Defending the Environmental Agenda
July 31, 1996
"Hat is chapeau; egg is oeuf; it's like the French have a
different word for
everything! "
-- Steve Martin
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sierra Club Legislative Hotline - 202-675-2394
Sierra Club National Headquarters - 415-977-5500
Sierra Club World Wide Web - http://www.sierraclub.org
White House Comment Line - 202-456-1111
White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
Clinton's e-mail - president@whitehouse.gov
Gore's e-mail - vice.president@whitehouse.gov
White House Address - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC
20500
US Capitol Switchboard - 202-224-3121
---------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
IN THE MAIN RING: OMNI-VARIOUS LANDS ISSUES
GAINS ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN VOTE
IN THE PRESS: STUMP SPEECHES
IN THE FIELD: SPORTSMEN AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS
TOGETHER
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: GOP RESPONDS TO SIERRA CLUB ADVERTISING
EFFORT IN MAINE
---------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE MAIN RING:
OMNIVARIOUS LANDS ISSUES
Environmentalists have had all guns pointed at the massive
Omnibus Parks Bill, H.R.1296, this final week of Congress
before the August break. Just last Friday, July 26th, several
Sierra Club staff members and other lobbyists from more than
two dozen other groups, blanketed the Hill to raise the
visibility of the many controversial anti-environmental
provisions in this bill. These provisions include: costly
and destructive grazing legislation, efforts to undermine
crucial coastal programs, and dramatic rollbacks of current
public land protections from Florida to Alaska. We expected
the House to bring H.R.1296 to the floor before Friday, August
2nd..
Recent events however, indicate that this bill just may be too
controversial to bring to the floor. In a surprise move on
Wednesday, July 31st, the House brought up and approved
H.R.3907, a bill which contains two of the major provisions of
the Omnibus bill--Sterling Forest and Snowbasin. H.R.3907
would authorize the purchase and acquisition of the Sterling
Forest (which the Sierra Club supports) paired with a provision
to authorize the Snowbasin land exchange in Utah (which we
oppose). In addition, two Alaska provisions were added from
H.R.400 -- Anaktuvuk pass and Alaska Peninsula. H.R.3907 was
approved by the house by voice vote. It will now go over to
the Senate, where its fate is very much up in the air.
Then there began the rumor of yet another major provision of
the Omnibus parks bill being pulled out of that package and
brought up as a stand alone measure. Word on the street was
that Rep. Sherry Boehlert, at the urging of the Speaker, had
struck a deal on a stand-alone grazing package that we will
almost certainly oppose. Reason number one--it does nothing to
alleviate the federal subsidy for public land livestock grazers
which costs taxpayers from $70 million (Bureau of Land
Management[BLM] estimate) to $500 million (Cato Institute) a
year. Though the bill is unlikely to come up before the August
recess, members are poised to bring up the package after they
return in September unless you take action to derail this
ill-advised deal.
****TAKE ACTION****
Call your Member of Congress and tell them to oppose political
deals that threaten our western public lands and all of our
pocketbooks.
US Capitol Switchboard - 202-224-3121
***********
GAINS ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN VOTE
For those of you following the bill to transfer high-level
nuclear waste from around the country to an "interim" storage
site at Yucca Mountain Nevada. There has been action again on
the Senate floor, 37 votes against the Yucca Mountain Nuclear
Waste were gained on Tuesday, July 30th. That is 3 more than
the 34 we got last week and 3 more than enough to sustain
President Clinton's promised veto! So if the President keeps
his word, WE WIN!
This is a real credit to activists across the country who have
fought to protect Americans from unsafe dumping of nuclear
waste.
The very partial list of swing votes:
Swings Voting "No" was the environmental vote:
Breaux, Campbell, Lautenberg, Bradley, Chaffe,
Coats
Swings Voting "Yes" , the anti environmental vote:
Murray, Simon, Leahy, Jeffords, Harkin
IN THE PRESS:
STUMP SPEECHES
The biggest problem with Sen. Larry Craig's "forest health"
bill is its failure "to address the real source of forest
health problems in the mountain West: the ongoing mismanagement
of federal lands," says an editorial in the Cleveland OH Plain
Dealer. The editorial argues that "selling large tracts of
timber to the highest bidder . . . all but guarantees that the
land will be stripped of vegetation in the drive for maximum
profit." The Chicago Sun Times also criticizes Craig's bill:
"This measure must be defeated. We cannot entrust our national
forests to the wolves in the timber industry."
IN THE FIELD:
SPORTSMEN AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS TOGETHER
Neither President Clinton nor Bob Dole will attend, but that
won't stop sportsmen and environmentalists from meeting in
Birmingham, Alabama, August 8 for a "Grass Roots Rally" to
"insure that natural resource issues are discussed prominently
in the 1996 election." The event is sponsored by the Natural
Resources Summit of America, which has adopted a statement of
principles agreed to by 30 affiliated groups including the
Sierra Club.
"Sportsmen and environmentalists have come to realize their
common ground," says a Q&A about the event. For details call
BASS at (205)272-9530.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL:
GOP RESPONDS TO SIERRA CLUB ADVERTISING EFFORT IN MAINE
The GOP launched a series of ads last week in the district of
Rep. Jim Longley R-ME, in response to the grassroots lobbying
ads aired by the Sierra Club and other environmental and labor
organizations. The Portland Press Herald found Longley's seat
"ripe for the taking" by his opponent Tom Allen D. Allen,
endorsed by the Club, currently leads Longley by 50% to 38% in
his most recent poll. Longley blames the "barrage of critical"
ads run in his district. Longley noted that "our [poll] shows
that the attacks are having an impact."