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Environment Action
Alerts for
March 8 - March 15, 2001
from Greenpeace March 8, 2001
Greenpeace Activist News Vol. 1, No. 3
8 March 2001
ACT NOW TO STOP THE US STAR WARS PROGRAM
Send a Star Wars e-card to your
friends and colleagues from:
http://act.greenpeace.org/ecs/c?i=4
This e-card will include a link to
the Star Wars action alert.
The
Rainbow Warrior is approaching the remote Pacific atoll of Kwajalein in the
Marshall Islands where we will confront the US military and oppose a scheduled
Star Wars test. Incoming US President George W. Bush is moving rapidly ahead
with a "Star Wars" program to spend billions of dollars building a system to
shoot down missiles with yet more missiles. If this program continues, it will
violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and may start a new nuclear arms
race.
So far, 1291 people have
sent letters to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 1052 people have sent
letters to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and 960 people have sent letters to
Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen.
This is a good start, but not nearly enough to send a strong
message to these leaders. We need your help. If you have not yet sent letters to
all three of these leaders, please do it now, by visiting our Cyberactivist
Centre at
http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/983102960
FLOTILLA
CONFRONTS PLUTONIUM SHIPMENT IN TASMAN SEA
On 6 March, a flotilla of seven ships in the Tasman Sea
confronted the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, vessels carrying a shipment of
weapons-usable plutonium fuel, or MOX (mixed oxide), bound for western Japan.
The flotilla radioed the plutonium vessels in English, French and Japanese. The
plutonium vessels changed course to evade the flotilla. You can read the latest
news at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/transport/mox00/
The shipment started its 30,000 km
voyage in Cherbourg, France on 19 January. Please help us oppose these plutonium
shipments by sending a letter to your local Japanese embassy at
http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=MOX&s=s02
HELP CLEANUP BAYER
The giant German chemical company
Bayer is best known for its Aspirin headache remedy. But double standards in
Germany and Brazil are now giving the company an environmental headache.
Earlier this year, a Greenpeace
investigation showed that Bayer is contaminating the environment in Brazil with
toxic persistent pollutants such as PCBs and heavy metals such as mercury.
Please help us clean up Bayer by
sending a letter to the CEO of Bayer Brazil today from:
http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/ams/e?a=bayer_toxics&s=s01
ACTION GROUP EXPERIMENT
CONTINUING
Greenpeace is
starting an experiment in setting up international action groups of
cyberactivists who want to work together on a common campaign or to share
information in a common language or about a common country or region. If you
want to get involved or find out more, you can read the latest update at:
http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/983643653/index_html
NEW RAINFOREST REPORTS
RELEASED
A new Greenpeace report
reveals that International Forest Products (Interfor) is a rogue logging company
that chooses to ignore its own concerned global customers and public opinion
while it destroys the remaining pristine valleys in the Great Bear Rainforest.
See:
http://greenpeace.org/~forests/010307.html
Greenpeace needs your help to track
down forest products that have been logged in the Great Bear Rainforest on
Canada's west coast, home to bears, wolves, salmon and eagles. We are asking
people all over the world to track down wood products that have been clearcut
logged from Canada's rainforest by Interfor and West Fraser Timber.
Please visit:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~forests/sleuths/
VISIT THE CYBERCENTRE
Please don't forget to visit the
Greenpeace Cyberactivist Community at:
http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s
from Sierra Club March 8, 2001
SC-ACTION Vol. III, #26
DEFENDING
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
March 7, 2001
Table of
Contents:
1. ALASKA WILDLIFE
REFUGE EDITORIAL by Sara Callaghan
2. KENTUCKY CAFO CAMPAIGN GETS THE MESSAGE OUT , by Aloma
Dew
3. SAVE THE PEAKS, STOP THE
MINE! AN UPDATE ON THE SIERRA CLUB'S EFFORTS TO
SHUT
DOWN THE WHITE VULCAN PUMICE MINE ON THE SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS, by Andy
Bessler
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. ALASKA WILDLIFE REFUGE EDITORIAL by Sara Callaghan
Sara Callaghan, Sierra Club's
Alaska Representative, wrote the following
editorial
that appeared in Sunday's Tacoma News Tribune.
Alaska oil fuels a debate Drilling on Wildlife Refuge
inspires impassioned
pleas from both sides
03/04/2001
Sara Callaghan Chapell
con: It's only a six-month supply, a drop in the bucket
compared with what
we could easily conserve
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
is an amazing and inspiring place.
Visitors tell of its
stunning vistas, unique wildlife and untouched
landscape. Scientists note the importance of the refuge as
habitat for
hundreds of species and the crucial role it
plays in Alaska's web of life.
The Gwich'in - native Alaskans who live nearby - depend on
the caribou that
give birth in the refuge for food,
clothing and spiritual sustenance. And
the refuge is
also an important part of America's heritage. But despite the
value of the arctic refuge - to people, wildlife and
posterity - President
Bush has announced that he intends
to open the area to oil drilling.
Doing so would be an unconscionable mistake: Just as we
would not flood the
Grand Canyon for hydropower or cap
Old Faithful for steam, we must not
drill for oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The first reason is the simplest: There's not very much oil
in the refuge.
Estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey
find that there is only a six-month
supply of
economically recoverable oil. Opening the refuge will have no
effect on oil prices because the supply is too small and
Persian Gulf oil
too cheap.
In fact, because the United States has only 3 percent of the
world's oil
reserves, opening all of our coasts, forests
and wild places to drilling
would barely nudge world oil
prices.
Many proponents of
drilling have pointed to recent price spikes as a reason
to drill. But any oil discovered in the refuge would not be
available for
at least a decade. And getting this oil
down to the lower 48 states will be
no small feat
either. It will require environmentally destructive
pipelines, pumping stations and sprawling industrial
infrastructure.
When Congress
protected the arctic refuge from exploitation, the oil
industry blocked efforts to safeguard a crescent of land
called the coastal
plain. The problem is that this
sliver of coastline is the biological heart
of the
refuge - it's where polar bears have their dens, where massive herds
of caribou come to give birth to their calves and where
migratory birds
from every state flock in the summer.
Drilling for oil will destroy the
unique plants on which
caribou, musk oxen, wolves, polar bears and other
animals depend for survival.
Of course, those who are in favor claim that new
"environmentally friendly"
techniques will reduce the
impact. But in Alaska we've learned that you
cannot
drill for oil without spilling oil. And if nearby Prudhoe Bay is any
indication, drilling for oil in the refuge will surely
destroy it.
Prudhoe Bay oil
fields generate twice as much air pollution as Washington,
D.C., and the area suffers more than 400 spills a year of
oil or
oil-related pollution. In February, a BP Amoco
facility dumped thousands of
gallons of oil into the
environment. In January, 20,000 gallons of drilling
"mud" - a petroleum-based lubricant used for drilling -
spilled from one of
Prudhoe Bay's newest facilities.
The upshot is that there are far
better, easier and cheaper places to drill
for oil - not
to mention a host of ways to make better use of the oil and
gas we already have. Requiring SUVs and light trucks to get
the same
mileage per gallon as cars would save more oil
within 10 years than would
ever be produced from the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Because there is little oil in the arctic refuge, a host of
alternatives to
drilling there and great value in
keeping the refuge unspoiled, we must
preserve this
awe-inspiring and unique place - for our families and for
future generations.
2. KENTUCKY CAFO CAMPAIGN GETS THE
MESSAGE OUT , by Aloma Dew
Last
night the KY CAFO Campaign officially began the new phase of it's
campaign before a crowd of almost 100 in Louisville, thanks
to the hard
work of group chair John Hartman,
cosponsored with The Kentucky Institute
for the
Environment and Sustainable Development. The program was taped by
public radio station WFPL for broadcast on March 26 at 1
p.m.(eastern
time). The panel was composed of
author, poet and farmer Wendell Berry,
Sierra Club
attorney and chair of the CAFO-Clean Water Campaign Hank
Graddy, physician Michelle Moran and
farmer/coalminer/western Kentucky
victim Charles
Bates. It was great! The panelist were able to give a new
dimension and an urban-appeal to the
campaign. The program lasted for
almost two
hours and people seemed interested throughout. I (Aloma Dew)
served as the moderator and enjoyed it completely.
Charles Bates was the real star of
the show. He was there to give a first
hand
account of what CAFOs are like and the effects that CAFOs have had on
his family and others in McLean County. He elaborated on the
fact that
there are 6 chicken houses right next to his
home and to a family cemetery
dating to the 18th century
where Bates and his family had always planned to
be
buried. He says they will probably build a chicken house on top of
his
grave! Bates gave a face to a campaign which does
not always connect with
urban consumers.
Dr. Moran gave a credibility to our
program. As a health care professional
and a
scientist, she brought an important part to the discussion and
answered a lot of questions that folks had.
The Sierra Club should be very proud
of the work of Hank Graddy. He did a
great
job of explaining the national campaign and how we reached this
point, while pulling the remarks of the other panelists
together. Hank
continues to work tirelessly
on the CAFO-clean water issue and made the
Sierra Club
look great last night!
John
Hartman really worked to get this together and provide a good
audience. There was a table with handouts and a lovely wine
and cheese
reception after the forum. This was a great
example of how EPEC, groups and
chapter are working
together in Kentucky.
3. SAVE THE PEAKS, STOP THE MINE! AN UPDATE ON THE SIERRA
CLUB'S EFFORTS TO
SHUT DOWN THE WHITE VULCAN PUMICE MINE
ON THE SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS, by Andy
Bessler
Summary of our Save the Peaks,
"Restoration will Begin" concert held last
night (March
1, 2001) in Flagstaff: This was the final EPEC event meant to
bring closure to the Save the Peaks Campaign that shut down
the White
Vulcan Pumice Mine on the San Francisco Peaks.
It was a day that I will
remember for the rest of my
life....Full of heart and inspiration that will
hopefully bring activists out on many other issues.
I must put a big thank you out to
the young Navajo interns who put these
events together;
Hunter RedDay and Kelvin Long. While their funding has
ended with this event, I hope that they will continue to
find opportunities
to learn about organizing.....They
are off to a great start. I will be
working on trying to
find funding to keep these guys and other interns
going
and learning about organizing.
On Thursday, March 1st, Kelvin Long organized a press
conference within the
White
Vulcan Mine to help announce the official closure of the mine and the
start of the reclamation process. Forest Service officials
were on hand as
well as a few of the miners.
While the agreement fostered by
former Sec. Babbitt is not perfect (it
allows the
miners to sell stockpiled pumice for up to 10 years), it is
cause for celebration because the miners will take
responsibility for the
restoration process that will
last for the next 5 years.
Kelvin invited Frank Mapatis from Hualapai and Bucky
Preston from Hopi to
symbolically start the restoration
process with prayers and songs. 10
Navajo and Hopi
students from Winslow High School's American Indians
Science and Engineering Society (ASIES) were on hand to
witness this event.
Kelvin wanted young and old to be
on hand to come together across
generations just as
different cultures came together to fight for the
Peaks.
In
between music, Frank Mapatis and Bucky Preston came out and told the
crowd about their trip to Washington DC to convince govt.
officials to shut
down the mine. They sang traditional
songs that brought everyone's hearts
together. The
crowd had such a positive feeling after their songs that I
think they touched all people and hopefully will result in
greater activism
for all people in Northern Arizona.
After Casper played, I got my
chance at the mic and urged folks to get
involved in
protecting Mother Earth. I told them to heed one of my favorite
quotes: "If you don't like the news, go out and make your
own." After
thanking Hunter and Kelvin, Hunter spoke
about the deeper meaning of the
fight to close down the
mine on the Peaks. I don't remember the exact
quote,
but he said something like, "now that shut down the mine on the
peaks, we need to face the mine in me and the mine in you.
That mine
represented greed and intolerance for
people's belief. We need to face
that."
Kelvin mentioned that he felt that
we won one battle in a war that is 500
years old.
Native people, he said, have been fighting to protect their
lands and culture since Anglos first arrived here.
Everyone mentioned the power of
unification and standing together with one
voice to
protect the Peaks. I will never forget the feeling in that room!
I would like to thank all those
within the Sierra club who contributed to
make this a
successful campaign. I only hope that the new work we will be
taking on under the Environmental Justice Program will meet
with the same
success and concrete victories
experienced on the Peaks.
In
closing, I would like to share an email I got this morning. Never
underestimate who you will touch with each LTE, press
clipping, or each
organizing event. I am proud to work
for Sierra Club....I think we are
making a big
difference for Mother Earth......
Andy Bessler
Mr. Bessler,
Hello, I live here in Flagstaff
but am really from Leupp.
In
all honesty, I was not aware of the ongoing issue with the Peaks until
very recently. When out of town on travel and am nearing
home -- I always
visually look forward to seeing the
San Francisco Peaks. Once I see it, I
am calmed by its
magnificent beauty. I wanted to make sure you knew that I
am one person who is very thankful for the free,
alcohol/drug free
entertainment last night and for the
inspiration that has transpired within
me. The
celebration seemed to have a good turnout with a lot of positive
energy. After hearing Burning Skys' beautiful music for the
first time last
night, I find myself thinking that I
have finally found music I've been
searching for. I'm
proud today of what you and the many volunteers and
native people have accomplished. In the future, I hope to
be a more active
participant in these serious issues
that are facing the land we live on.
Again, Thank you
Charlene Thompson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sierra Club Legislative Hotline - 202-675-2394
Sierra Club National Headquarters - 415-977-5500
Sierra Club World Wide Web - http://www.sierraclub.org
Sierra Club Vote Watch Website - http://www.sierraclub.org/votewatch/
White House Comment Line - 202-456-1111
White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
George W. Bush's e-mail -
president@whitehouse.gov
Dick
Cheney's e-mail - vice-president@whitehouse.gov
White House Address - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC
20500
US Capitol Switchboard - 202-224-3121
To contact your senators - http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
To contact your representative - http://www.house.gov/writerep
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
from Rainforest Action Network March 8, 2001
APRIL 11TH GLOBAL SHOWDOWN! Day of Action!
THE PEOPLE vs. CITIGROUP
CONFRONTING THE WORLD'S MOST DESTRUCTIVE BANK
A call for creative non-violent action! Whether its civil disobedience, mass credit card cut-ups, teach-ins, shareholder activism, demonstrations, phone zaps, fax blasts, press conferences, guerilla theater, informational pickets or whatever . take action against CITIGROUP on April 11th.
FOR MORE INFO, TO GET AN ORGANIZING PACKET OR TO CONNECT WITH LOCAL ACTIVISTS IN YOUR AREA CONTACT RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK:
NY - Beka Economopoulos beka@ran.org, 917-560-3609/888-840-6416 or
SF - Patrick Reinsborough organize@ran.org, 415-398-4404/800-989-RAIN
- - - - - - - - - -
Citi has over 1200 branches and offices around the US and office in over 100 countries around the world. Find your local subsidiary and ORGANIZE LOCALLY! :
http://www.citibank.com/branches/
http://www.citifinancial.com/branchlocator/
http://www.salomonsmithbarney.com/abt_sb/brnchloc.html
- - - - - - - - - -
Are you sick of corporate globalization and all the environmental destruction, poverty and injustice it is creating? Sick of undemocratic Free Trade agreements like NAFTA, WTO and FTAA being rammed down your throat? Are you ready to stand up to the system of global destruction that put the interests of corporate elites ahead of local communities, workers, farmers, the environment and democratic decision-making? Can you envision a global society based on justice, democracy and ecological sanity? Well then it sounds like you are ready to go for the jugular of the corporate global economy . and take on the world. s most destructive bank - CITIGROUP.
CITIGROUP is America. s largest financial institution made up of Citibank, Citifinancial, Traveler. s insurance and investment house Salomon Smith Barney (now called Citi Asset Management). From rainforest destruction to redlining, prisons to pollution Citi is the world. s most destructive bank.
A few examples of what Citi has been involved in .
CITI is creating a global economy with no rules its up to all of us to unite for an economy where principles come before corporate profits!
Demand that Citi go BEYOND THE BOTTOMLINE to stop investing in the destruction of the environment and communities around the world.
CITI is uniquely vulnerable to grassroots pressure because of their massive consumer presence and efforts to promote the Citi brandname.
They are terrified that the word will get out about their destructive
Practices. So let. s organize people to cut up their Citi credit cards, switch their student loans, cancel their accounts And confront Citi at their local branches! Together we can send a strong message that you won't do business with the world's most destructive bank!
- - - - - - - - - - - -
FOR MORE BACKGROUND INFO CHECK OUT
www.innercitypress.org/citi.html
- - - - - - - - - - - -
We want to hear from you with your questions, ideas, strategies, tactics or local research. To learn more, get involved, or endorse this campaign contact us:
NY - Beka Economopoulos beka@ran.org, 917-560-3609/888-840-6416 or
SF - Patrick Reinsborough organize@ran.org, 415-398-4404/800-989-RAIN
DON. T BE AFRAID TO THINK BIG. OUR TIMES DEMAND IT.
from Environment News Service March 8, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
BEETLES, HABITAT LOSS FORCE
RELOCATION OF ENDANGERED BIRDS
WINCHESTER, Kentucky, March 8, 2001 (ENS) - In a drastic
move aimed at
protecting a highly endangered species,
federal and state authorities
plan to begin relocating
endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers from
southern pine
beetle infested habitat on the Daniel Boone National
Forest in Kentucky as early as next week. The project will
remove all
remaining red-cockaded woodpeckers in the
state.
For full text and
graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-06.html
************************************************************
LAST SEEN 1918, AUSTRALIA'S
CRANBROOK PEA IS BACK
PERTH,
Australia, March 8, 2001 (ENS) - A plant presumed extinct for
more than 80 years has been rediscovered by a Western
Australian farmer.
For full
text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-10.html
************************************************************
INQUIRY LAUNCHED INTO LONDON'S
NUCLEAR TRAINS
LONDON, United
Kingdom, March 8, 2001 (ENS) - Nuclear waste transported
by rail through London is to be investigated in an inquiry
aimed at
discovering the level of radiation coming from
trains.
For full text and
graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-11.html
************************************************************
EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL PLAN
LACKS TARGETS, TIMETABLES
BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 8, 2001 (ENS) - Environment
ministers from
across Western Europe today launched a
concerted attack on the lack of
clear policy targets
and timetables for action in the European
Commission's
new proposal for a Sixth environment action Programme
(6EAP).
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-02.html
************************************************************
HIGH ALERT CALLED ON
TRAFFICKING IN WILD SPECIES
CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, March 8, 2001 (ENS) - Wildlife
poachers and
smugglers, beware! TRAFFIC has mapped out
a new three year strategy to
protect the most
endangered wildlife and fragile ecosystems from
predatory traders.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-01.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 8, 2001
$20 Million Pledged to Buy Back
StarLink Seed
Greenpeace
Cofounder Supports Biotech
Fisheries Service Approves Innovative Salmon Plan
PCBs in Spokane River Fish Call
For Caution
American Rivers:
Hydropower Industry Must Pay Its Share
Florida Gathers Seeds to Save Endangered Bromeliads
Puerto Rico Approves First
Caribbean Habitat Conservation Plan
Universal Makes $100,000 Brockovich Donation to UCLA
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-08-09.html
*******************************************************************
SEND NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
*********************************************************
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
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TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Land Rights Group
Supports Griles Interior Nomination
BATTLE GROUND, WA, Mar. 8
-/E-Wire/-- The American Land Rights
Association (ALRA)
today announced its support for President Bush's
nomination of Steve Griles to be Deputy Secretary of the
Department of
the Interior.
