- House Rejects Stealth Attacks on Environment
- Environmental Bill of Rights Delivered to Congress
- Citizens Rally to Save Wild Minnesota
- Washington State Voters Throw Out Takings Law
- Blowing the Whistle Works!
- Stand Up for Public Lands, Say Idaho and Montana Activists
- Salvage Logging Strikes Again -- and Again
- New "Fast Track" Legislation Excludes Green Trade
- House Passes Magnuson Act; Threats to Dolphins Resurface
In what Club leaders called a turning point for the environment,
the House in November rejected by a 227 to 194 vote 17 "riders"
attached to an Environmental Protection Agency spending bill that
would have rolled back clean air, clean water and hazardous waste
standards.
In early November the Sierra Club and other environmental
organizations delivered to congressional offices 1.2 million
signatures on the Environmental Bill of Rights. Thousands of Club
activists spent countless hours mobilizing citizens to sign the
petition this year, drawing widespread attention to the 104th
Congress' War on the Environment.
More than 400 people -- many carrying canoes, snowshoes and skis
-- gathered in October on the sprawling lawn below the steps of
the Minnesota State Capitol to protest bills introduced in
Congress that would open up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and
Voyageurs National Park to expanded motorized recreation. A week
later, more than 1,100 supporters of wilderness participated in a
congressional field hearing in St. Paul, Minn. "Our level of
passion should warn anti-environmentalists in Congress that we
will not allow these attacks on our public lands to go
unanswered," said Minnesota activist Ginny Yingling.
Washington state voters resoundingly rejected an extreme
"takings" law passed by the state legislature earlier this year,
which would have required taxpayers to compensate developers for
any restrictions on their property. The Sierra Club was
instrumental in mobilizing citizens to get the referendum on the
fall ballot and educating voters to defeat this initiative at the
polls.
After Club activists helped elect Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.) last
November, they watched in anger as she voted against the
environment six times out of six in the first weeks of the 104th
Congress. By taking Kelly to task in the local papers and
picketing her local office, citizens convinced her to change her
ways. Kelly has since voted with the environment on nine out of
10 votes.
Around 250 volunteers, including many Club activists, distributed
nearly 40,000 doorhangers in Boise, Idaho and the Flathead Valley
in Montana this fall. The doorhangers -- which included a
tear-off postcard to Congress -- urged citizens: "Stand up for
your public lands. Political deals are taking the public out of
the public lands."
The salvage logging rider signed into law by President Clinton
earlier this year is confirming Club leaders' worst fears: The
U.S. Forest Service has asked the timber industry to help it
design and implement salvage timber sales. The Forest Service was
also ordered by a federal judge this fall to release for sale
about 250 million board feet of timber in Oregon and Washington,
much of it from old-growth forests. Hundreds of ancient-forest
advocates demonstrated in Oregon this fall against the old-growth
logging.
The Republican majority on the House trade subcommittee this fall
approved a fast-track bill that would prohibit the president from
negotiating environmental protections in future trade agreements.
[See Update in October 1995 Planet, page 3.] In response, the
Sierra Club rallied support for congressional signatures on a
letter from George Miller (D-Calif.) to U.S. Trade Representative
Mickey Kantor that opposes the fast-track bill.
By an overwhelming margin, the House this fall reauthorized the
Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, enacted in 1976
to protect the nation's dwindling fisheries. As the Club's
coastal and marine advocates celebrated the victory, they
continued their fight against Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's
(R-Calif.) bill, H.R. 2179, which would allow the tuna industry
to once again kill thousands of dolphins each year. The bill
would also repeal the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act
of 1990.
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