestern Mexico. Wealthy land owners, angered by disruption to their profitable logging ventures, targeted Montiel and Cabrera and urged corrupt Army officials to arrest them. Since May, Montiel and Cabrera have reportedly been beaten, tortured, and forced to confess to charges concocted by the military--including drug trafficking and belonging to a guerrilla group.
Please write to the Mexican Ambassador and demand that Montiel and Cabrera be released from jail immediately. Tell him that torturing environmentalists is an outrageous violation of basic human rights.
Ambassador Jesus Reyes Heroles, Embassy of Mexico, 1911 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20006, FAX (202) 728-1698. For more information, visit our Web site, www.sierraclub.org/human-rights
(7) SUPPORT THE WILD FOREST PROTECTION PLAN: PROTECT ROADLESS FORESTS
Two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark explored America and found a boundless wilderness of jaw-dropping wonders. Today, only fragments of those wild lands dot the American landscape. More than half of our National Forests have been hammered by logging, mining and other destructive activities. Recently, President Clinton proposed a plan that can protect 60 million acres of wild forests from road building, logging and other destructive activities -- but the Forest Service needs to hear from you!
The U.S. Forest Service has asked for public comments on the plan to save our wild forests. Timber industry lobbyists are already trying to weaken or stop this initiative, so it is critical to demonstrate broad public support for protecting our wild forests. Your comments will help to shape the final protection plan. Write A letter covering the 3 key points below.
**Please send an e-mail to the forest service today at: roadless/wo_caet-slc@fs.fed.us. Thank you!
I applaud the President's initiative and urge you to protect 60 million acres of remaining roadless wild lands in our National Forests.
I Support a roadless protection policy that:
-applies to ALL National Forest roadless areas over 1000 acres -- including Alaska's Tongass and Chugach National Forests;
- provides permanent protection for all roadless areas from new road construction, logging, mining, off-road vehicle use, oil and gas development and other harmful activities;
- protects roadless areas now rather than waiting for the forest planning process.
The Forest Service must seize this opportunity to protect wild America and our children's inheritance. Please count this as a formal comment on the proposed rulemaking for protection of roadless areas.
For more information contact Tanya Tolchin (tanya.tolchin@sierraclub.org)
(8) POPULATION: Check the upcoming Monday, Nov. 22 SC-ACTION for the new Population Campaign action alert!
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