/CONTACT: Mike Hardiman
202-251-3473/
/Web site: www.landrights.org/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0111.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
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TO TRANSPORTATION, ENERGY AND
ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
Pickens
Fuel Corp., Ed Huestis of Vacaville Receive WestStart Blue Sky
Award
South
Coast Air Quality Management District Recognized With Blue Sky
Innovation Award
Merit Awards for Industry Leadership to Quantum
Technologies, Enova
Systems and the Southern California
Edison Electric Vehicle Fleet
PASADENA, CA, Mar. 8
-/E-Wire/-- Pickens Fuel Corp. and Ed Huestis,
transportation manager for the city of Vacaville, Calif.,
have won
WestStart's 5th Annual Blue Sky Award(TM) for
their marketplace
contributions to advanced, clean
transportation, specifically for their
efforts to get
more alternative fuel and electric vehicles on the road.
/CONTACT: Susan Romeo,
626/744-5600/
/Web site: www.calstart.org/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0110.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
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TO BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY AND
ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
Startech
Environmental Unveils First StarCell Hydrogen System At
Shareholders Meeting
WILTON, CT, Mar. 8 -/E-Wire/--
Startech Environmental Corp,
(Nasdaq: STHK), the world
leader in plasma waste remediation and
recycling
technology, unveiled its first commercially-sized StarCell(TM)
system for inspection by its shareholders at the Company's
annual
shareholder meeting yesterday. The system on
display, will produce about
30 cubic feet of hydrogen
per minute. The StarCell unit shown measures 2
feet wide
by 8 feet 6 inches long and is 6 feet 8 inches high.
/CONTACT: Robert L. DeRochie,
VP of Investor Relations of Startech
Environmental Corp,
203-762-2499, starmail@startech.net/
/Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/113537.html
or fax, 800-758-5804, ext. 113537/
/Web
site: www.startech.net/
For Full
Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0109.html
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TO ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
New Organization Formed to Protect
Winter Wildlands
Winter Wildlands Alliance Preserves the
Human-Powered Snow Sports
Experience
BOISE,
ID, Mar. 8 -/E-Wire/-- Snow sports enthusiasts today
announced the formation of Winter Wildlands Alliance, a new
national
nonprofit organization that preserves winter
wildlands and a quality
human-powered snow sport
experience on public lands. Formerly known as
the
Backcountry SnowSports Alliance, the Winter Wildlands Alliance
represents non-motorized winter recreationists and
wilderness activists
alike, and brings a national voice
to the need for separate use areas
and monitoring of
motorized regulations on public lands.
/CONTACT: Sally Grimes of
Winter Wildlands Alliance, 208-336-4203,
sally@winterwildlands.org/
/Web site:
www.winterwildlands.org/
For
Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0108.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Napier Environmental
Technologies Inc.: SARA is Presented to 'All Pro'
VANCOUVER, Canada, Mar. 8
-/E-Wire/-- Napier Environmental
Technologies Inc
(TSE:NIR. - news) is pleased to announce the launch of
its patented Selective Adhesive Release Agent Technology
(SARA) for the
Do-It-Yourself and retail market.
/CONTACT: Don Mosher,
604/801-6664 or Robert Carriere,
604/801-6664/
/Web
site: http://napierenvironmental.com
http://www.biowash.com/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0107.html
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TO BUSINESS TRANSPORTATION AND
ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
Cummins
and Westport Form Joint Venture
JV to Develop and Market Alternate Fuel Engines to Meet
Rapidly Growing
Demand
COLUMBUS, IN, and VANCOUVER,
Canada, Mar. 8 -/E-Wire/-- Cummins
Inc. (NYSE:CUM -
news) of Columbus, Indiana and Westport Innovations
Inc.
(TSE:WPT - news) of Vancouver, British Columbia announced today the
formation of a 50/50 joint venture (JV) to develop and
market
low-emissions, high performance natural gas
engines.
/CONTACT: Westport Alan
Bayless, 604/718-2016 Fax: 604/718-2001
E-mail:
abayless@westport.com or Cummins Dorothy Brown Smith,
812/377-7719 Fax: 812/377-3272 E-mail:
Dorothy.B.Smith@cummins.com/
/Web site: http://www.cummins.com
http://www.westport.com/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0106.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
NVID Receives U.S.
Letters Patent
Revolutionary Ionic Silver Antimicrobial
Technology
CLEARWATER, FL, Mar. 8
-/E-Wire/-- NVID International, Inc. (Pink
Sheets:NVID)
today announced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has
issued a U.S. Letters Patent on NVID's ionic silver
antimicrobial
technology Axenohl. The U.S. Letters
Patent No. 6,197,814 covers one of
multiple inventive
aspects of NVID's Axenohl antimicrobial technology.
/CONTACT: NVID International,
Inc. and Aqua Bio Technologies, Inc.
can be reached at:
Corporate Office: 28163 U.S. 19 N. Suite 302
Clearwater,
Florida 33761 Contact: David Larson Phone (727) 669-5005 x1,
Fax (727) 669-4701 e-mail dLarson@aquabiotech.com Sales
Office: 5153
Sandy Cove Avenue Sarasota, Florida 34242
Contact: Michael Redden Phone
(941) 312-9100 Fax (941)
312-9300 e-mail aquabiotech@home.com/
/Web site: http://aquabiotech.net/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0105.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
2001 Disaster-Recovery
Sourcebook Now Available
New,
2001 Edition of the Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages(tm)Begins
Shipment - Coincides with yet Another Disastrous Season
NEWTON, MA, Mar. 8 -/E-Wire/--
The updated, "New Century" 2001,
Edition of the Disaster
Recovery Yellow Pages(tm), by The Systems Audit
Group,
Inc. has begun shipping, coincidentally during one of the most
disastrous seasons in recent history.
/CONTACT: Steven Lewis
617-332-3496 DRYP@Javanet.com/
/Web site: http://www.DISASTER-HELP.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0104.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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TO BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY AND AUTO
EDITORS:
IMPCO Launches Next
Generation B2B Platform for Global Customers
-- Reduced order cycle times and improved customer service
seen as key
-- Internet B2B
focus as company moves globally
CERRITOS, CA, Mar. 8 -/E-Wire/-- IMPCO Technologies, Inc.
(Nasdaq: IMCO)
is the World's leading source of advanced
alternative fuel systems
technology and components for
internal combustion engines today
announced that the
company has launched its new business to business
online
ordering service for the company's global distribution network.
/CONTACT: Investor Relations,
Mr. Dale Rasmussen, 206-575-1594 ext.
0, or Media, Mr.
James S. Mitchell, 562-860-6666 ext. 116, both of IMPCO
Technologies, Inc./
/Web site: http://www.qtww.com
http://www.impco.ws/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0103.html
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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Environ.com and Ecolink
Announce Utility Partner Program Agreement;
Program's Latest Partner Reaches 85 Percent of the Nation's
Utilities
TEMPE, AZ, and Tucker GA, Mar.
8 -/E-Wire/-- Today, Environmental
Support Solutions
(Environ.com) and Ecolink announced an agreement
providing energy efficiency training to Ecolink's utility
clients
through Environ.com's Utility Partner Program.
/CONTACT: Robin Suzelis of
Environ.com, 480-346-5524,
robin_suzelis@environ.com; or
Brandon Pelissero of Ecolink,
800-886-8240,
bpelissero@ecolink.com/
/Web site: http://www.ecolink.com
http://www.environ.com/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0102.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Canfor and DynaMotive
Establish Alliance To Develop Commercial BioOil
Applications for the Forest Industry
VANCOUVER, Canada, Mar. 8
-/E-Wire/-- DynaMotive Technologies
Corporation (OTCBB:
DYMTF) and Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (CFP:TSE)
have
signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop commercial
applications for BioOil in the forest industry. The
announcement was
made at the official opening of
DynaMotive's new 10 tonne per day BioOil
pilot plant in
Vancouver, BC, Canada.
/CONTACT: DynaMotive
Technologies Corporation: Raymond McAllister,
Director,
Corporate Communications, Tel: 604-267-6000, Fax:
604-267-6005, Email: investor@dynamotive.com, For more
information in
Europe, contact: DynaMotive Europe
Limited, Antony Robson, Managing
Director, Tel:
44-0-20-7518-9380; Fax: 44-0-20-7518-9381, Email:
arobson@dynamotive.com; For US enquiries, contact:
DynaMotive
Corporation, James Acheson, Chief Operating
Officer, Tel: 323-460-4900,
Fax: 323-465-2617, Email:
jacheson@dynamotive.com; Canadian Forest
Products Ltd.:
Lee Coonfer, Manager, Corporate Communications, Tel:
604-661-5225, Fax: 604-661-5219, Email:
lcoonfer@mail.canfor.ca,
Website: www.canfor.com To
request a free copy of this organization's
annual
report, please go to www.newswire.ca and click on reports@cnw./
/Web
site: http://www.dynamotive.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/08Mar0101.html
************************************************************
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE --
1-888-764-NEWS
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from Natural Resources Defense Council March 9, 2001
Natural Resources Defense Council's
LEGISLATIVE WATCH
March 9, 2001
Contents:
1) Legislative Watch
2) About Our Bulletins/How to Subscribe & Unsubscribe
3) About NRDC/How to Contact Us
The information in this bulletin is
also available on our
website at http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/legwatch.asp. The
web version links to the text of bills and congressional web
pages. To take action on these and other environmental
issues, visit NRDC's Earth Action Center at
http://www.nrdc.org/action, where you can use our online
activism tools or subscribe to Earth Action, our
biweekly
activist bulletin.
1) LEGISLATIVE WATCH
This is a status report on congressional action on the
environment. To make new or updated sections easy to find,
we've highlighted them with:
= N
O T E ! =
3/8/01
For the last two weeks, Congress has
focused mainly on the
Bush administration's $1.6 billion
tax cut and the
Republican leadership's energy policy
legislation. The
president last week submitted his
proposed budget blueprint
to Congress, and also recently
announced a controversial
nominee to head the government
office that serves as the
gatekeeper for health and
environmental regulations.
...
Budget
= N O T E ! =
As the House and Senate budget committees begin work on
President Bush's proposed budget blueprint,
environmentalists are concerned that the committees may try
to include oil revenues from drilling in the Arctic
National
Wildlife Refuge in their budget projections.
The
appropriations process will go into full swing when
the
president submits his complete budget in early
April,
although the process may be delayed this year
because of
uncertainties surrounding the size of the tax
cut.
= N O T E ! =
The Bush administration's initial proposal cuts the
Environmental Protection Agency budget by more than 6
percent, and the Interior department budget by 3.9 percent,
from last year's funding levels. Global warming,
potentially
the most significant worldwide environmental
challenge, is
not addressed at all in the president's
proposed budget.
While oil and coal programs are slated
for huge increases,
energy efficiency programs have been
cut drastically, while
solar and other renewable energy
funding is tied to expected
revenues from drilling in
the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Funding cuts may
also severely jeopardize the
clean-up of contaminated
nuclear waste sites.
...
Clean Air and Energy
= N O T E ! =
On 3/6, the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee heard
from several congressional colleagues involved in energy
issues during the second in a series of hearings that
will
help shape a new House energy bill. On 2/28, the
subcommittee considered testimony on natural gas supply
and
distribution.
= N O T E ! =
On 2/28, the House
Science Committee, chaired by Rep.
Boehlert (R-NY), held
a hearing on improving renewable
energy sources and
energy efficiency programs. Rep. Boehlert
has stated his
goal this year is to ensure that renewable
energy and
energy efficiency become cornerstones of national
energy
policy.
= N O T E ! =
On 2/26, Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Republican
leadership's new energy bill (S. 389), which emphasizes
increasing the fossil fuel supply and opening the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The bill
contains only a few provisions to increase
energy-efficient
buildings and equipment, and fails to
adequately address the
need to decrease demand for
fossil fuels. The bill also
would effectively exempt
coal power plants from clean air
requirements and turn
over federal oil and gas leasing to
the states.
Environmentalists continue to mount strong
opposition to
this bill and any efforts to open the Arctic
National
Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, and Sen.
Kerry
(D-MA) promises to filibuster the bill if it includes
plans to drill in the refuge. The Senate has delayed
consideration of this bill for several weeks.
= N O T E ! =
On 1/30, Sen. Smith (R-NH) and Sen. Feinstein (D-CA)
introduced S. 207, which provides federal tax incentives for
energy efficiency improvements in new and existing
buildings. Implementing these tax incentives would reduce
pollution, promote economic growth and competitiveness,
and
save consumers and businesses tens of billions of
dollars.
The bill would also help ensure electricity
supply at peak
hours, preventing blackouts and
brownouts, and mitigate
increases in electricity prices
when supplies are tight.
On 2/8,
the Senate approved Sen. McCain's (R-AZ) pipeline
safety
bill (S. 235) by a vote of 98-0 despite the fact that
it
fails to provide adequate environmental protections.
Although a few changes were made to strengthen the bill,
including a requirement sponsored by Sens. Corzine (D-NJ),
Torricelli (D-NJ), Cantwell (D-WA) and Murray (D-WA)
that
requires pipeline inspections at five-year
intervals, the
Senate bill fails to include any of the
key protections
environmentalists believe are needed to
improve pipeline
safety. These provisions include
holding polluters liable
for releases, requiring
meaningful community right-to-know
data, and allowing
states to require stronger protections
for interstate
pipelines in their state than the federal
government
requires.
On 1/22, Sen.
McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Byrd (D-WV), from
two of the
biggest coal-producing states, introduced the
National
Electricity and Environmental Technology Act (S.
60),
designed to encourage utilities to use more coal by
waiving environmental standards that protect air quality. S.
60 effectively repeals Clean Air Act provisions that
require
new and modified coal-fired plants to meet
tougher pollution
control requirements and prohibit
increased levels of
pollution in or near national parks
or areas that fail to
meet air quality standards. By
granting coal-fired power
plants relief from Clean Air
Act requirements, the bill
could also undercut recent
government enforcement actions --
a dozen of which are
still pending -- that mandate new
pollution controls on
dirty power plants and assess
penalties worth over $3.5
billion on polluters.
NRDC's
report, A Responsible Energy Policy for the 21st
Century
(http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/rep/repinx.asp),
outlines the components of an alternative energy policy --
one that can meet the nation's energy needs without
destroying wilderness or rolling back environmental
safeguards.
...
Clean
Water
= N O T E ! =
On 2/28, the House Water Resources and Environment
Subcommittee held a hearing where state representatives
discussed two proposed new Clean Water Act regulations. The
first rule would improve the water quality of polluted
rivers, streams and lakes by strengthening the
requirements
on the amount of pollution that can flow
into degraded water
under the total maximum daily loads
program. The second set
of regulations seeks to address
pollution from large-scale
animal farms, called
concentrated animal feeding operations.
Environmental
groups support the goals of these regulations,
but would
like to see them strengthened.
Coasts and Oceans
On 2/14, Sens. Snowe (R-ME), McCain (R-AZ), Kerry (D-MA),
Hollings (D-SC), and Breaux (D-LA) introduced S. 328,
which
provides funds to states for the management of
coastal
areas. The most significant part of this bill
designates
funding to stem polluted coastal runoff, the
biggest water
quality problem facing shorelines and
coastal ecosystems.
However, the chairman of the House
Transportation Committee,
Rep. Young (R-AK), objects to
this coastal pollution program
and may try to eliminate
it when the House considers the
bill.
...
Public Health
= N O T E ! =
On 2/27, the
Environment and Public Works Committee held a
hearing on
S. 350, the Brownfields Revitalization and
Environmental
Restoration Act. Sens. Smith (R-NH), Chafee
(R-RI), Reid
(D-NV), and Boxer (D-CA) developed the popular
bipartisan bill, which provides increased funding and
authority to states to clean up former industrial sites
known as brownfields. This bill is identical to last year's
S. 2700, which was ultimately supported by 67 senators,
but
was blocked by Sen. Lott (R-MS) and Sen. Crapo
(R-ID). The
bill is scheduled to be moved out of
committee on 3/8. The
House Energy and Commerce
Committee also held a hearing on
brownfields on 3/7 and
may try to craft its own bill.
On 1/31, Rep. Boehlert (R-NY) introduced H.R. 324, the same
Superfund and brownfields bill that passed the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee during the last
Congress. (Superfund is the federal law that governs
seriously contaminated hazardous waste sites, while
brownfields are lesser contaminated sites.) The
environmental community objects to the bill because it would
result in lower clean-up standards at severely
contaminated
sites, slowing clean-up and increasing
litigation.
Environmentalists consider these
modifications unnecessary
because the Superfund program
has improved implementation
dramatically and is cleaning
up sites at a record pace.
Moreover, Superfund's
liability provisions are already well
defined, largely
as a result of past litigation over their
meaning.
With S. 223, Sen. Domenici (R-NM) is
attempting to overturn
the EPA's new drinking water
standard for arsenic, a human
carcinogen. The previous
arsenic standard, which was set in
1975 at 50 parts per
billion (ppb), was based on public
health data from
1942, and had never been revised until this
past winter,
when the EPA finally issued the new standard
requiring
that arsenic levels in drinking water be no higher
than
10 ppb. This new standard is based in part on a 1999
National Academy of Sciences report that found the old 50
ppb standard failed to protect public health.
...
Public Lands
= N O T E ! =
On 3/7, the House
Resources Committee held a hearing on
energy supplies
and federal lands, but questioned only
witnesses who
support increased drilling and mining on
federal lands.
Environmental groups object to easing
restrictions on
resource extraction in sensitive public
lands as 95
percent of Bureau of Land Management lands, and
91
percent of federal Rocky Mountain lands, are already open
to oil and gas drilling.
= N O T E ! =
On 2/28, key members
of both the House and Senate introduced
bipartisan
legislation to protect the coastal plain of the
Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling by
designating it a wilderness area. In the House, Rep. Johnson
(R-CT) and Rep. Markey (D-MA) introduced H.R. 770, which
now
has the support of 177 cosponsors. In the Senate,
Sen.
Lieberman (D-CT) introduced S. 411 with the support
of 24
senators, including Sen. Jeffords (R-VT) and Sen.
Chafee
(R-RI).
...
Regulatory Reform
= N O T E ! =
On 3/6, President Bush
nominated economist Dr. John Graham,
a long-time critic
of protective health, safety and
environmental
standards, to direct the Office of Information
and
Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and
Budget. Graham is the director of the Harvard Center for
Risk Analysis -- an industry-funded research group that is
paid to develop pro-industry positions on the regulatory
process. Health and environmental experts warn that, as
the
gatekeeper for all federal regulations, Graham would
use his
industry connections, controversial economic
analyses, and
ideological bias against strong regulatory
standards to
prevent new regulations that are protective
of public health
and the environment from being adopted.
On 1/3, Rep. Condit (D-CA)
introduced H.R. 54, which would
provide a new tactic to
block critical health and
environmental protections. By
doing little more than voicing
an objection, opponents
of environmental legislation would
be able to stop
provisions of bills that would impose costs
exceeding
$100 million on the private sector, without a
direct
vote on the substance of the bill. Worse yet, H.R. 54
focuses on the cost of legislation without any consideration
of its potential benefits.
On 1/31, Rep. Burton (R-IN) introduced the Small Business
Relief Act (H.R. 327), which contains overly broad and
burdensome obligations on federal agencies to annually
compile a list of each piece of information they have
requested from businesses. Because this requirement
would be
incredibly expensive and time-consuming, it
could be
virtually impossible for federal agencies to
comply without
severely disrupting their operations.
For information on the environmental
voting records of
members of Congress, see the League of
Conservation Voter's
National Environmental Scorecards
at
http://www.lcv.org/scorecards/index.htm
...........
2) About Our Bulletins/How to
Subscribe & Unsubscribe
NRDC
distributes three bulletins by email. To subscribe to
any or all of them or to join our activist networks, go to
http://www.join.nrdcaction.org/subscribe.asp. If you
already
subscribe and want to change your subscriptions
or update
your email address or other information, go to
http://www.join.nrdcaction.org/profileeditor (or see the
unsubscribe information below).
EARTH ACTION is sent biweekly and
calls out urgent
environmental issues requiring
immediate action. To
unsubscribe from Earth Action, send
an email message to
earthaction@nrdcaction.org with
REMOVE in the subject line.
LEGISLATIVE WATCH is sent biweekly when Congress is in
session and tracks environmental bills moving through the
federal legislature. To unsubscribe from Legislative
Watch,
send an email message to legwatch@nrdcaction.org
with REMOVE
in the subject line.
The CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST NETWORK
ACTION ALERT is distributed
bimonthly to members of
NRDC's California Activist Network
and provides action
tools to Californians and others
concerned with
protecting the state's natural resources and
the health
of its citizens. To unsubscribe, send an email
message
to wildcalifornia@nrdcaction.org with REMOVE in the
subject line.
...........
3) About NRDC/How to Contact Us
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a nonprofit
environmental organization with over 400,000 members
nationwide and a staff of scientists, attorneys and
environmental experts. Our mission is to protect the
planet's wildlife and wild places and ensure a safe and
healthy environment for all living things.
For more information about NRDC or
how to become a member of
NRDC, please contact us at:
Natural Resources Defense
Council
40 West 20th Street
NY,
NY 10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
General information: nrdcinfo@nrdc.org
Email subscription questions: nrdcaction@nrdc.org
http://www.nrdc.org
Also visit:
BioGems -- Saving
Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural
Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
from Defenders of Wildlife March 8, 2001
| BATTLE FOR ARCTIC REFUGE: Champions enter the fray |
| POLLUTERS ON PARADE: Industries line up at public trough |
| WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Don't 'drill in the cathedral' |
| TURNING BACK THE CLOCK: Bush targets environment |
| SILVER LININGS: Supremes brighten our day |
| ADOPT A POLAR BEAR: Help save polar bears' lives |
| WILDLIFE CALENDAR: Indian Ocean becomes whale nursery |
1.
BATTLE FOR ARCTIC REFUGE: Champions enter
the fray
At a news conference on the grounds of the nation's Capitol, leaders of the bipartisan group vowed to fight President Bush's oil-drilling plan with "any legislative weapon we possess." Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said, "To drill for oil in the Arctic refuge is like chopping down the California redwoods for firewood or capping Old Faithful for geothermal power." Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen told the media that concerned Americans already have sent 700,000 e-petitions to President Bush and Congress from our Web site, SaveArcticRefuge.org. Click here to see the sponsors of the wilderness bill: http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/arctic/bills.html In Alaska this week, the British oil giant BP spilled up to 5,800 gallons of a lubricant mixture at Prudhoe Bay . its third major spill this winter on the North Slope. "It shot straight up in the air, then the wind carried it some distance," BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell told the Anchorage Daily News. 2. POLLUTERS ON PARADE: Industries line up at public troughWith the eager support of the oil, timber and mining industries, Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska introduced his bill to drill in the Arctic refuge and dish out $21 billion in tax breaks to energy corporations. Even one of the senator's home-state newspapers, the Anchorage Daily News, couldn't resist pointing out that critics say the bill "serves industry a feast of subsidies and tax breaks while tossing table scraps to conservation." Oil-industry supporters are unleashing a slick $5 million campaign to sell the bill. They've already retained high-priced Washington lobbyists and PR agents to plot strategy. Murkowski himself reportedly will seek six-figure contributions from multinational oil corporations to fund the PR campaign. Click here to see the sponsors of Murkowski's bill. A new independent poll shows that by a 52-35 percent margin, Americans oppose drilling in the refuge. 3. WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Don't drill in the cathedral' From coast to coast this week, newspapers and their columnists joined the rising chorus against drilling in the Arctic refuge. The San Francisco Chronicle ridiculed Murkowski's bill: "Americans know the difference between industry pampering and energy policy." And under the headline "Drilling in the Cathedral," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, "We have not even begun to explore how just a little conservation, or a small, painless increase in energy efficiency, could relieve us from even thinking about risking one of the earth's most pristine environments." In the Boston Globe, Ellen Goodman asked, "How many times do we have to read that this wilderness will provide only 3.2 billion barrels over 10 years? That's what Americans use up in six months. We can save that much with modest changes in fuel efficiency." The Senate could vote on this issue within the next few weeks. Don't wait to take action. If you haven't already, join our massive on-line petition drive to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. Supporters have sent more than 700,000 e-mails and faxes to President Bush and Congress from our Web site SaveArcticRefuge.org. We've created a special animated video to help our campaign.To view the animation, click here: http://www.savearcticrefuge.org/video To join our growing on-line petition drive, click here: http://www.savearcticrefuge.orgDon't forget to forward the petition to your friends. 4. TURNING BACK THE CLOCK: Bush targets environment in budgetThe anticipated attack on America's environmental protection laws has begun. The first Bush budget whacks spending for all federal natural resource and environmental programs by a whopping 11 percent compared to the current year. "Clearly, this is a strategy to emasculate environmental protection by defunding it," Defenders President Schlickeisen said. The White House is heralding one place where the budget adds funding . $2 billion to fix up the national parks over the next five years. But the National Parks Conservation Association says nearly all that money would go to pave roads and refurbish buildings -- not to preserve natural treasures. Bush also provides $1 billion for research into solar, wind and other alternative energy sources, but there's a hitch . the money would come from leasing revenue from drilling in the Arctic refuge. 5. SILVER LININGS: Supremes brighten our dayThe U.S. Supreme Court handed a defeat to utilities and industry groups by refusing to overturn federal rules that reduce severe smog in big cities in the East. The EPA may now enforce regulations requiring a number of states to cut interstate drifting of air pollution from power plants. Here's another reason to breathe easier: EPA Administrator Christie Whitman has backed Clinton administration rules that reduce sulfur in diesel fuel. Whitman also said she believes global warming is real. We hear that Bush's State of the Union speech originally included a brief comment consistent with that, but it was yanked under pressure from special interests. 6. ADOPT A POLAR BEAR CUB TODAY -- and help save polar bears' lives!For polar bear cubs in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, life starts out as a nearly impossible challenge. Born in the frigid darkness of Arctic winter, cubs like "Snowflake" weigh just one pound at birth and are completely helpless, depending totally on their mother for the essentials of life -- their mother's body warmth and rich milk. You can help save the lives of cubs like Snowflake by becoming a polar bear cub sponsor today. To become a sponsor and make your polar bear cub adoption official, just click here: http://www.defenders.org/adopt/polarbear.
You'll receive your very own polar bear cub adoption action kit, including fact sheets on polar bears and the impact that drilling in the Arctic refuge will have on their homes, and a huggable plush polar bear cub of your own. Or give the gift of life to cubs like Snowflake by giving a special child, grandchild, or friend who loves wildlife the gift of polar bear sponsorship. Help us save the lives of cubs like Snowflake -- and their Arctic refuge home! 7. WILDLIFE CALENDAR: Indian Ocean becomes whale nursery Every March off the coast of Sri Lanka, the warm waters of the Indian Ocean become an oasis for sperm whales and their newly born calves. Accompanied by a 45-ton mature male, the female whales and their offspring usually convene in groups of up to 20 for added protection from predators, such as killer whales and sharks. Sperm whales have the longest pregnancies of all whales -- babies are carried for about 15 months! Often swimming underneath their mother's large tail, the youngster spends two or three years with her before striking out its own. Due to the long periods of pregnancy and weaning, females give birth only every four to six years.DENlines is a bi-weekly publication of Defenders of Wildlife, a leading national conservation organization recognized as one of the nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and its habitat. It is known for its effective leadership on endangered species issues, particularly predators such as brown bears and gray wolves. Defenders also advocates new approaches to wildlife conservation that protect species before they become endangered. Founded in 1947, Defenders is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with more than 400,000 members and supporters. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to denlines@defenders.org and put the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Defenders of Wildlife 1101 14th Street, N.W. Suite 1400 Washington, DC 20005 Copyright Defenders of Wildlife 2001 |
from Environment News Service March 9, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
EU PROBED AS GERMAN WETLANDS
SAGA GETS MURKIER
BRUSSELS,
Belgium, March 9, 2001 (ENS) - In seeking to promote Airbus
Industrie's expansion plans, did the German government
unduly influence
the European Commission by asking it to
exempt important wetlands from
international protection?
A Swedish Member of the European Parliament is
trying to
find out.
For full text and
graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-09-11.html
************************************************************
OFF ROAD VEHICLES CREATE
CONFLICT IN CALIFORNIA
By Cat
Lazaroff
DAVIS, California,
March 9, 2001 (ENS) - Many public lands in
California,
ranging from national forests to wilderness areas, are
becoming too damaged - and in some cases too dangerous - for
the public
to enjoy, finds a first of its kind report.
The study by the California
Wilderness Coalition blames
dirt bikes and other off road vehicles for
damaging and
despoiling the state's public lands.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-09-06.html
************************************************************
LANDSLIDES THREATEN MACHU
PICCHU, WARNS GEOLOGISTS
MACHU
PICCHU, Peru, March 9, 2001 (ENS) - Machu Picchu, the ancient
Incan fortress in the Peruvian Andes, is in imminent danger
of being
destroyed by landslides, according to Japanese
geologists.
For full text and
graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-09-10.html
************************************************************
RECORD FLOODS CLAIM SEVEN LIVES
IN UKRAINE
KIEV, Ukraine, March
9, 2001 (ENS) - Rapidly melting snow and heavy rain
caused the Tisza River and its tributaries to rise to record
levels,
provoking some of the worst flooding in Central
Europe in decades. Wide
areas in the river basin region
common to Hungary, Romania and Ukraine
have been
affected, forcing whole communities from their homes.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-09-01.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 9, 2001
Lead Exposure at Work Impairs Mind,
Body
Brownfields Legislation
Passes Senate Committee
Former
Reagan Interior Official to Serve Again
Settlement Will Reduce Lake Okeechobee Pollution
Tests Find Biotech Ingredients in
Kellogg's Products
Western
Governors Support Energy Development on Public Lands
Shareholders Challenge BP Amoco Over Arctic Drilling
Minnesota Protects Millionth Wooded
Acre
For full text and graphics,
visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-09-09.html
*******************************************************************
SEND NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
***********************************************************************
ENVIRONMENTAL
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT!
***********************************************************************
The School for Field Studies seeks a Program
Dean. Job Summary: The
purpose of this
position is to oversee the delivery of the academic
programs at three of the SFS field Centers in order to
ensure that they
meet the mission of the School.
Job title: Program Dean
Find out more by going here:
http://www.naturalist.com/eco-jobs/index.cfm?temp=job&job=3175
Courtesy
of EnviroNetwork.com
The
leading job network for environmental professionals.
************************************************************************
www.EnviroNetwork.com
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Loureiro Engineering
Associates, Inc. (LEA) Plans To Sell Three
Prefabricated
Buildings
PLAINVILLE, CT, Mar. 9
-/E-Wire/-- LEA is selling three movable
buildings that
are currently being used for the treatment of soils. Each
building is a prefabricated tension membrane structure
manufactured as a
stand-alone building by RUBB Building
Systems of Sanford, Maine.
/CONTACT: Scott A. Miller of
Loureiro Engineering Associates, Inc.
at (860)
747-6181./
/Web site: http://www.LoureiroEngineering.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/09Mar0101.html
************************************************************
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE --
1-888-764-NEWS
*********************************************************
from Coalition to Protect Predators March 10, 2001
Folks, Perhaps this bill will give some additional insight
on the Minnesota
legislature ...Recently we battled a
"County coyote bounty" which was
illegal
... note the solution ....the Minnesota legislature
just
introduced a bill.. allowing counties to have a
bounty !!! If anyone out
there still
thinks the State of Minnesota will uphold an honorable
management plan for the wolf, think again .. and
remember the new wolf law
passed last year includes a
150 dollar "predator payment " you just have
to get a "permit" for this kind of bounty .. like the old
Directed Predator
Control Program . .
And they
wonder why we fear the State getting control over the wolf.
Karlyn
Finseth, Westrom and Peterson introduced:
H. F. No. 1469, A bill for an act relating to agriculture;
establishing a
coyote conflict management option for
counties; proposing coding for new law
in Minnesota
Statutes, chapter 348.
The bill was read for the first
time and referred to the Committee on
Environment and
Natural Resources Policy
H.F No.
1469, as introduced: 82nd Legislative Session (2001-2002) Posted on
Mar 8, 2001
1.1 A
bill for an act
1.2 relating
to agriculture; establishing a coyote
1.3 conflict
management option for counties; proposing
1.4 coding
for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 348.
1.5 BE IT ENACTED BY THE
LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
1.6 Section
1. [348.125] [COYOTE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT OPTION.]
1.7 A county
board may, by resolution, offer a bounty for the
1.8 destruction of coyotes
(Canis latrans). The resolution may be
1.9 made applicable to the
whole or any part of the county. The
1.10 bounty must apply during the
months specified in the resolution
1.11 and be in an amount determined
by the board.
from Rainforest Action Network March 11, 2001
In this Post -
1. Bloomberg : Citi
execs "Live Richly" with huge Bonuses
2. ACTION! Citi
helps drives Indonesian orangutans to extinction
3.
Business Week : Citibank conquers Asia
SPREAD THE WORD - April 11th Day of
Action Against Citigroup! For
organizing materials and
to connect your local action with the
growing network
Contact beka@ran.org or organize@ran.org
* * * * * *
#1
Citigroup Paid Weill $127.8 Mln, Rubin Got $45.3 Mln
By Vernon Silver
New York, March 2 -- Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S.
financial
services company, paid Chairman and Chief
Executive Sanford Weill
$127.8 million in salary, bonus,
stock and stock options in 2000, the
company said in a
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Robert
Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who is chairman of
Citigroup's executive committee, was paid $45.3 million in
stock,
cash and stock options in 2000. Rubin, 62, who
joined the company in
1999, did not exercise any stock
options. Rubin's pay was up from the
$21.4 million he
made for working a little more than two months in
1999.
#2 CITIGROUP'S INVESTMENTS DRIVE ORANGUTAN'S
CLOSER TO
EXTINCTION
The Business week article below profiles Citigroup's
aggressive
expansion into the Asian market and
particularly the ways the company
exploited the human
suffering of the Asian crash in Indonesia.
Citigroup has a long track record of underwriting
destructive
activity in Indonesia and the story of what
is happening to
Indonesian's forests, wildlife and local
communities is a clear
example of why we must re-write
the rules of the global economy to
include environmental
and human rights protections.
In
the last twelve years, Indonesia has lost over forty-two million
acres of tropical forest, the primary reason for this is the
rapid
growth of palm plantations to produce palm oil for
export.
Throughout the 1990s, nearly
500,000 acres were converted to palm oil
plantations
each year. Big investors like Citigroup have been eager
to finance the destruction. In total investors
have applied for the
release of nearly fifty million
acres for oil palm development, an
area equaling
one-tenth of Indonesia's total land base.
Oil palm plantations have become an increasing problem for
the
people, the wildlife, and the environment of
Indonesia. Scientists
estimate that over the last decade
the population of wild orangutans
has declined by nearly
fifty percent. A recent study by the Bronx
Zoo's Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) concludes that
unless
poaching and habitat destruction are stopped
Indonesia's orangutan
population will be extinct within
a decade. Orangutans are the only
great ape in Asia and
are among humanities closing living relatives.
Citi is involved with one of the most notorious palm oil
companies,
London Sumatra (LonSum). The
company is currently in the process of
clearing and
planting 372,000 acres of new palm oil plantations,
despite resistance from local indigenous
communities. To the many
indigenous peoples
who survive by harvesting renewable, non-timber
resources such as rubber, fruit, honey, and medicinal
plants the
destruction of the rainforests for
palm plantations means the end of
their way of
life. There have been many reports that LonSum uses
members of the armed forces and local government officials
to
intimidate local people to sell their land and there
is a growing
protest movement against the
company. LonSum has also been
repeatedly
accused on setting forest fires as a tactic for seizing
land. In 1997 and 1998 fires scorched twenty-five
million acres of
land in the provinces of Sumatra and
Kalimantan causing massive smog
that affected the health
of seventy million people across Southeast
Asia. . The
Indonesian authorities acknowledge that plantation
companies-who use fire as a cheap and quick means of land
clearing-are in large part responsible for the fires.
Citigroup began financing LonSum
in 1994 and has been involved in
syndicated loans (with
other banks) amounting to over $300 million
dollars. As of February of 2000 LonSum begin
defaulting on its debts
and now creditors like Citigroup
have an unprecedented opportunity to
change the
destructive policies of companies like LonSum.
Let Citigroup know that you want them to stop funding
rainforest
destruction in Indonesia. Call and
ask them what are they doing to
help protected
Indonesian's endangered orangutan population? Ask
them what the social and environmental standards they apply
to their
lending, financing and trading? Tell
them to go BEYOND THE
BOTTOMLINE and STOP FUNDING
DESTRUCTION!
Call :
*Director of Public Affairs Mark Rogers
1-718-248-1092 (direct line)
*General Switchboard
1-800-756-7047
*Cardholder line 1-800-950-5114
Email : investorrelations@citi.com
Write :
Sandy Weill, CEO
Citigroup Center
153 E. 53rd St
NY,
NY 10043
For more
information on Citi's activities in Indonesia see
<http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/citigroup/04102000-2.html>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Business Week February 26, 2001
International -- Finance: Banking
Citibank Conquers Asia
(international edition)
How the U.S. giant turned crisis
into huge business
In May, 1998,
Jakarta was smoldering. Mobs had just toppled President
Suharto. Indonesia's wealthy ethnic Chinese had left the
country, and
most foreign bankers had fled with them.
But Simon Williams, the head of
Citibank's Asian retail
business, did just the opposite, flying in
from his
plush Singapore office to Jakarta to plot strategy with local
consumer-banking manager Barry Lesmana. Citi temporarily
shut its
Jakarta branches, but a skeleton staff at the
heavily guarded Grand Hyatt
Jakarta kept cash machines
and electronic-payment systems operating.
Meanwhile, at
Singapore airport, where many middle-class Indonesian refugees
landed, Citi staffers greeted them with placards reading
``Citibank Will Help You.
Come Here!'' Many
responded--and opened accounts on the spot.
Violence gripped Jakarta long after that. But in
the weeks that
followed, Williams and Lesmana strolled
the streets, dressed in jeans and T-
shirts to deflect
mob attention, and scouted possible branch sites. Taking
advantage of liberal new bank rules, Simon and Lesmana
signed leases for 61
branches, most the size of a public
rest room--enough to accommodate an ATM and an
attendant. Smart move. The number of accounts rose 300% from
1998 to
1999; most were opened by upscale Indonesians
leery of local banks. Citi
earned a 100% return on its
$10 million investment in the new branches in
their
first 12 months in operation.
``OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND BELIEF.'' In an environment that most
saw as a
wasteland, Citigroup's retail-banking arm
boldly went after new business.
That kind of daring has
paid off across Asia. The U.S. bank has
expanded in the
region more rapidly than any other big foreign institution, and
its Asian operations are stronger three years after Asia's
economic meltdown
than they were before. ``Sometimes,
when an economy is under the most stress,
you get
presented with the biggest opportunities,'' says Citigroup Vice-
Chairman William R. Rhodes.
That's what Williams found out. When Citibank
asked him to run its
Asian retail business in early
1997, the 43-year-old Briton didn't suspect
the
challenge ahead. Booming Asia was an easy market for the elite brands
and upscale services that the group had offered well-to-do
Asians for
decades. ``It was simply all about growth,''
recalls Williams, who was chief
executive of GE Capital
Fleet Services in Brussels when he joined Citi. The
crisis that rocked Asia for the next two years left Williams
with few rosy
notions about his new job. But under him,
Citibank's retail unit scavenged
everything from
collapsed property markets to floundering Asian banks, poaching staff
and customers. Far from fleeing Asia's crisis, Citi invested
more than
$200 million and opened 74 branches in eight
countries. ``The crisis gave
us opportunities that were
beyond belief,'' says Frits Seegers, Williams'
second in
command, who is based in Tokyo.
Those investments are paying off. Today, 10.9
million Asian
residents hold Citi savings accounts. The
number of credit card accounts has doubled
since 1995,
to 7 million. That makes it the region's largest credit-card
issuer, followed by Standard Chartered Bank PLC of London
and HSBC, its two
big Asian rivals. In the downturn of
1997 and 1998, Citi's aftertax retail-
banking profits
in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes Japan and
Australia, fell an average of 11% per year--a modest figure,
given the adverse
conditions.
But by 1999, they had rebounded 15.6%, to $443 million, and
last year
they grew 58.5%, to $702 million, on revenues
of $2.8 billion. The profit
recovery makes Asia Citi's
fastest-growing region for retail banking,
surpassing
even North America, where aftertax profits rose 42%. Another bellwether,
the level of troubled consumer loans for Citibank in Asia
outside Japan, fell
24% from 1999, when they were still
at crisis level.
In
Japan, meanwhile, Citibank is growing wealthy off consumers'
anxieties. Scared by reports of shaky local banks, wealthy
Japanese savers are
shifting their money to the U.S.
behemoth. Citibank's retail-bank earnings in
Japan shot
up 94% in the fourth quarter and 60% in 2000, to $139 million.
That's 20% of regional profits. Deposits were $13.9 billion
as of December,
and Citibank Japan Chief Executive
Seegers sees 25% to 30% annual growth
in the years
ahead. ``Many customers view us as a relatively secure bank,''
Seegers comments tactfully. Still, growth won't come as
easily in the near
future. Japanese banks are catching
on to the idea of service. And Citi has
caught flak for
slow processing of new accounts and 20-minute waits on the
phone to convert currency, problems the bank says it's
addressing.
Citibank's closest competitor, Standard
Chartered, has also tried
to use the crisis as a
springboard. John Lorimer, head of consumer credit at
Standard Chartered in Singapore, insists his bank has done
as well as
Citi. But its numbers from the past few years
are unconvincing. Analysts
estimate that SC's Asian
consumer business earned about $400 million in pretax
profits--about 55% of Citi's aftertax profits--in 2000.
Before the
crisis, banks in Asia, including Citi, used
the top local bank as a
benchmark, says Wanna
Matanachai, Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s Singapore-based bank analyst.
Today, he says, ``Citibank is the benchmark.''
Will Citi keep it up
even if Asia has another downturn--a likely
scenario,
given Japan's problems and the U.S. slowdown? Williams doesn't expect
the worst, but he could handle it. This year, he expects
that Asian retail
aftertax profits will grow more than
15%, exceeding Citigroup's
target for emerging markets
worldwide. Asian retail revenue will grow more than
20%.
``Credit costs have been brought down. Our collection
processes are
better,'' he says. ``The downside is that
you have more volatility. You have to
deal with it. I'm
confident we're more prepared.'' Citi is now positioning
itself to offer consumer banking in China and Vietnam when
those markets
open up.
How did Citi make its bet pay off? First, it
avoided takeovers of
problem banks. And it set its
sights on wealthy Asians who could keep
balances of
$100,000 to $3 million. They number about 1.7 million, says a May,
2000, report issued by Merrill Lynch & Co. and Gemini
Consulting. Citibank
officials cringe at the idea that
their Asian success is built on
capital flight. Instead,
they say, clients fled to quality.
A REASSURING IMPRESSION. Indonesia was the model. A pioneer
in the
Indonesian credit-card business, Citi knew that
plenty of Indonesians preserved
their wealth through the
crisis, but needed accommodation. It lowered
minimum
deposit rates and cut the salary requirements to qualify for a credit
card. Its share of the credit-card market is now up from 40%
to 42%. The
bigger branch network gave the reassuring
impression of a greatly expanded
Citibank presence--even
though 54 of the 61 new outlets opened in April, 1999,
consist only of an ATM, a special phone for remote banking,
a self-service
passbook printer, and an attendant's
desk. Not much. But it kept costs down and
helped
encourage remote banking, another Citi priority.
Citi now has new branches in most Asian
capitals. Though the goal
is to encourage remote banking
to free up staff for marketing, there's
plenty of
hand-holding for the affluent. In Hong Kong, Danny Liu, head of
consumer banking, is in charge of recruiting clients. In
January, 1999, he
opened two branches decorated entirely
with the gold carpets and varnished
woodwork of the
Citigold ``priority-banking lounges'' that are tucked away in the
corners of regular Citibank branches. In the new facilities,
customers with
less than $100,000 in assets are politely
shown the door. ``Relationship
managers''--attractive
women who handle low-end private-banking
clients--show
desired customers in. Bankers not only take regular deposits, they
also sell Salomon Smith Barney mutual funds and other
Citicorp products, an
area where sales have boomed, to
$8 billion in 2000 vs. only $1.8 billion in
1996.
Having snared the top
market share for foreign banks in Asia,
Citibank is on
the lookout for its next big target. The most tempting: China.
Citibank now does scant business there. Its corporate income
in China is one-
fifth that of Korea, and its retail
business consists of little more than
five ATMs in
Beijing and Shanghai. Under China's World Trade Organization
agreement, the Beijing government has agreed to allow
full-service branches
within five years. ``Then the
retail business will grow at a much faster rate
than
that of the corporate bank,'' says Stephen H. Long, executive vice-
president and Asia-Pacific group head of Citibank in Hong
Kong. To date, the only
place Citibank has found itself
playing catch-up in consumer banking is in
Hong Kong,
where HSBC, which has 200 branches to its 19, has aggressively
adopted a version of its Citigold service. In January, 1999,
Citi launched a
counteroffensive, and has since boosted
the Citigold customer base by
138%.
EMBARRASSING CLIENTS. Citibank's
Asian adventure isn't an unqualified
success. The $5
million iCard experiment, a Web-based Visa card
launched
in Australia in 1999, hasn't caught on. And given corruption in Asia,
Citi's appeal to the wealthy has inevitably lured
embarrassing clients, such
as Joseph Estrada, who was
ousted as President of the Philippines in
January after
revelations that he and his wife had nearly $3 million in
Citibank accounts in Manila. Then there are the potential
repercussions of a
U.S. slowdown.
Still, Citibank has
established its franchise so well that local
banks admit
its name carries more resonance than theirs --even with those
who can't afford its services. Singapore-based UOB Bank
recently purchased
Radanasin Bank in Thailand. ``Most
Thais would never have heard of UOB, but
they would have
heard of Citibank,'' Sim Puay Suang, an executive vice-president
at UOB, ruefully admits. Cheer up, Mrs. Sim. Citibank gives
you something to
aim for.
By Michael Shari in Singapore, with Brian Bremner in Tokyo,
Heather
Timmons in New York, and Becky Gaylord in Sydney
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
from the Green Party March 11, 2001
Green Party of New York State E-News Vol. 1, No. 4, March
11, 2001
In this issue:
1. Introduction
2. Action and Activity alerts
(AAAs)
·
·
·
·
·
3.
Meetings and Events
Downstate
·
·
Upstate
·
·
·
·
4. Featured Local: Lower East
Side Greens, NYC
5. News, News
Links, Resources
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
1.
Welcome to another issue of the
Green Party of New York State's E-News! Our goal is to update greens
across the state about important issues, news, events, and resources. We hope
you will find E-News informative and entertaining. We welcome your comments,
contributions and assistance. Send your news, events, and Alerts for
the next
issue to Cathy Sadell at csadell@prodigy.net and let
us know if you would like to help write the next issue.
Note that E-News will print letters to the editor from Greens, Nader supporters,
and people with something interesting to say. Deadline for submissions to next
issue: Monday, March 26, 2001. If you would prefer not to receive the
newsletter, please notify Masada Disenhouse at masada@akula.com. To learn more about the Greens in New
York or to contact your local Green chapter please visit www.greens.org/ny.
2.
Sign a
Petition to UNCSD: Nuclear Not Sustainable!
From 16
-27 April the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) convenes in New
York. One of the issues on the agenda for its ninth session (hence CSD 9) will
be energy and sustainability. Countries report to the Commission on the progress
made, and the Commission advises the UN and its Member States on how to achieve
sustainable development in the 21st century. A sustainable future obviously does
not include nuclear power. However, the CSD apparently needs a robust reminder
of this. This month, the CSD Energy Expert group convenes to prepare CSD9. The
energy experts have issued a draft report taking a rather pro-nuclear stance. If
an authoritative institute such as the CSD continues to refuse to label nuclear
as NOT sustainable, this would be a trump card in the hands of the nuclear
lobby. The latter recently keeps trying to present nuclear power as sustainable,
and even as a tool to combat climate change.
WISE Amsterdam in collaboration with Helio International,
Earthday Network and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) have
therefore launched a petition, urging CSD not to consider nuclear a sustainable
source of energy, and in stead work in the spirit of the Rio Declaration towards
a sustainable future. The petition can be signed online by organizations at www.antenna.nl/wise/csd. Please spread this message to other
lists, NGOs, and individuals. See http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/globalwarming2.html for reasons why Nuclear Power Plants [NPPs] are NOT the
solution to global warming.
Green City
Council Candidate Joins Lawsuit to Protect Public Campaign Funding
New York
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to end the 4-to-1
Campaign Finance Matching Program that many Green City Council candidates are
depending on. If Giuliani wins, we will lose our chance at matching funds and
running viable races. But we are fighting back: Green candidate Craig Seeman was
recently contacted by the Brennan Center for Justice (they represented Ralph
Nader in several Ballot Access cases during his presidential campaign) and asked
to join a counter-suit against Giuliani, which Seeman did. The suit already
involves the Campaign Finance Board but the Brennan Center is also asking
affected candidates to intervene. Although there are several major party
candidates intervening, the Brennan Center felt that the Green Party represents
a position that is different than that of the major parties. The Brennan Center
will represent Seeman pro bono. For more
information about the lawsuit and New York. s Campaign Finance Matching Program,
contact Craig Seeman at (718) 797-0045. Green locals
who want to sign a online group letter to City Council Speaker Peter Vallone
protesting Giuliani. s undemocratic attack on public campaign financing can go
to the NYPIRG web site, www.nypirg.org/goodgov/group.html.
Attend a Hearing on Air Quality and
Toxic Waste
In a continuing effort to prevent solid wastes such as
shredded tires, municipal solid waste and creosoted wood from becoming regularly
utilized as fuels at stationary combustion facilities in New York State, the St.
Lawrence River Valley Greens recently met with Assembly Member for the 112th
District, Dierdre K. Scozzafava. As a result of this contact, an opportunity to
discuss the legality of alternative fuel use with NYS DEC is now being arranged.
Our group believes that DAR-3, the Division of Air Resources policy guidance
that underpins DEC approval of industry requests to burn solid wastes,
interferes seriously with the purposes of the Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Conservation
Committee of the NY State Assembly exerts a measure of control over NYS DEC.
Chairman Richard Brodsky has agreed to discuss the damaging impacts of DAR-3 on
the State's air quality. This meeting will occur on March
13th at the LOB in Albany. Any Green Party member interested in attending
can contact us for details. We would also value hearing from Greens who have
information on solid waste fueled cogenerators, industrial combustors, etc.
operating in their area. Help eliminate DAR-3 from the fuel choice avenues
available to NY State industries. For more information, contact: Don
Hassig, St. Lawrence River Valley Greens, canceraction@hotmail.com
GMO Lobby Day Rescheduled for April
3
The GMO Lobby Day (on genetic engineering)
originally scheduled for March 6, 2001 was rescheduled for Tuesday, April 3rd,
location TBA. We are looking for people to bring costumes for the media event on
April 3rd. You can register for April 3rd with Dunleamark@aol.com, or call 518
286 3411.
Greens will join a
coalition of environmental, food safety and agricultural reform groups
conference to urge New York State legislative leaders today to pass legislation
requiring a five-year moratorium on the planting of genetically modified crops
in New York State, and labeling of milk with the recombinant Bovine Growth
Hormone.
3.
DOWNSTATE:
Celebration of Earth Day at United Nations,
March 20 2001, NYC
At exactly 8:31 AM EST on March 20 (the precise moment of
the Vernal Equinox), the Peace Bell will be rung on the grounds of the United
Nations. Similar "Peace Bells" will also be rung at the exact same moment in
many other places around the world. Attending will be the usual assemblage of
environmentalists, national and international representatives and other
interested parties. The originator of Earth Day will also be there.
The United Nations still marks Earth
Day on March 20, the original Earth Day, started by environmentalist, John
McConnell, with the help of Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist. Though it
is commonly misreported that the first Earth Day occurred on April 22, 1970, it
actually occurred one month previously, as noted by major newspapers in late
March of that year. The following year, 1971, UN Secretary Genral U Thant
officially declared the
March Equinox, "Earth Day."
The original purpose of Earth Day
was to serve as an international holiday that people of every national,
political, racial and religious background could celebrate together. This is why
it was intended to be on March 20 (or March 21, depending on the year) for that
is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and
the first day of Fall in the Southern Hemisphere. Unlike New Year, the Vernal
Equinox takes place at the exact same moment all over the world and, being an
astronomical event, is irrelevant to national boundaries, religious beliefs or
political agendas.
Celebrating
Earth Day on the Vernal Equinox was meant to demonstrate that there is something
all people share and to which all should have equal right and responsibility --
Earth. Though they have been asked many times to stop and though they have
refused every time, there has been little explanation from April 22 organizers
and their sponsors for why they continue to promote Earth Day on a different
day.
Green Party members and
others who would like to attend the Peace Bell ceremony can call 212-593-3677.
Attendance requires an official
UN Pass, which means going through a security check that takes (if the process
is the same as last year) at least 24 hours. First, one must call the number I
gave to put your name on the list, then, you must go to a location across the
street from the UN with a photo ID to apply for your pass. Then, you must wait
the allotted time and return to get your pass.
Fortunately, there will also be a reception that is open to
the general public. It will take place on the 2nd floor of the UN Church Center,
777 UN Plaza. It is not on the actual grounds of the UN and requires no special
security clearance. It starts at 9 AM and continues until 6 PM.
Contacts:
Mary Carlin, Director, Earth Society Foundation
John
McConnell, Earth Day Founder, Director, Earth Trustees, Inc.
New York City
Candidates Forum, April 2 2001, NYC
The Puffin Room is hosting a mayoral forum for
Democratic Party mayoral candidates Mark Green, Jose Ferrer, Alan Hevesi and
Peter Vallone on April 2nd at 7:00 p.m. The co-sponsors are the Downtown
Independent Democrats and The Village Reform Democrats, two Democratic
political clubs. Greens are encouraged to attend to hear what the Democrats are
saying and to raise issues of concern.
For more information: puffinroom@earthlink.net
UPSTATE:
Drop the Rock: Lobby Day on the Rockefeller
Drug Laws, March 27 2001, Albany
Join Greens and others to lobby legislators
about the Drug Laws. Tell them the discrimination, harsh sentencing and
conditions, and continued growth of the prison industry can. t go on!
From the Drop the Rock Web Page: www.droptherock.org
The Time is Now to Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The
Rockefeller Drug Laws are wasteful, unjust, ineffective, and racially biased.
Enacted in 1973 when Nelson Rockefeller was governor, the Rockefeller Drug Laws
require harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small
amounts of drugs. The harshest provision of this statute mandates that a judge
impose a prison term of no less than 15 years to life for anyone convicted of
selling 2 ounces or possessing 4 ounces of a narcotic substance. The penalties
apply without regard to the circumstances of the offense or the individual's
character or background, making it irrelevant whether the person is a first-time
or repeat offender.
On Tuesday,
March 27th, people from around New York State will gather in Albany for DROP THE
ROCK DAY, a Day of Education and Action, to demand that policy makers repeal the
Rockefeller Drug Laws.
You can
play an active role in building for the Drop the Rock Day. Invite us to send a
speaker to your community organization, school, religious center, union or any
other group; get a set of our organizing materials and help spread the word;
join the list of Drop the Rock endorsers; help put together a group to travel to
Albany on March 27th.
Buses are available from NYC and other locations. Contact
Masada, masada@akula.com for more information.
Winona LaDuke to Speak in Upstate New York, March 29 Geneseo
College
Geneseo College Greens report that that 2000 Green Party VP
candidate Winona LaDuke will be speaking on the Geneseo College campus, Thursday
March 29th at 730 PM. Mark this on your calendars! Geneseo is about an hour
south of Rochester.
Green
Community/Student Conference at SUNY Albany, March 31, Albany
Green
groups in the Capital District, including Campus Greens, are sponsoring a
community / student Green conference at SUNY Albany on Saturday March 31st. We
would love any other Greens from around the state to participate. We are also
looking for additional workshop leaders (e.g., Green history and philosophy;
organizing a Green local). We particularly invite participation and sponsorship
from other green groups in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, North Country and 1-88
corridor. The conference has three tracks: training on how to run as a Green
Party candidate; building the Campus Greens; and, issue workshops. We will also
have a workshop on how to start and build a Green local. I hope that other
greens around the state will be interested in organizing their own local
conferences. With enough advance notice, I am willing to travel to other parts
of the state to assist with the workshops on how to run as a Green Party
candidate. The agenda is still in formation; some of the workshop leaders listed
below are proposed rather than committed. Contact Mark Dunlea, Dunleamark@aol.com.
Building a Green America -- Organizing Following the Bush
Coup d'etat
Learn about the Green Movement
Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM
SUNY Albany (1400 Washington Ave, uptown campus)
Campus Green Organizing ; Green Philosophy and History;
Training Workshops on Running As a Green Candidate; Fundraising; Media Issue
Organizing: Electoral reform, Globalization, Genetic Engineering, Military
Budget, Children, Green History, The Drug War, Green City Project, Independent
Media, Green-Labor, Social Entrepreneurial, How to Do Civil Disobedience, Sprawl
and Poverty, Think Globally, Act Locally
Free - Public
Welcome For more information, call the Greens 286-3411 or Campus Green
283-5987
No More Candy
Store: How Corporations Get a Sweet Deal on Your Tax Dollars & Sour the
Environment - A Corporate Accountability Conference & Carnival
May 6
& 7, 2001 in Albany, NY
Including : Sweatshop
Campaigns, WTO Protests, Unsafe Working Conditions, Genetically Modified
Organisms, Corporate Welfare Abuse, Polluter Cleanups
Join labor, environmental, student & social justice
activists from across NY to build the movement, publicize our issues & have
fun! We need creative people to help with a fun media event! The Corporate
Welfare Carnival features such booths as the Corporate Welfare Wheel of
Misfortune and more! (Contact us for a full list and a chuckle). Agenda
includes: Outreach, Workshops, Carnival Booths, Draft Conference Brochure, Group
Sponsors, Possible Concert and Fundraising. The event is sponsored by
labor, environmental, student, social justice and community groups, including
over 20 groups in the NYS Labor & Environment Network. For more information,
please contact Anne Rabe at Citizens' Environmental Coalition (CEC),
518-462-5527, cecanne@igc.org
4. FEATURED LOCAL:
Lower East Side
Greens - Origins & Accomplishments, by Ray Dowd
Founded in early 2000, the Lower East Side Greens held the
first Election 2000 Nader fundraiser in New York State. The local ran a
candidate for State Assembly - Manhattan trial attorney Ray Dowd - who ran
against Sheldon Silver, New York State's most powerful Democrat. The Dowd
campaign, managed by local member Tom Heaney raised just under $10,000. The
campaign was profiled on the cover of the New York
Observer, The Villager, and the New York Law
Journal. Dowd received the endorsement of The
Resident, Manhattan's largest community newspaper. Ralph Nader came to
Chinatown to endorse Dowd and attack Silver for his failure to respect the
picketing workers at the New Silver Palace Restaurant in Chinatown. Dowd used
his legal skills to go to court and have a judge throw his Republican adversary,
Leonard Wertheim off the ballot for forging signatures on his petitions. As a
result of the Dowd campaign, four Board of Elections workers were forced to
resign for their role in the forgeries. Despite a media blackout by the Village
Voice and the New York Times, running only on the Green line, the Dowd campaign
garnered 15% of the vote, the highest Green total in New York State. Local
member Colin MacAllister designed a state-of-the-art website that enabled the
Dowd campaign to raise money online - the first Green website to do so. Local
member Dan Parham used his skills as a graphic designer to design innovative
brochures and imaginative palm cards that led voters to the eighth row on the
voting machine. The Dowd campaign uncovered Sheldon Silver's ownership of Waste
Management stock when Silver voted to close the Fresh Kills landfill - and
Silver's subsequent cashing in on this inside information. The Dowd campaign
hammered Silver on his support of the death penalty, his opposition to reforming
the racist Rockefeller drug laws, his deregulation of Con Edison and his
abandonment of the tenants and school children in his district. Following the
race, Dowd was honored with the Anti-Corruption Award by the Independence Party:
a tribute to the efforts of the Lower East Side Greens in fighting
corruption. John McGann, who was elected Poet-Laureate of the Lower East
Side Greens at its first meeting, provided the space for the Nader Campaign's
New York City headquarters. The official song of the Lower East Side Greens is
"It Ain't Easy Being Green" by Kermit the Frog. The Lower East Side Greens are
now organizing around other issues and candidates and welcome your issues, your
support and your involvement. Although we are focusing attention on the 62nd
Assembly District, which runs from the East Village through Little Italy,
Chinatown, the Financial District and Battery Park City, we welcome members from
around the City, and visitors from around the world.
5. NEWS, NEWS LINKS, RESOURCES
For Ralph Nader's reaction to Bush's tax plan
, go to http://www.progress.org/nader02.htm
Mathematician - Best Voting System is "Range" (Helps 3rd
Parties)
Albany Times Union, March 5, 2001
As New York and national officials
review the vote after 2000's presidential confusion, a mathematician claims he
has the solution to America's voting woes. Warren D. Smith of the NEC Research
Institute in Princeton, NJ, used a computer simulation to compare 22 voting
methods from around the world. They included the U.S. "plurality'' method as
well as some obscure ones like the "Borda Count System,'' and "Condorcet Least
Reversal System'' invented by French scientists in the 18th century. Some
penalized candidates with negative votes, a reversal of America's system.
The ideal system, Smith says, is
"range voting,'' in which voters rank candidates. Last year, a Ralph Nader
supporter might have given Nader a 10, Al Gore a 9, George W. Bush a 2 and Pat
Buchanan a 0. All the votes are tallied and the candidate with the most points
wins. Smith, using computer-simulated voter intentions, determined that range
voting was the best for electing the most-preferred candidate. Whether Democrats
and Republicans will embrace the idea is another matter. Since people wouldn't
fear throwing away their vote on a third-party candidate, it could encourage
more votes for Naders and Buchanans, Smith noted, and, "Most analysts suspect
that the dominant 'two-party system' would weaken, and third parties would
gradually become relatively more powerful.''
Greens, Ignored on Energy, Have Full
List of Issues, by Ross Mirkarimi
Published on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 in the San Francisco
Chronicle
Bipartisanship won. An overwhelming
majority of the American people lost.
The tragedy is that members of George W. Bush 's Cabinet
have been sworn in under a cloud of illegitimacy because the inauguration of
this accidental president was preventable. The irony is that after running a
disjointed campaign and squandering the right to challenge the Florida vote (by
not demanding a full, statewide recount from the beginning), Al Gore's
apologists continue to blame Ralph Nader for putting Bush in the White House.
But arrogance, not Nader, is to
blame. President George W. is a consequence of the Gore campaign's refusal to
listen to advice and ideas outside of its groupthink circle. Candidate Gore
could have won the election and Nader could have reached his goal of 5 percent
of the vote if the Democratic Leadership Council, centrist to the core, had not
recklessly fixated on the embodiment of their own fear, the Green Party.
According to a preponderance of
polling data, Nader was never a threat to Gore in states such as California, New
York and Texas. It would have behooved the Gore campaign to increase its efforts
in swing states rich in electoral votes instead of spending time and enormous
amounts of money manufacturing a climate of fear against Nader in noncritical
states.
Now, even though
Democrats and progressives cannot wish George W. away, the liberal left needs to
understand our differences so that recent history will not repeat itself. But if
the Democratic leadership continues on its righteous course against the left,
then without question, their flexibility is lost in the hardening of habit.
Nader, like the Green Party, strove
to transcend the narrowness of Democrats and Republicans, so that the struggling
classes, the environment and future generations would not become casualties of
centrist-right politics, relentless fund raising and corporate-dominated
dealmaking. Examples abound, but let's take a current one: the California energy
crisis.
Energy deregulation was
birthed by a commingling of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and the Democratic State
Legislature, and raised like a neglected stepchild by Gov. Gray Davis. Between
1996 and 1998, Nader, the Green Party and an alliance of consumer, social
justice and environmental organizations lobbied hard against deregulation and
warned of its ill effects.
When
that didn't work, that alliance placed a voter initiative to stop deregulation,
Proposition 9, on the state ballot in 1998. To our astonishment, the lessons of
Ronald Reagan's voodoo deregulatory economics were lost on Democratic ears.
Gubernatorial candidate Davis and the state Democratic Party, along with their
Republican rivals, vigorously opposed Prop. 9. With heavy opposition from the
same utilities now crying bankruptcy, it lost.
When San Diego began to feel the effects of deregulation in
early 2000, Nader was the only presidential candidate who addressed the issue,
not as a local problem, but as a crisis poised to engulf the state. And it was
Nader, not Gore, who advocated a policy of public power, the municipalization of
utilities and ecological alternatives to the use of fossil fuels and nuclear
power.
On the energy issue, and
others, the Green Party was ignored. But being ignored is what fuels our fire,
whether it's in the nation's capital, the presidential debates or in City Hall.
The myth of two-party omnipotence does not mean disenfranchised voters must
accept the same old false promises.
When principles take a back seat to personalities, as shown
in the near sweep of Bush's Cabinet nominees during confirmation, then it's
fitting that a new political party elbow its way toward progressive change. The
Green Party continues to fight for positions that the other parties will not,
such as: public financing of elections and same-day voter registration; the
enactment of instant run-off voting and Electoral College reform; a crackdown on
corporate crime and an end to corporate welfare; abolishing the death penalty;
decriminalizing drug use, and seeking alternative sentencing for victimless
crimes.
Also: providing
universal, catastrophic health care for all Americans; abolishing NAFTA;
providing a vigorous defense for the civil rights and liberties of all;
establishing a living wage; preserving and expanding affordable housing stock;
advancing a woman's right to choose, and removing the tax inequities shouldered
by the lower and middle classes.
As debate looms about Nader's right to run, on the local
front, the Greens are growing. Green mayors were elected in three new cities --
Santa Monica, Santa Cruz and Sebastopol -- and Green candidates won a number of
city council seats and other elected posts in the state and nationwide. It's a
start.
Ross Mirkarimi was director of the California Nader 2000
campaign and is a spokesperson for the state Green Party.
Mumia Commentary on
WBAI/Pacifica
On the February 28 Democracy Now! Mumia Abu Jamal read his
recent commentary on the battle for WBAI and Pacifica. If you missed the
program, it is now on line in streamable mp3 audio. http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=2689
Columnist/author Barbara Ehrenreich was a guest on the
program, live, and echoed Mumia's sentiments before addressing the discussion
topic of that segment, which was GW Bush's fairytale address to Congress. Those
who wish to read the text of Mumia's commentary will find it here: http://www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/xmas/mumia.html
NYC Greens Supports Term Limits as a
Step Towards More Electoral Reforms
March 6, 2001
statement to the New York City Council by Craig Seeman, Green Party of New York
State Chair
Twenty-two New York
City Council members have audaciously decided to flout the public will by
introducing legislation to repeal term limits. Regardless of how one might feel
about term limits, their actions are a slap in the face of the public will. They
were elected as public servants. Instead, they've become self-serving. They
ignore the public's position voiced in passing the term limits referendum.
The council members make the
fallacious argument that the city government will be deprived of experienced
representatives. They ignore the fact that many of the candidates are veterans.
Some new candidates have years of hands on government experience. Others are
activists with years of community service. These candidates offer the widest
variety of experience ever fielded before the voters. To equate this diversity
with inexperience is a politically defensive rationalization in its most blatant
form.
Term limits are a
counterweight to the power of incumbency. That power has been used in our flawed
electoral process to pervert the very meaning and intent of democracy. That
power is used to stifle the voice of challenging candidates. It puts community
organizations under the control of the incumbent councilperson, who deploys the
resources throughout a district.
Would a community organization allow a Green Party candidate
or any other challenger to speak at its meeting when the incumbent controls the
resources? The fear of punitive action, whether made explicit or not, acts as a
forceful deterrent to free speech. Candidates are denied access to speak to
organizations when an incumbent has the power to deny resources. Imagine what
might happen if some members of that community organization dared to support a
challenger to the incumbent.
There are better alternatives to term limits. Proportional
Representation is one. If a party received 10 percent of the vote it would gain
10 percent of the seats. That insures minority viewpoints are heard. It makes
every vote count. When the New York City Council had Proportional Representation
during the 1930s and 1940s, political, ethnic and racial barrier were broken. A
multitude of ideas was represented.
Another way to break the power of the incumbency is to
simply break the lock a single council member has on the control of community
resources. It might be found in a publicly elected Community Board, which has
the power to disperse funds previously in the domain of a single
councilperson.
There may be other
ways to create a more functional democracy. Those ideas won't be heard without
the opportunity term limits creates. Term limits are a badly needed step,
opening the door to still better and more democratic solutions. Fundamental, for
a healthy democracy, the Green Party believes that power must be held by the
community and not the incumbent.
A neighborhood has the right to shape it's own destiny, not
the developers nor self-serving elected officials. An elected official is hired
by the community as a public servant. Those twenty-two council members are
breaking a public trust. Incumbents abuse and reverse the power relationship
that should be held by the community. Term limits are a step in creating better
democratic solutions and greater community empowerment.
Media Release
Karl Breyman (518) 283/5987 (518) 462/5527
Green Activist to Travel to Colombia
to Witness Impact of U.S. Military Aid
(Poestenkill,
NY) On Friday March 9th, Rensselaer County Green Party co-chairperson and local
peace activist Karl Breyman will depart to Colombia to observe first-hand the
effects of an aggressive U.S. drug control policy. Part of a nationally selected
one hundred person Witness for Peace delegation, Breyman, a statewide organizer
for Campus Greens USA, will travel to Bogota to meet with government officials
and a wide range of experts and activists to hear their analysis of U.S. policy
in Colombia. He will then travel to smaller communities in the heart of the
conflict zones to meet with a broad cross-section of Colombian civil society.
The delegation was organized by the human rights group Witness for Peace (WFP),
which resolved to send the observers after the Congress voted to provide $1.3
billion earmarked almost entirely for a large-scale U.S. military intervention
in Colombia. Witness for Peace joined with other human rights groups in
expressing concern that most of the aid will go to the Colombian army, which has
been repeatedly linked to brutal paramilitary groups and accused of serious
human rights violations.
"Colombia has endured nearly forty years of brutal armed
conflict between the national army, leftist guerrilla movements, and right-wing
paramilitary forces. Civilians aren't exempt from the rampant political
violence, but instead have been targets of U.S. funded death squads," stated
Karl Breyman, a resident of Poestenkill. "Colombia averages one massacre per
day, and we can attribute 80% of civilian deaths to paramilitary activity,"
added Breyman, who was campaign manager for Mark Dunlea for State Assembly in
the recent election.
The U.S. aid
also funds a massive opium poppy and coca eradication campaign designed to curb
illegal drugs at their source. Aircraft are spraying herbicides containing
glyphosate, the active ingredient in the well-known weed killer Roundup, over
the countryside. While the State Department and pesticide giant Monsanto deny
there are adverse health effects from glyphosate, there have been many reports
of dizziness, nausea, muscle and join pain, and skin rashes in Colombian
communities. Medical reports have also linked exposure to increased risk of
miscarriages, premature birth, and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. In many places the
chemical spraying has killed legal crops like yucca and banana trees. "While
killing fish, livestock, and contaminating water supplies, there have been
accounts of the spray landing on resident's homes and schoolyards," said
Breyman. He continued, "Due to the impact of unfettered corporate globalization,
small farmers have found it difficult to eke out a living in rural Colombia."
The government needs to offer ecologically sustainable economic opportunities as
an alternative to growing coca plants. Mr. Breyman plans a speaking tour on
college campuses and community forums upon his return.
GREEN PARTY USA CONDEMNS BUSH'S BOMBING OF
IRAQ (press release Feb 20)
The Greens / Green Party USA condemns
President George W. Bush's bombing of Iraq as well as the ongoing sanctions
imposed against that country. A spokesperson for the Greens, Elizabeth Fattah,
termed the bombing "an aggression against a sovereign country and a violation of
human morality as well as international law." At its meeting in St. Louis last
Saturday, the Green Party was unanimous in condemnation of the air strikes. The
Party called on Greens in the U.S. as well as around the world to join protests
against the bombing and to support efforts to provide the people of Iraq with
medicine, food and other humanitarian needs, Fattah said.
"Around half-a-million children have
been killed in Iraq over the past decade as a result of the sanctions imposed by
the US government and the United Nations," said Mitchel Cohen, an activist with
the Brooklyn Greens." In addition, thousands more have suffered from picking up
anti-personnel weapons such as cluster bombs left over from US/UN bombardments,
and from leukemia and other deadly illnesses caused by "depleted" uranium
contamination of the water and soil -- the US's standard operating procedure:
Low Intensity Nuclear War," Cohen continued. "In fact, since December 1998, 317
people have been killed and 936 wounded directly by US and British bombings.
There have now been five days of US/British attacks on Iraq since George W.
Bush's inauguration on January 20th. The Greens / Green Party USA demands an end
to the sanctions as well as to the US's continued military attacks against
Iraq."
GPUSA is a membership
organization for Green Party activists with 55 local and 19 state affiliates.
GPUSA believes that social justice, ecological balance, and peace presupposes a
fundamental democratization of political and economic institutions.
Teen's Persistence Upends Town's Ban on
Political Signs
Buffalo News 2-19-2001
It didn't take
a constitutional lawyer to effectively kill Orchard Park's ordinance banning
political signs - just one high school senior.
Chris
Sasiadek may have been taking U.S. Government and Politics at Orchard Park High
School, but the 17-year-old has applied the knowledge off school grounds to
force the town into a situation where it has to either remove the ordinance from
the books or drastically revise it.
Sasiadek found out
about the ordinance in the fall, when he put a Ralph
Nader sign on his parents' lawn during the presidential race. A town
official told his father that the sign was illegal, although the building
department never took the sign down...
Please see full
article and picture at: http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20010219/1027533.asp
Worthwhile Web Site for Green
Organizers --
http://www.greens.org/cal-grow/greens/Organizehtm
from Kenneth Gould (and a20.org) March 12, 2001
a20: Quebec, April 20 2001 - 36 days until the
next International Day
of Action! http://www.a20.org
----------------------------------------
April 18-22 Corporate leaders and heads of state are headed
to Quebec to
discuss the FTAA, the Free Trade Area of
the Americas: "think NAFTA on
steroids." This trade pact
extends the impact of NAFTA to the rest of
Central and
South America, in a hemispheric "race to the bottom...."
From the AFL-CIO "...the trade
bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists will
have company.
Trade unionists, environmentalists, students, family
farmers, women, people of faith, and representatives from
indigenous
communities will be gathering in the streets,
convention halls,
churches, and schools of Quebec City
to make their voices heard."
http://www.stopftaa.org/organize/org_aflcio.html
50 events listed in 40 cities http://www.a20.org/calendar.cfm
International Contact List http://www.a20.org/network.cfm
Add your events: http://www.a20.org/form_calendar.cfm
http://www.a20.org
http://www.stopftaa.org
http://www.quebec2001.net
http://www.alternatives-action.org/salami
http://www.oqp2001.org
Ten Reasons to Oppose the FTAA -
http://www.globalexchange.org/ftaa/topten.html
The FTAA and AIDS - http://www.a20.org/feature.cfm?ID=45
FTAA Factsheet - http://www.tradewatch.org/FTAA/factsheet.htm
Citing the case of US-based waste
disposal company Metalclad, which used
NAFTA to sue a
small Mexican town for prohibiting construction of a
toxic waste processing plant, the city of Vancouver has
unanimously
passed a resolution requesting the Canadian
government not sign the
FTAA. http://www.canadianliberty.bc.ca
In an assault on democratic
principles the draft documents are being
kept secret. A
coalition of US organizations led by the Earth Justice
Legal Defense Fund has sued US trade representatives for
release of the
text http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pr030701.htm
Responding to the Globe and Mail
(2/24) Canadian Trade Minister Pierre
Pettigrew defends
the secrecy: "there is nothing better than
transparency,
and nothing to fear from those texts, I hope very much
that they will be made public but I cannot do it
unilaterally. You have
to understand that they belong to
34 countries..."
Liberate the
text campaign http://www.art-us.org/
Dispatches from Quebec
----------------------------------------
Ending its comical three-week life, a bylaw passed by a
Quebec City
suburb to bar people from concealing their
faces with scarves or masks
at the Summit of the
Americas has been scrapped, according to the
Toronto
Star (3/7). Ste-Foy Mayor Andree Boucher said she "listened to her conscience"
and decided to respect individual rights and the presumption of innocence. http://www.torontostar.com
Housing in Quebec has been
unavailable at public institutions or
recreation
facilities as a result of official pressure. The shortage is
so extreme that OQP2001 and CASA have issued a press release
stating
"thousands to be without shelter during the
Summit of the Americas" and
requesting the cooperation
of public authorities. http://www.oqp2001.org
Transportation info http://www.geocities.com/ericsquire/transprt.htm
The northern
border:
The Vermont Mobilization
for Global Justice is planning crucial
support on the
Vermont side of the US-Canadian border including housing,
an independent media center, and other events
http://www.vermontactionnetwork.org
Community activists in Kingston ON
are inviting all FTAA opponents to
take part in a border
action caravan to "fight against international
capital
every inch of the way." Contact Smash FTAA
http://www.tao.ca/~kdawg/smashftaa.html , ON/NY regional
listserve: send
an email with
"Smash FTAA' in the subject line to msilburn@kingston.net
The southern border:
The Mexico-US Mass Mobilization to
Liberate the Border is planning an
April 21
multinational day of protest in support of worker's rights,
immigrant rights, indigenous rights and the environment.
626-403-2530
borderactions@aol.com List
Serve: send e-mail to border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com http://www.actionla.org/border
On the road:
----------------------------------------
Trash Dragons and the System along with the Insurrection
Landscapers are
touring the US and Canada with their
zany puppet show.
http://www.hozomeen.org/insurrection
In February and March 2001 the
Turning Point Road Show will be touring
the American
southeast (FL, GA, SC, NC, VI, KT, AL, MS, TN). Focusing on
corporate globalization as well as
the secret negotiations currently to
construct the FTAA.
Info, or to schedule a stop in your town:
solilawrence@yahoo.com
Call To Action (CtA) Spring 2001 tour - Skills and issues
workshops
focusing on the FTAA and its poster-child:
Citigroup. If your group is
interested in tackling the
prison industrial complex, third world debt,
forest
destruction and predatory lending as well as expanding your
organizing skills, then bring us to your town. Contact:
campaigns@calltoaction.org 503-804-9378 http://www.calltoaction.org
Through March and April, ending in Quebec City April 15-21,
Rights
Action will be traveling with community human
rights and development
activists from Honduras,
Guatemala and Chiapas through the US and
Canada,
speaking in public educational forums. Info, or to schedule a
stop: Rights Action, formerly Guatemala Partners, Grahame
Russell
416-654-2074 info@rightsaction.org http://www.rightsaction.org
Coming Events:
----------------------------------------
3/13 Washington DC Commemorating the 13th anniversary of the
massacre of
student activists in Burma, there will be a
rally at the Burmese embassy
in Washington DC to
pressure the military regime to end all human rights abuses. 2300 S Street NW
7pm. Info: Jeremy Woodrum 202-547-5985
jeremy@freeburmacoalition.org Sign the on-line
petition to ban the
Burmese regime's membership in the
United Nations -
www.freeburmacoalition.org
3/16-3/18 Vancouver FTAA Teach-In:
social, economic and ecological
impacts of the FTAA on
the populations of its participants and beyond,
with a
specific focus on available alternatives. $5-$20 sliding.
604-623-5333 http://mobglobvan.tao.ca
3/17th Buffalo NY will be hosting a regional planning
meeting to discuss
April's FTAA action here. Activists
from NY to PA to Ohio to Toronto to
anywhere and
everywhere in a days drive are welcome and encouraged to join us to plan a
massive non-violent rally, concerts, teach-ins and more
http://www.a22buffalo.org
4/5-4/7 After the strong backing which they received at the
World Social
Forum held in Porto Alegre, Argentina's
popular organizations are
preparing the first ever
global resistance demonstration in the Buenos Aires
area. Contact Adrian Ruiz - ATTAC Argentina
argentina@attac.org
International Calendar http://www.a20.org/calendar.cfm
International Contact List http://www.a20.org/network.cfm
http://www.indymedia.org
http://www.directactionnetwork.org
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org
http://www.protest.net
Would you like to help with http://www.a20.org - we need layout, translation, and
graphics support: e-mail info@a20.org
--Steven Doll steven@a20.org
----------------------------------------
From the combined e-mail lists of
http://www.a16.org | http://www.d2kla.org
from Union of Concerned Scientists March 12, 2001
UCS NEWS - a monthly guide to news you can use from the
Union
of Concerned Scientists' website
http://www.ucsusa.org
Monday, March 12, 2001
1. Will drilling the
Arctic Refuge
really solve our
oil woes?
2. A rogue's gallery of
foodborne illness.
3. Repowering the Midwest
-- a new report.
4. New program pages.
5. Subscription info
------------------------------------------------------------
1. WILL DRILLING THE ARCTIC REFUGE
REALLY SOLVE OUR OIL WOES
Find out why this touted magic
answer to energy
needs is really an unwise choice.
http://www.ucsusa.org/energy/?brf.anwr.html
------------------------------------------------------------
2. A ROGUE'S GALLERY OF FOODBORNE ILLNESSES
The most unwanted list. Learn
about the bacterial species
commonly associated with
foodborne illness.
http://www.ucsusa.org/food/?guide.foodborne.html
------------------------------------------------------------
3. REPOWERING THE MIDWEST -- A NEW
REPORT
A blueprint for clean
electricity production in America's
heartland.
http://www.ucsusa.org/releases/?02-14-01.html
------------------------------------------------------------
4. NEW PROGRAM PAGES
During the next few weeks, check out
the new home pages for our programs, which
have been
updated to reflect their new names and current orientations.
------------------------------------------------------------
5. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
To unsubscribe from this newsletter,
reply to this
message with the words "unsubscribe
ucsnews" in the
subject line or body of the email.
To resubscribe, use the words
"subscribe ucsnews" in
your reply or use the signup on
the homepage of our
website.
------------------------------------------------------------
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org
from Sierra Club March 12, 2001
SC-ACTION Vol. III, #27
DEFENDING
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
March 9, 2001
Fact of the
Day:
The average human being
breathes 3,400 gallons of air each and every day.
-Source: U.S. EPA
********************************************************************************
Table of Contents:
1. Feature: Protect the Clean Air
Act From "Clean Coal" Ruse
2. Take Action: Protect
America's Wild Forest Heritage
3. Take Action: Tell the
EPA to Regulate Global Warming Emissions as
Pollutants
4. Take Action: Fight for Responsible Trade
5. Take Action: Urge Bush to Reinstate Support for
International Family
Planning 6. Keep Deadly Arsenic Out
of Drinking Water
********************************************************************************
1. Protect the Clean
Air Act From "Clean Coal" Ruse
S.60, The National Electricity and Environmental Technology
Act recently
introduced by Senator Byrd (D-WV) poses a
threat to the Clean Air Act. S.
60 purports to simply be
about providing financial incentives to encourage
the
development of "clean coal technologies." However, the bill represents
a wholesale assault on the Clean Air Act's pollution
controls on coal-fired
power plants. Through a series of
exemptions, the bill would allow every
large coal-fired
power plant in the country to dramatically increase
pollution without installing modern pollution controls and
would exempt
these plants from additional controls for
the next ten years. The same
exemptions are provided for
new coal-fired plants.
S. 60
effectively repeals the Clean Air Act programs designed to prevent
large coal-fired power projects from harming public health
and the
environment. The Act requires new and modified
coal-fired power plants to
meet the most up-to-date
pollution control measures and avoid threats to
health
and special lands like national parks. S. 60 would repeal all of
these important protections for coal plants. The bill would
have the
perverse effect of offering incentives to
convert a clean, natural gas
plant to a far dirtier coal
system and incentives to build a new dirtier
coal plant
rather than cleaner natural gas plant.
Coal-fired power plants represent the largest sector of
uncontrolled and
under-controlled air pollution from
stationary sources in the country.
Older power plants to
continue to operate for decades past their expected
life
without installing modern air pollution control equipment. About 1,000
power plants operate today and 600 of them were built before
modern
pollution abatement requirements went into
effect. A recent report found
that dirty power plants
shorten the lives of more than 30,000 Americans
each
year. Furthermore, electric utilities release more than one billion
pounds of toxic pollution in 1998, including more into the
air than
chemical, paper, plastics, and refining
industries combined.
Get
involved today. Call, write, or email your Senator and ask them to
oppose S. 60, The National Electricity and Environmental
Technology Act.
To see a sample
message and find out more about this legislation visit
http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/action/s60.asp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Take
Action To Protect America's Wild Forest Heritage
Write a letter to the editor of your Representative and
Senators. Below is
an example of how to
tailor your letter to include examples from your area
or
local forest. Send your letter to your
Member of Congress at the following address:
The
Honorable Rep.____________
U.S.
House of Representatives
Washington,
D.C. 20515
The
Honorable Sen. ___________
U.S.
Senate
Washington,
D.C. 20510
Our
National Forests we established over one hundred years ago for all
Americans to enjoy. These forests provided clean drinking
water for
communities, outstanding recreation for
families, and excellent habitat for
fish and wildlife.
They have also given us tremendous scientific and
educational benefits.
Unfortunately, for the past 50 years, the Forest Service has
spent billions
of taxpayer dollars subsidizing the
logging of public lands and building
roads for logging
companies.
Clearly it is time to
end the Forest Service commercial logging program.
Please do all that you can to protect our National Forests
from logging,
for our families, for our future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Tell the EPA to Regulate Global Warming Emissions as
Pollutants
The EPA is requesting
comments on a petition to regulate the global warming
pollution that spews out the tailpipes of cars. The
petition, submitted by
a coalition of environmental
groups, requests that the agency use a
provision of the
Clean Air Act to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons from new cars,
light trucks
and other engines. The petition asserts
that greenhouse gases contribute to
global warming and
should be regulated as pollutants that can cause
significant damage to the environment and public health.
Public comments are due to EPA by
May 23, 2001.
Please e-mail
comments to: A-and-R-Docket@epa.gov
For more information, go to:
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-AIR/2001/January/Day-23/a1979.htm
For a sample letter, go to:
www.sierraclub.org/takeaction/globalwarming/index.asp#top
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Fight for Responsible Trade
The North American Free Trade
Agreement was supposed to relax trade
restrictions
between Canada, Mexico and the United States. But some of
those alleged trade restrictions are hard-won environmental
laws.
But NAFTA contains
dangerous provisions (similar to those in Newt
Gingrich's Contract with America) that allow corporations to
sue
governments if environmental laws get in the way of
profits. Already, a
Canadian chemical company has used
these NAFTA provisions to sue the United
States for $1
billion because California banned a carcinogenic gasoline
additive that is poisoning the state's drinking water.
The Bush administration now wants to
expand these dangerous provisions
though a new trade
pact, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
agreement, covering the entire Western Hemisphere.
The FTAA has been negotiated in
total secrecy. Please write to your
senators and
representatives and urge the Bush administration to "release
the text" of the FTAA so the public can understand its
terms.
Write your senators at:
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20515. Write your
representative at: U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20510.
---------------------------------------------------------------
5. Urge Bush to Reinstate
Support for International Family Planning
Only two days after his inaugural address, President Bush
dealt a blow to
international family planning programs
by reinstating the global gag rule.
The global gag rule
bars international family planning organizations that
receive a single dollar of U.S. funds from using their own
money to talk
about abortion with their patients,
provide abortion services, or lobby to
change abortion
laws in their countries.
Tell
President Bush you disagree and ask him to support these programs in
the future. For more information, go to Global Population
and the
Environment: www.sierraclub/takeaction/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Keep Deadly Arsenic Out of
Drinking Water
Please call or
write your Senators and urge them to oppose S. 223. This
legislation, introduced by Senator Domenici (R-NM), would
revoke the
Environmental Protection Agency's recently
adopted standard of 10 parts per
billion (ppb) for
arsenic in drinking water to protect public health. If
enacted, S. 223 would turn back a critical science-based
health protection
measure for millions of Americans.
EPA established an arsenic standard
of 50 ppb in 1975, based on a Public
Health Service
standard originally established in 1942, and before arsenic
was known to cause cancer. In January, 2001,
after 25 years of public
comment and debate, millions of
dollars in research, and at least three
missed statutory
deadlines, the EPA updated the standard to 10 parts per
billion.
The
National Academy of Sciences found in its 1999 report, Arsenic in
Drinking Water, that the 1942 arsenic standard, which was in
place at the
time, "does not achieve EPA's goal for
public health protection." Studies
have linked long-term
exposure to arsenic in drinking water to cancer of
the
bladder, lungs, skin, kidney, nasal passages, liver, and prostate.
Non-cancer effects of ingesting arsenic include
cardiovascular, pulmonary,
immunological, neurological,
and endocrine (e.g., diabetes) effects.
To contact your senators, please visit
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm, or call the
capitol switchboard
at 202-224-3121. For more
information contact amy.maron@sierraclub.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sierra Club Legislative Hotline
- 202-675-2394
Sierra Club National Headquarters -
415-977-5500
Sierra Club World Wide Web - http://www.sierraclub.org
Sierra Club Vote Watch Website - http://www.sierraclub.org/votewatch/
White House Comment Line - 202-456-1111
White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
George W. Bush's e-mail -
president@whitehouse.gov
Dick Cheney's e-mail
- vice-president@whitehouse.gov
White House Address -
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20500
US Capitol
Switchboard - 202-224-3121
To contact your senators - http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
To contact your representative - http://www.house.gov/writerep
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from Rural Advancement Foundation International March 12, 2001
3/12/2001
News Releases
New Terminator Patent Goes to
Syngenta
Wake-Up Call for CBD's Scientific Body Meeting
in Montreal
New Terminator Patent Goes to
Syngenta
World's Largest
Agrochemical and Seed Enterprise Holds Growing Arsenal of Terminator and Traitor
Technologies
Wake-Up Call for
CBD's Scientific Body Meeting in Montreal
Syngenta, the world's largest agribusiness firm, was formed
on 13 November 2000 with the merger of AstraZeneca and Novartis. The next day
the company won its newest Terminator patent, US Patent 6,147,282, 'Method of
controlling the fertility of a plant.' (The patent was issued to Novartis - but
the company's intellectual property goes to Syngenta.) With pro forma 1999 sales
of US $7 billion, Syngenta is the world's largest agrochemical enterprise, and
the third largest seed corporation.
'Syngenta's newest Terminator patent should set off alarm
bells for governments concerned about biodiversity and Farmers' Rights,' said
Julie Delahanty of RAFI. 'Some governments and civil society organizations
(CSOs) mistakenly assume that the threat of Terminator is diminished. The
reality is that the Gene Giants are winning new patents, and Terminator seeds
are moving closer to commercialization,' warns Delahanty.
'Terminator technology' refers to
plants that have been genetically modified to produce sterile seed; it is
designed to prevent farmers from saving and re-planting their seed, forcing them
to buy new seeds every year. Terminator has been widely condemned as an immoral
technology that threatens global food security, especially for 1.4 billion
people who depend on farm-saved seed. In 1999, due to mounting opposition to
Terminator seeds, both Monsanto (now Pharmacia) and AstraZeneca (now Syngenta)
vowed not to commercialize genetic seed sterilization technology.
Syngenta now controls at least six
Terminator patents and a host of new patents on genetically modified plants with
defective immune systems.
If the
Gene Giants get their way, warns RAFI, sterility is just one of many traits that
could be controlled by the application of external chemicals. 'Traitor'
technology or genetic trait-control allows companies to engineer crops that
depend on the external application of a chemical in order to develop into
fertile, or healthy plants. Using inducible promoter systems, a plant's genetic
traits can be turned 'on or off' with the application of an external chemical
catalyst. RAFI and other CSOs warn that a new generation of chemically dependent
plants will be among the next wave of genetically modified crops unless action
is taken to ban them.
'Terminator and Traitor seeds are a real and present danger
for global food security and biodiversity,' said RAFI's Hope Shand. 'The
Biodiversity Convention's scientific advisors (SBSTTA) meeting in Montreal this
week can't afford to let genetic trait control technology - or GURTs -slip
beneath their radar.' A new report to be released by RAFI this week points out
that Terminator patent portfolios have changed hands in the latest round of
industry mergers and acquisitions. RAFI's new report on Terminator technology
examines new patents, identifies the Gene Giants who controls them, and offers
recommendations to policymakers. Highlights include:
Syngenta's New Terminator Patent: US Patent 6,147,282 is the
latest in a series of Terminator patents won by Novartis. The patent describes a
complex system for chemical control of a plant's fertility. The application of a
chemical inducer can be used to either abolish or restore a plant's fertility.
Syngenta's New Traitor Patents:
Civil society organizations (CSOs) are particularly alarmed by Syngenta's new
patents which involve the engineering of plants with weakened immune systems.
The new patents were identified in October 2000 by Action Aid, Berne
Declaration, GeneWatch and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.(1) RAFI
identified earlier AstraZeneca and Novartis patents for 'chemically dependent'
plants - dubbed 'Traitor' technology by RAFI. If companies can successfully
engineer seeds to perform only with the application of a proprietary pesticide
or fertilizer, it will reinforce chemical dependencies in agriculture - and both
farmers and food security will be held in biological bondage to the Gene Giants.
The inventors claim that they
are developing 'immune-compromised' plants for research purposes only. But CSOs
cannot ignore the specter of chemically dependent plants in the hands of the
world's largest agrochemical corporation.
Delta & Pine Land Aims to Commercialize Terminator:
US-based Delta & Pine Land is the world's largest cotton seed company and
jointly holds three patents for Terminator technology with the US Department of
Agriculture. Harry Collins, Vice-President for Technology Transfer at Delta
& Pine Land, told RAFI that his company is continuing research on genetic
seed sterilization with the goal of commercializing Terminator seeds.
For SBSTTA's scientific advisors
meeting in Montreal, the handwriting is on the wall: Research and development of
genetic trait control technology - including Terminator seeds and the
development of plants with weakened immune systems- is moving forward. Unless
governments take action to ban these technologies, they will be commercialized,
with potentially devastating impacts on farmers, biodiversity and food security.
If present trends continue, farmers will become trapped in a pattern of
biological controls that lead to 'bioserfdom.' National seed sovereignty will be
destroyed, and food security endangered.
Terminator on the Road to Rio+10: SBSTTA delegates meeting
in Montreal this week are likely to postpone consideration of Terminator and
other genetic trait control technologies in anticipation of a new study now
being prepared by FAO, as recommended by the Conference of Parties (COP5) to the
Convention on Biological Diversity which met in May 2000. Postponing a decision
to ban Terminator is a mistake, but governments will have important
opportunities to take action in 2001-2002:
World Food Summit Five Years Later: When heads of state meet
9-15 November 2001 in Rome they should re-affirm the recent findings of FAO's
Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics, which concluded that Terminator seeds are
unethical, and recommend that member nations ban the technology.
COP6 - The Sixth Conference of the
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity meets in The Hague, 8-26 April
2002. After numerous studies on genetic trait control technology, COP6 should
ban Terminator as an anti-farmer technology that threatens biodiversity and
national seed sovereignty.
UNCED's Rio+10: Over 100 Heads of State meeting in South
Africa in June 2002 will have the opportunity to call for a ban on Terminator
technology as an immoral application of genetic engineering that threatens
biodiversity.
Table: Who Owns
Terminator Patents?
Company/Institution (followed by
name of original assignee)
Syngenta (Novartis) US 6,147,282 14 Nov. 2000
Syngenta (Novartis) US 5,880,333 9
March 1999
Syngenta (Zeneca) US
5,808,034 15 Sept. 1998
Syngenta
(Zeneca) WO9738106A 16 Oct. 1997
Syngenta (Zeneca) WO9735983A2 2 Oct. 1997
Syngenta (Zeneca) WO9403619A2 and A3
17 Feb. 1994
Delta & Pine
Land/USDA US 5,723,765 3 March 1998
Delta & Pine Land/USDA US 5,925,808 20 July 1999
Delta & Pine Land/USDA US
5,977,441 2 Nov. 1999
BASF
(ExSeed Genetics, L.L.C./Iowa State University) WO9907211
18 Feb. 1999
DuPont (Pioneer Hi-Bred) US 5,859,341 12 Jan. 1999
Pharmacia (Monsanto) WO9744465 27
Nov. 1997
Cornell Research
Foundation US 5,859,328 12 Jan. 1999
Purdue Research Foundation (with support from USDA)
WO9911807
11 March 1999
For more information:
Julie Delahanty, RAFI: 819 827-9949
julie@rafi.org
Hope Shand, RAFI: 919 960-5223
hope@rafi.org
Silvia Ribeiro, RAFI: silvia@rafi.org
RAFI is the Rural Advancement
Foundation International with headquarters in Winnipeg, Canada. RAFI is
concerned about the loss of biodiversity and about the impact of intellectual
property on farmers and food security. www.rafi.org
1) Warwick, Hugh. 'Syngenta:
Switching off farmers' rights?' published jointly by Berne Declaration, Swedish
Society for Nature Conservation, GeneWatch UK, Action Aid, October, 2000. While
this publication identifies many additional patents, some initially identified
by RAFI, we categorize only three of the new Novartis patents as 'traitor'
technologies. These include: US 6,057,490, US 6,091,004, US 6,107,544. (RAFI
makes a distinction between those patents that involve primarily male sterility
to facilitate making hybrids. We also do not include patents which we classify
as more 'generic' inducible promoter patents.)
from the Wilderness Society March 12, 2001
****************************
* WILD
ALERT
* Monday, March 12, 2001
****************************
In January, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed a
new policy to keep
the "wild" in
wilderness. It would supersede the current, antiquated
policy that fails to reflect the agency's duty to protect
wilderness
character. Your comments are
needed by March 19 to support and strengthen
this
policy, and to turn back internal and external assaults from
wilderness opponents. Take action at
http://www.wilderness.org/standbylands/refuges/wildpolicy.htm
BACKGROUND
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) manages nearly 21
million acres of
wilderness on 70 wildlife refuges in 26
states. These wilderness areas
protect a
range of wildlife habitat and wilderness character, from the
rugged coastal islands of the Alaska Maritime Refuge, to the
stark beauty
of the Sonoran Desert at Cabeza Prieta, the
lush, steamy swamps of
Okefenokee, and the forests of
the Maine coast.
A STRONG, NEW
POLICY
Across the board, the FWS's policy is a vast
improvement over the existing
agency
manual. It is rare in the way it eloquently and poetically
captures the meaning of wilderness character. The
draft policy also
emphasizes that humility and restraint
must guide the management of
wilderness. It
correctly emphasizes that wilderness is a place where
nature is permitted to take its natural course, stating that
FWS
wilderness will be managed to "maintain components
of natural biological
diversity such as wildlife
populations with natural densities, social
structures,
and dynamics."
The policy also
contains an excellent description of and mandate to
protect solitude in wilderness. And it provides
for sound mechanisms to
inventory and protect the
wilderness character of wildlands that Congress
has not
yet designated as wilderness. All of these improvements deserve
strong support.
SOME STRENGTHENING NEEDED
Some
improvements could be made to strengthen the policy. For example,
nearly 90% of all FWS wilderness is in Alaska, and special
provisions
related to Alaska must not be permitted to
degrade wilderness character
there. By law,
snowmachines, motorboats, and airplanes are allowed as
*transportation methods* in Alaska wilderness, but only for
"traditional
activities."
Further, such access may be subject to agency
regulation. FWS's policy
should provide a
narrow definition of "traditional activities" that is
modeled on the National Park Service's
definition. The policy should omit
language
suggesting that motorized entry could be routinely allowed for
almost any general public access within Alaska wilderness.
The policy should also be
strengthened to ensure that alteration of
habitat,
biological resources, or ecological processes is not allowed
within FWS wilderness except in extremely limited
circumstances, such as
to protect or recover threatened
or endangered species or to alleviate
negative impacts
to wilderness character caused by human influence.
TAKE ACTION
Please tell the Fish and
Wildlife Service BY MARCH 19 that you support the
agency's draft stewardship policy with some
modifications. Send your
comments from
http://www.wilderness.org/standbylands/refuges/wildpolicy.htm or
write,
fax, or e-mail the agency directly.
Tell FWS you SUPPORT the draft
policy's:
- definition of
wilderness character, its emphasis that humility and
restraint must guide the wilderness stewardship, and its
description of
and mandate to protect solitude in
wilderness.
- direction for
managing wilderness so that components of natural
biological diversity are maintained and natural processes
can take their
course.
- requirements concerning inventorying and protecting the
wilderness
character of wildlands that Congress has not
yet designated as wilderness.
Ask the agency to make the following MODIFICATIONS to the
policy:
- provide for a narrow
definition of "traditional activities" -- modeled
on the
National Park Service's definition -- allowing for the use of
certain motorized equipment in Alaska wilderness which does
not include
recreational snowmobiling.
- ensure that alteration of habitat
or ecological processes is not allowed
within wilderness
except in extremely limited circumstances, such as to
protect or recover threatened or endangered species or to
alleviate
negative impacts to wilderness character
caused by human influence.
Send
your message to:
National
Wildlife Refuge System
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 North Fairfax, Room 670
Arlington, VA 22203
Fax: 703-358-2248
E-mail: Wilderness_Policy_Comments@fws.gov
***************************************************************
For a full list of Action Items, visit
http://www.wilderness.org/whatcan/takeaction.htm
***************************************************************
An archive of past Wildalerts can be found at
http://www.wilderness.org/wildalert/wildalerts.htm
***************************************************************
WildAlert is an email action alert system brought to you
by The Wilderness
Society to keep you apprised of
threats to our wildlands -- in the field
and in
Washington. WildAlert messages include updates along with clear,
concise actions you can take to protect America's last wild
places. You
are welcome to forward Wildalerts
to all those interested in saving
America's
wildlands.
FEEDBACK: Please send
your comments to <action@tws.org>. If
you simply hit "reply" to
this message, please include
your email address in the body of the
message.
TO SUBSCRIBE: If you have been
forwarded this message and would like to
subscribe to
the list, send the following message to
<lyris@lists.wilderness.org>:
"subscribe wilderness-alert" (inserted in the body of the message,
without quotes).
Founded in 1935, The Wilderness
Society works to protect America's
wilderness and to
develop a nation-wide network of wild lands through
public education, scientific analysis and
advocacy. Our goal is to ensure
that future
generations will enjoy the clean air and water, wildlife,
beauty and opportunities for recreation and renewal that
pristine forests,
rivers, deserts and mountains provide.
To take action on behalf of
wildlands today, visit our
website at http://www.wilderness.org
***************************************************************
from Environment News Service March 12, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SPLINTER UN
FOREST ASSESSMENT
ROME, Italy,
March 12, 2001 (ENS) - A United Nations analysis that shows
the global rate of deforestation is slowing was challenged
today by two
influential environmental groups. They
claim the rate of deforestation
may not be slowing at
all and may have even increased in the tropics.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-12-01.html
************************************************************
LOW STANDARDS HEIGHTEN RISK
POSED BY PESTICIDES
GENEVA,
Switzerland, March 12, 2001 (ENS) - Two UN agencies are warning
of the dangers posed by pesticides developed below
internationally
accepted quality standards.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-12-11.html
************************************************************
WHOOPING CRANES SEEKING NEW
ROOST
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, March 12, 2001 (ENS)
- The world's most endangered crane
may once again take
to the skies over the eastern United States. Working
in
partnership with a variety of state wildlife agencies, conservation
groups and other private organizations, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife
Service is proposing to reintroduce a wild
population of whooping cranes
that would migrate each
year between Wisconsin and Florida.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-12-06.html
************************************************************
TINY BUT DEADLY, INVASIVE PESTS
RAMPANT WORLDWIDE
MONTREAL,
Canada, March 12, 2001 (ENS) - Invasive alien species might
sound like science fiction but to officials from 180
countries meeting
in Montreal today, they are real and
deadly serious.
For full text
and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-12-10.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 12, 2001
Semiconductor Industry Cuts
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Bush
Administration Urged to Cut Carbon Emissions
New York Reactor Sale Goes to Court
Geologic Record Offers Clues to
Climate, Fuels
Uranium Mill
Reclaimed for Tribal Use
Sea
Lamprey Controls Proposed for Lake Champlain
Federal Agencies Spill Water to Help Fish
Elephants Sense Vibrations Through
Their Feet
For full text and
graphics, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-12-09.html
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TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATIONAL
EDITORS:
Have Environmental
Groups Sold Their Souls for Grants?
WARRENTON, VA, Mar. 12
-/E-Wire/-- If you look at the US Fish&
Wildlife
agency as a major corporation whose clients are the hunters of
America, many things become clear. It's "franchises," the
DNR and DEPs
in states across the country, sign on to
programs many ordinary citizens
either don't realize are
put into place or if they do, hate.
/CONTACT: Kathryn Burton
P.O.Box 759, SaveOurSwans East Lyme, CT
06333,(860)739-7791/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/12Mar0104.html
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TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND STATE
EDITORS:
DRBC Announces PCB
Meeting in Philadelphia
WEST TRENTON, N.J., Mar. 12
-/E-Wire/-- The Delaware River Basin
Commission (DRBC)
will co-host a meeting on Wednesday (March 14) in
Philadelphia to educate the public about the presence of
PCBs
(polychlorinated biphenyls) in the Delaware Estuary
and to explore ways
to reduce the amount of this toxic
substance.
/CONTACT: Christopher Roberts,
609-883-9500, ext. 205, or
croberts@drbc.state.nj.us; or
Clarke Rupert, 609-883-9500, ext. 260, or
crupert@drbc.state.nj.us, both of Delaware River Basin
Commission/
/Web site: http://www.delep.org
http://www.drbc.net/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/12Mar0103.html
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TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATIONAL
EDITORS:
IFAW and Cornell
University Deploy High-Tech Acoustic Buoys in Cape Cod
Bay to Protect Highly Endangered Right Whales
CAPE
COD, MA, Mar. 12 -/E-Wire/-- The International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW -- www.ifaw.org) today continued with its
highly
successful, $150,000 right whale acoustic buoy
project, when 5 buoys
were deployed into Cape Cod Bay,
with the assistance of Cornell
University and the Center
for Coastal Studies (CCS).
/CONTACT: Jennifer
Ferguson-Mitchell, 508-744-2076, jfm@ifaw.org/
/Web site: http://www.rightwhales.org
http://www.ifaw.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/12Mar0102.html
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TO BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY
EDITORS:
New Hazmat Software
Solves Serious Public Safety Issue
WILLIAMSPORT, PA, Mar. 12
-/E-Wire/-- RegScan Incorporated, with 14
years of
experience as a regulatory and compliance product developer,
has created a new software solution called HazMat Loader
that will
reduce the number of illegal Hazmat shipments
in the United States.
/CONTACT: Dr. Robert Lang of
RegScan, 800-734-7226, ext. 1406/
/Web site: http://www.regscan.com
http://hazmat.regscan.com/
For Full Text
Visit: http://ens-news.com/e-wire/Mar01/12Mar0101.html
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1-888-764-NEWS
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from League of Conservation Voters March 13, 2001
===================================
LCV's Weekly Congressional Update
Week of March 12, 2001
===================================
The League of Conservation Voters
(LCV) continues to monitor Congressional
activity and
hold Members accountable for their action on important
environmental issues. See the information below for a
concise look at what
happened in Congress last week and
what we anticipate for the coming week.
===================================
SUMMARY
===================================
*Environment & Public Works
Committee votes on brownfields legislation;
*Sen. Bingaman (D-NM) plans to introduce alternative energy
bill;
*Stage is set for the
Senate to debate Campaign Finance Reform.
===================================
ACTIONS AND VOTES LAST WEEK
===================================
**SENATE**
**The Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee held a markup and vote
on Senator
Lincoln Chafee's (R-RI) "Brownfields Revitalization and
Environmental Restoration Act" (S.350).
After defeating three amendments to weaken the bill,
committee members
approved it 15-3 with Senators Bond
(R-MO), Crapo (R-ID) and Inhofe (R-OK)
voting against.
The amendments were offered by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in
an effort to restrict the EPA from taking action should they
decide an
area still poses a threat of contamination.
Under current Superfund law,
once a state has declared a
brownfield site clean, developers can be held
liable if
the EPA finds that the level of toxicity still poses a
significant risk to environmental or human health. Chafee's
bill offers
new liability exemptions for investors in an
effort to spur redevelopment
of the thousands of
contaminated sites across the country. In addition,
S.350 would provide $150 million for site assessments and
$50 million in
grants for states to complete cleanups.
Although there are currently 48 co-sponsors from both
parties on the
brownfields bill, some Senators want to
give the EPA more flexibility in
monitoring the sites
than is currently in the bill while others hope to
restrict the agency even further. Last week at a committee
hearing, EPA
Administrator Christine Whitman voiced
support for the legislation as
currently written. The
Bush administration has made brownfields one of its
top
environmental priorities. The bill could receive full Senate
consideration as early as this week, but may be pushed off
until after the
Senate debates campaign finance reform
legislation beginning on March
19th.
For more information on this bill go to Senator Chafee's
website at
http://www.senate.gov/~chafee/untitled.html.
**Several bills related to the
environment and energy were introduced in
the Senate
last week:
Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) introduced the
"Residential Solar Energy Tax
Credit Act" (S.465), a
bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to
allow
a credit for residential solar energy property.
Learn
more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) introduced
S.472, a bill to ensure that nuclear
energy continues to
contribute to the supply of electricity in the United
States.
Learn more about the bill at
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(R-CO) introduced S.491, a bill to amend the
Reclamation
Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to
authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in
the design,
planning, and construction of the Denver
Water Reuse project.
Learn more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-LA)
introduced S.499, a bill to authorize the
Secretary of
Energy to establish a decommissioning pilot program to
decommission and decontaminate the sodium-cooled fast
breeder experimental
test-site reactor located in
northwest Arkansas.
Learn more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced
S.503, a bill to amend the Safe Water
Act to provide
grants to small public drinking water system.
Learn more
about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/
**HOUSE**
**Last week, the House Resources
Committee, chaired by Rep. James Hansen
(R-UT), held
hearings on potential energy reserves on federal lands,
including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the
regulations
preventing further extraction. Several
Western governors and industry
representatives testified
before the panel that rules such as the Roadless
Initiative would drive the nation into a deeper energy
crisis. Many
regulations, according to industry experts,
were put into place before
current technology was
available.
However, committee ranking Democrat Nick
Rahall (D-WV) noted that natural
gas and coal leases
under the previous administration far exceeded the
amount extracted under Presidents Reagan or Bush.
To learn more about the current energy situation and see the
proposals LCV
supports click www.lcv.org.
**Several bills related to the
environment and energy were introduced in
the House last
week:
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) introduced HR 876, a bill
to amend the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a
5-year extension of the credit for
electricity produced
from wind.
Learn more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Rep James Hansen (R-UT) introduced
H.R.880 a bill to provide for the
acquisition of
property in Washington County, Utah, for implementation of
a desert tortoise habitat conservation plan.
Learn more about the bill at
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.00880\
Rep Don Young (R-AK)
introduced H.R.883, a bill to preserve the
sovereignty
of the United States over public lands and acquired lands
owned by the United States, and to preserve State
sovereignty and private
property rights in non-Federal
lands surrounding those public lands and
acquired lands.
Learn more about the bill at
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.00883
Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ)
introduced the "Coastal Community Conservation Act
of
2001" (H.R.897), a bill to reauthorize the Coastal Zone Management Act
of 1972.
Learn more about the bill
at
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.00897
Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA)
introduced the "Forest Access Immediate Relief Act
of
2001" (HR 908), a bill to terminate the fee charged for access to Los
Padres National Forest and offset the lost revenue by
eliminating
subsidies to the timber industry for
building roads and logging in
national forests.
Learn more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Rep. Richard Pombo (D-CO) introduced
H.R.937, a bill to prohibit the use
of Federal funds for
any program that restricts the use of any privately
owned water source.
Learn more about
the bill at
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.00937
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)
introduced HR 944, a bill to designate certain
lands in
the State of Colorado as components of the National Wilderness
Preservation System.
Learn more
about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) introduced
H.R.954, a bill to amend the Federal
Power Act to
promote energy independence and self-sufficiency by providing
for the use of net metering by certain small electric energy
generation
systems, and for other purposes.
Learn more about the bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/
===================================
ON THE FLOOR THIS WEEK
===================================
**SENATE**
**Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) is
widely expected to introduce the
Democrats' answer to
Senator Murkowski's (R-AK) comprehensive energy bill
that calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Although
details of Bingaman's bill are not
available, the Environment and Energy
News Daily reports
the legislation will contain several conservation,
alternative energy and energy efficiency measures. While
Murkowski's bill
focuses on supply by giving tax credits
to polluting coal, gas and nuclear
industries,
Bingaman's bill centers more on demand, providing incentives
for emerging alternative energy markets including the
development of fuel
cells, wind, biomass and solar. More
information on the energy bill will
be available later
this week.
**Bipartisan
legislation on four-pollutant strategy for power plant
emissions will be introduced in the Senate and the House of
Representatives this week. Senators James Jeffords
(R-VT) and Joseph
Lieberman (D-CT) are expected to
sponsor the legislation in the Senate
while Reps. Henry
Waxman (D-CA) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) will
introduce the House version. During the campaign, Bush
signaled support
for a four-pollutant strategy to cut
emissions of the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide, nitrous
oxide, sulphur and toxic mercury from power plants
which
cause acid rain. On Monday March 12th, the Wall Street Journal
reported President Bush's continued commitment to that
approach.
Read Wall Street Journal article http://public.wsj.com/home.html
(subscription required)
To learn
more click http://www.senate.gov/~jeffords/clean2001sum.html
**HOUSE**
**HR 327, the Small Business
Paperwork Relief Act, is scheduled for floor
consideration later in the week. Sponsored by Rep. Dan
Burton (R-IN), the
bill aims to streamline the process
of small business reporting to the
federal government.
The legislation would require federal agencies to post
information reporting requirements that affect small
businesses on the
Internet and in the Federal Register.
It would also establish a task force
of members from
various agencies to look for ways to cut back on reporting
requirements.
The bill is based on
the Small Business Paperwork Reduction Act
Amendments
(HR391), sponsored by David McIntosh (R-IN) that passed the
House in the 106th Congress. The previous version of the
bill would have
undermined oversight for numerous
environmental programs that depend on
reliable reporting
and record-keeping information, as required by law. The
bill would have waived civil penalties for all first-time
violations of
reporting and record-keeping requirements,
regardless of the importance of
the missing or incorrect
information or the magnitude of the violation
itself.
(see "1999 National Environmental Scorecard", House vote #12 &13
www.lcv.org) HR 391 passed the House during the 106th
Congress, but never
received a vote in the Senate.
Rep. Dan Burton's bill as introduced does not include the
civil penalties
segment.
**HR 880, a bill to compensate a private landowner in
Washington County,
Utah $15 million for property deemed
necessary to the survival of the
desert tortoise may see
floor action this week. The bill's sponsor, Rep.
James
Hansen (R-UT) moved the legislation through the House last year,
however, the bill never received a vote in the Senate. Since
1996, the
Bureau of Land Management has been acquiring
close to 12,600 acres of
habitat to protect the desert
tortoise in Utah. The proposed $15 million
compensation
would be for an area containing 1,516 acres.
===================================
IN COMMITTEE THIS WEEK
===================================
**SENATE**
**On Thursday March 15th at 9:30am,
the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee will
hold hearings on efforts to reform the Army Corps of
Engineers. The Corps has come under harsh scrutiny over the
past year for
manipulating project justification studies
on massive water related
projects such as the $1billion
expansion of Mississippi and Illinois River
locks. In
addition, the agency was faulted for "cooking the books" when a
group of citizen watchdogs found a Corps study to dredge the
Delaware
River that indicated the river flowed two
different directions. Bush's
first budget proposes a 14%
($600 million) cut in funding for the Corps in
the 2002
fiscal year.
To learn more about
the Army Corps of Engineers and the agency's impact on
the environment, click below to read the complete Washington
Post series
credited for bringing many of these issues
to the public's attention.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/aroundthenation/corpsofengineers/
In
addition, to learn about efforts to reform the Corps and protect the
environment click http://www.americanrivers.org/
orhttp://www.nationalwildlife.org/greeningcorps/learnmore.html
**HOUSE**
**On Wednesday March 14th at 10:00
am, the new Science Committee Chairman,
Sherwood
Boehlert (R-NY), will hold hearings on the status of global
climate change science. The hearing will not be oriented
towards specific
legislation but will instead be a forum
for debate. Mounting evidence
supports the assertion
that human activities (such as burning fossil
fuels)
have a severe impact on the global climate. Recent international
negotiations on climate change at The Hague failed to
produce results due
to disputes over emission reduction
targets and implementation strategies.
Although
President Bush has stated he does not support the Kyoto Protocol,
last week EPA Administrator Christie Whitman declared that
the Bush
administration intends to continue working on
the climate change issue.
**On
Thursday March 15th at 9:30 am, the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee will hold hearings on brownfields
legislation.
While a Senate brownfields bill could see
floor action this week, the
House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Rep. Don
Young
(R-AK) will likely discuss many of the same issues as its Senate
counterparts, including provisions pertaining to the
"finality" of a site
once a state has determined it is
clean. The House Energy and Commerce
Committee has
ultimate jurisdiction over the bill.
===================================
NEWS FLASH!!
===================================
**With the nomination of J. Steven
Griles to be deputy secretary of the
Interior
Department, it is evident that resource extraction interests will
have great influence on the department that manages much of
the nation's
public lands. Interior Secretary
Gale Norton's proposed top deputy was a
mining industry
lobbyist who also worked with her at the Interior
Department during the Reagan administration.
Griles was appointed in 1981 to work in James Watt's
Interior Department
as deputy director of the Office of
Surface Mining. He stayed through both
Reagan terms,
finishing as assistant secretary for Lands and Minerals
Management. While at the Reagan Interior
Department, Griles was a key
figure in an
effort to downplay the risk of environmental hazards
associated with proposed oil drilling and development off
the coast of
California. After working at the Department
of Interior, Griles went to
work for United Company, a
Bristol, Va.-based natural resources company
involved in
coal, oil and gas development and gold mining.
He
currently serves as vice president of National Environmental
Strategies, a lobbying firm with clients ranging from the
Edison Electric
Institute to the National Mining
Association. Through his own firm, J.
Steven Griles and
Associates, Griles has lobbied on behalf of Dominion
Resources and ANR Coal. National Mining
Association spokesman John
Grasser called Griles "an
ally of the industry."
In 1998, National Environmental
Strategies in Washington D.C. grossed over
$1 million
dollars representing oil, chemical and mining industries.
To read the full income profile of this firm, click
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/98profiles/30913.htm
**Campaign finance reform is scheduled to receive full
Senate
consideration beginning Monday March 19th. The
new version of
McCain/Feingold/Cochran the "Bipartisan
Campaign Finance Reform Act of
2001" (S.27) represents
one of the best chances at achieving real reforms
to our
political system in several decades.
Some of the main provisions of the bill include:
1.) The McCain/Feingold/Cochran bill
would ban soft money contributions to
national political
parties and would prevent state and local party
organizations from using soft money contributions in federal
elections.
During the 2000 election cycle (1999-2000)
the national party committees
raised more than $457
million in soft money contributions. Some of the
largest
contributors of soft money to the parties are industries that
pollute our nation's air, water and land and lobby to weaken
our
environmental protections.
2.) S. 27 will prevent corporations
and unions from spending money on
broadcast, cable or
satellite ads that refer to candidates for federal
office within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a
primary or
convention. This does not restrict these
entities from spending money on
print ads or on
issue-based mailings that mention a candidate for federal
office.
3.)
S. 27 will place new restrictions on independent expenditure
campaigns, with new reporting requirements and new details
concerning what
constitutes "coordination" with a
candidate. Current FEC rules allow
organizations or
individuals to support a candidate for federal office by
running an independent expenditure campaign for that
candidate or against
the candidate's
opponent. Under these rules a group may spend an
unlimited amount of money in support of a candidate but is
restricted from
in any way coordinating their activities
with the candidate by discussing
campaign strategy or
campaign information with the candidate or
consultants,
such as pollsters, employed by the campaign.
The League of Conservation Voters strongly supports an
immediate ban on
soft money contributions. Some of the
largest contributors of soft money
are industries such
as mining, timber and oil that pollute out nation's
air,
land and water and seek to weaken our environmental protections.
These enormous soft money contributions stand in stark
contrast to the
significantly smaller amounts of money
raised and spent by environmental
organizations such as
the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) to support
candidates.
For summaries of campaign finance reform legislation and
other useful
information on the issue go to http://www.commoncause.org/
To read the full text of S.27 click
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/query/C?c107:./temp/~c107yU6Dc0
============
Corrections
============
Last week's Congressional Update statement that Reps. Markey
(D-MA) and
Johnson's (R-CT) bill HR 770, to designate a
portion of the coastal plain
of Alaska as wilderness,
has 177 co-sponsors was incorrect. The current
number of
co-sponsors as of 3/12/01 is 130.
===================================================================
LCV's Weekly Congressional Update is compiled using
various sources,
including Congressional Quarterly,
Congressional GreenSheets and
Greenwire. LCV-Update is brought to you by the
League of Conservation
Voters, the nonprofit political
voice for the national environmental and
conservation
community. LCV is the only national organization dedicated
full-time to informing the public about the environmental
records of
federally elected officials and candidates.
LCV publishes annually the
National Environmental Scorecard, which rates
members of
Congress on the most critical environmental votes cast during
that year.
If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list,
send the
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If you have any questions or
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Check out LCV's web site, where you can find National
Environmental
Scorecards, recent environmental votes,
letters to Congress, and
grassroots and membership
information. Look for us at: www.lcv.org
Join LCV today! To find out more information about how to
become a member
of LCV please contact us at:
League of Conservation Voters
1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
(202)785-8683
fax: (202)835-0491
email: lcv@lcv.org
from Environment News Service March 13, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
SENATE BILL OFFERS BOOST TO
NUCLEAR POWER
WASHINGTON, DC,
March 13, 2001 (ENS) - U.S. Senator Pete Domenici has
introduced a bill promoting nuclear power as the best
solution for a host
of problems, ranging from energy
shortages to global warming. But
environmental groups
and nuclear watchdog groups say that nuclear energy is
still a risky proposition - far more so than renewable
alternatives such as
solar power.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-06.html
************************************************************
FLORIDA CREATES RHODE ISLAND
SIZE WILDLIFE CORRIDOR
TALLAHASSEE, Florida, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - A swamp that is
the source of
drinking water for the city of
Jacksonville and critical habitat for
threatened Florida
black bears was today approved for purchase by the state.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-02.html
************************************************************
JAWS OF JUSTICE CLOSE ON
EUROPEAN ECO-CRIMINALS
BRUSSELS,
Belgium, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - The European Commission today
called for breaches of European Union environmental laws in
seven key
policy areas to be classed as criminal rather
than administrative offences
throughout the
bloc.
For full text
and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-03.html
************************************************************
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE SPREAD TO
MAINLAND EUROPE
LONDON, United
Kingdom, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - France's agriculture
ministry said today that foot and mouth disease, currently
sweeping the
United Kingdom, has reached French shores.
For full text and graphics,
visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-11.html
***********************************************************
DEPLETED URANIUM LEFT IN KOSOVO
COULD CONTAMINATE WATER
GENEVA,
Switzerland, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - Remnants of depleted uranium
ammunition used during the 1999 Kosovo conflict were found
in eight of 11
sites investigated by a United Nations
fact finding mission. Their report,
released today,
warns that depleted uranium ordnance remaining in Kosovo
presents a risk of future contamination of groundwater and
drinking water.
For full text
and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-01.html
************************************************************
CANADA LOSES APPEAL AS WTO BACKS
FRENCH BAN ON ASBESTOS
GENEVA,
Switzerland, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - The World Trade Organization
has ruled that France did not violate international trade
rules when it
banned asbestos.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-10.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
AMERISCAN: MARCH 13, 2001
Bush
Administration Chipping Away At Forest Protection
Cruise Ship Bill Strengthens Alaskan Regulation
Geologists Learning Uranium
Containment From Nature
New
Process Cleans Up Hexavalent Chromium, Trichloroethylene
NASA's Kennedy Team Cleans Up With
Fertile Invention
Water Rally
Visits Los Angeles
Paper or
Plastic? New Choices in Mulch
Colorado Biologists Tracking 50 Lynx
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-13-09.html
Copyright Environment News Service
(ENS) 2000 All Rights Reserved.
************************************************************
SEND
NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
A Song
of Creation: An Interfaith Earth Day
Celebration at Grace Cathedral, San
Francisco
Featuring
Mickey Hart, April 22, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Mar. 13
-/E-Wire/-- Earth Day in San Francisco will
never be the
same after experiencing this once in a lifetime celebration. Come and
revel
in music, dance, and spirit this Earth Day
featuring special guest, former Grateful
Dead drummer
Mickey Hart, plus many other spectacular performers. The
celebration, will begin at 3:00 with an Environmental Fair
in the Cathedral
Plaza and at 4:30 the live musical and
dance performances will take place in
the Cathedral
(Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St. at Taylor,
415-749-6300).
/CONTACT: McKenzie Ward, Publicist,
GraceCom/Grace Cathedral, 415.749.6364/
/Web site: http://www.gracecathedral.org/earthday/index.shtml/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/13Mar0104.html
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TO
BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
Break-Through Technology Makes
Plastics Biodegradable
PAINESVILLE, OH, Mar. 13
-/E-Wire/-- The technology is an additive
which, when
combined in small quantities with any of the popular plastic
resins, renders the end products biodegradable while
maintaining their other
desired
characteristics. It is sold as ECM MasterBatch Pellets and the
Company has developed the technology to the point where most
plastic products
manufacturers can use the additive
without having to modify their existing
methods of
production any more than if they were changing the product's color.
/CONTACT: Patrick Riley, president of ECM
BioFilm, 440-975-1645/
/Web
site: http://www.ecmbiofilms.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/13Mar0103.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
TO NATIONAL, BUSINESS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
GEMI Releases First of Its
Kind Publication: New Paths to Business Value: Strategic Sourcing - Environment,
Health, and Safety
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar. 13
-/E-Wire/-- The Global Environmental Management
Initiative (GEMI) today released a new publication, New
Paths to Business
Value: Strategic Sourcing-Environment,
Health, and Safety. The guidance
document was
designed to address the business value of managing Environment,
Health and Safety (EHS) in Procurement and was chaired by
three GEMI
companies.
/CONTACT: Amy Goldman of the Global Environmental
Management Initiative,
202-296-7449/
/Web site: http://www.gemi.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/13Mar0101.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
-- NEWS ADVISORY -- TO
ENVIRONMENTAL, ENERGY AND BUSINESS EDITORS:
EPA Administrator, Christie
Todd Whitman, Recognizes 34 Leading Organizations for Outstanding Energy
Efficiency
/CONTACT: Krista Martin, 202-944-5179, or email:
kmartin@hillandknowlton.com, or Molly McMahon,
202-944-5171, or email:
mmcmahon@hillandknowlton.com;
both for Energy Star./
/Web
site: http://www.epa.gov/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/13Mar0102.html
************************************************************
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE --
1-888-764-NEWS
************************************************************
from Sierra Club March 13, 2001
SC-ACTION Vol. III, #28
DEFENDING
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
March 12, 2001
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the Day:
"The wilderness holds answers to
more questions than we have yet learned to
ask."
-Nancy Newhall
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of
Contents:
1. It is time to Clean
Up Dirty Power Plants
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. It is
time to Clean Up Dirty Power Plants
Cleaning up old, dirty, coal-fired power plants - the
largest industrial
source of air pollution in the U.S. -
is an integral step toward improving
public health and
the environment. On Thursday, March 15th, Representative
Waxman (D-CA) and Boehlert (R-NY) in the House, and Senators
Jeffords
(R-VT) and Lieberman (D-CT) in the Senate, will
introduce the "Clean Power
Act of 2001," to address air
pollution from power plants. Urge your
Representative
and two Senators to be an original cosponsor of the "Clean
Power Act of 2001."
Power plant pollutants are destroying our health and
environment by causing
acid rain, damage to trees and
crops, contaminating our streams and lakes
with mercury,
and inducing global warming. Power plants contribute
two-thirds of all acid rain-forming sulfur dioxide
emissions, more than a
third of smog-forming nitrogen
oxide emissions, forty percent of the U.S.'s
carbon
dioxide global warming emissions, and thirty-four percent of all
deadly mercury emissions. Pollutants from old,
dirty coal-fired power
plants are responsible for more
than 30,000 premature deaths each year in
the United
States, according to recent studies.
The "Clean Power Act of 2001" will dramatically cut power
plant emissions
for four major pollutants by
2007. Smog-forming nitrogen oxides would be
cut by 75 percent from 1997 levels, acid rain-forming sulfur
dioxide would
be cut by 75% below Phase II of the Acid
Rain Program, mercury emissions
would be cut by 90
percent from 1999 levels, and carbon dioxide emissions
would return to 1990 levels. In addition, the Clean Power
Act would require
every power plant to meet the most
recent pollution controls required for
new sources by
the plants 30th birthday or five years after enactment of
the Act, whichever is later.
Act today. Call, email, or write your Representative and two
Senators
asking them to cosponsor the "Clean Power Act
of 2001." For more
information contact
dirk.manskopf@sierraclub.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sierra Club Legislative Hotline - 202-675-2394
Sierra Club National Headquarters - 415-977-5500
Sierra Club World Wide Web - http://www.sierraclub.org
Sierra Club Vote Watch Website - http://www.sierraclub.org/votewatch/
White House Comment Line - 202-456-1111
White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
George W. Bush's e-mail -
president@whitehouse.gov
Dick Cheney's e-mail
- vice-president@whitehouse.gov
White House Address -
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20500
US Capitol
Switchboard - 202-224-3121
To contact your senators - http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
To contact your representative - http://www.house.gov/writerep
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
from the Nature Conservancy March 13, 2001
The Nature Conservancy's Nature News, March 14, 2001
_________________________________________
1. Brazil's Carnival of Nature
2. Nature by the Numbers: Big and Small
3. Stay at a Nature Conservancy Preserve
4. Lasting Gifts
5. Animals We
Protect: Ocelots
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free Nature
Screensavers! (click http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a3)
To receive a personalized Nature
News tailored to your interests, or to update your profile, go to http://www.clickaction.net/ClickAction/subscriber?c=1&p=14464&i=2&func=S_survey.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Brazil's Carnival of Nature
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right now, Brazil is in the
midst of its annual Carnival celebration. At The Nature Conservancy,
we celebrate Brazil for our own reasons. A mecca of natural
treasures, Brazil is home to special places that include the lush Amazon rain
forests, the mangrove, woodland and tropical forests along the Atlantic coast,
the dry scrub land of the Caatinga, and the watery Pantanal wetland.
Unfortunately, all of these places
are environmentally at risk, an alarming trend considering Brazil is home to 5
percent of the world's land area. The Nature Conservancy and its
Brazilian partners, however, are working to protect these places and public
support for environmental conservation is growing in this area.
To learn more about The Nature
Conservancy's work in Brazil, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a5
============================================================
** SUPPORT US **
Help us protect
the world's Last Great Places by donating online. Our work in places
like Brazil depends on the support of caring people like you. Giving
online is fast, easy, and a great way to show your support of our natural world.
To donate online, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a0
============================================================
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Nature by the Numbers: Big and Small
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Size of The Nature Conservancy's
largest preserve, Niobrara Valley Preserve, Nebraska: 55,823 acres
Size of The Nature Conservancy's
smallest preserve, Scotia Island Preserve, New York: 0.5 acres
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Stay at a Nature Conservancy Preserve
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Planning a vacation in the next
few months? Consider staying at a Nature Conservancy preserve. Experience our
conservation work first hand while also enjoying nature. Preserve activities
include hikes, visits to dinosaur digs, kayaking, nature workshops, horseback
riding and bird watching. Accommodations range from quaint bed and breakfasts to
rustic cabins.
To learn more,
please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a1
============================================================
**FREE Nature Screensavers**
Add
a touch of nature to a high tech world. Download one of The Nature Conservancy's
Free Screensavers! Choose from one of eight images, from fall foliage in
Michigan to wildflowers in Oklahoma, from a pink and red sea star to a colorful
frigate bird.
To download a FREE
screensaver, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a3
============================================================
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Lasting Gifts
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To make a gift of any kind to
The Nature Conservancy is an act of generosity. To make a long term gift-one
derived from the work of a lifetime-is to make a commitment beyond
measure." There are several ways to make a lasting gift to help Save
the Last Great Places while also meeting your financial or tax planning needs.
The Nature Conservancy offers a wide range of options including life-income
gifts, wills and estate plans, and donations of cash or securities.
To learn more about these long term
gifts, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Animals We Protect: Ocelots
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicknamed 'little tigers',
ocelots' habitat ranges from the Rio Grande River in Texas to the Patagonia
region in South America. They sport beautifully decorated tawny pelts,
unfortunately making them attractive targets for poachers. Widespread
destruction of the thickets where they love to lurk also has contributed to
their decline.
To learn more
about ocelots, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a6
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward Nature News to
interested friends, family, and associates. To learn more about The Nature
Conservancy, please visit:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a9
This e-mail is being sent to
all subscribers for Nature News, eNews, and What's News Digest to keep you
up-to-date on The Nature Conservancy's efforts to help save the Last Great
Places.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tell your friends to visit us at http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a14464a31794a67074702a9
so they can help out too!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from Working Assets 'Act for Change' March 14, 2001
The fight to slash the enormous influence of
special-interest money on our
political system has
reached a crucial crossroads -- and we need your help.
At this moment, the nation is entering a terrific window of
opportunity to
finally enact meaningful campaign finance
reform. By taking action right
now, from your computer,
you can push our leaders to turn their hot air into
real
change.
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=10601
Tell your senators to stop
playing games and begin reforming our democracy.
By
using the link above you can take action right now from your computer in
just a few quick clicks. Simply click the link, or copy and
paste it into
your browser. And pass it on to everyone
you know!
In a week, the Senate
will debate the McCain-Feingold bill, free of the
threat
of filibusters that have derailed previous efforts. But just as
enough Republicans have agreed to allow a vote on the
"soft-money" ban, some
Democrats that have long
supported the legislation are having misgivings at
giving up hundreds of millions of unregulated donations
themselves.
During last year's
federal election, more than $450 million was raised and
spent in unregulated, unlimited political contributions.
While not a panacea
for all that ails our political
system, a ban on such donations would be an
important
bit of medicine -- the first serious campaign finance reform
legislation in 25 years.
If either party manages to slip so-called "poison pill"
amendments into the
bill, such as a GOP proposal that
would hinder unions trying to raise money
from members,
the other side will abandon their support and another
opportunity for true reform will evaporate. And we need to
be on guard for a
compromise that would raise the limits
on contributions to candidates --
so-called "hard money"
in return for a vote to eliminate "soft money."
Please urge your senators, whether Democrat or Republican,
to support the
bill -- and not cynical amendments that,
as the New York Times said in an
editorial, "would
imperil the best chance in a generation to clean up
American politics."
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=10601
There is strength in
numbers! So once you take action, please forward this
e-mail to friends and associates so they can speak out, too.
You can also take action on
these and many other crucial, timely actions at
ActForChange:
Protect Arctic Wildlife Refuge from Oil Drilling
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=1244
Congress: Don't Restrict
Access to Mifepristone! (RU-486)
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=10648
And, if after taking action,
you want to do even more to end the influence
of
special-interest money on our political system, click on the links below
to make a donation to the following organizations:
Public Citizen Foundation
http://www.GiveForChange.com/PublicCitizenFoundation
League of Women Voters
http://www.GiveForChange.com/LeagueofWomenVoters
Americans4Reform
http://www.americans4reform.com
With
appreciation,
Michael Kieschnick
President, Working Assets
from Global Response March 14, 2001
Global Response Action #2/01
No Oil
Development on Caribbean Coast / Costa Rica
March-April
2001
"We declare Costa Rica free
from all oil exploration and extraction, and we
invite
our government to do the same, becoming a world leader in
sustainable development." --- Public Declaration signed by
thousands of
Costa Rican organizations and individuals
Over the past two decades, Costa
Rica has built a huge tourist industry on
its reputation
for environmental protection. Say "Costa Rica," and images
of lush rainforests and pristine beaches come to
mind. That's why Costa
Ricans and tourists
alike are shocked and outraged to learn that the
government has granted concessions for oil development in
some of the
country's most cherished protected areas.
The "rich coast," named by
Columbus, is the region now known as Talamanca -
one of
the most biologically rich areas in the world. Marine resources,
including magnificent coral reefs, mangroves, sea turtle
nesting beaches,
rare manatees, and over 100 species of
fish, are protected by Cahuita
National Park and the
Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Ground-breaking
dolphin research is being conducted in the only area in the
world where two
dolphin species are known to interbreed
in the wild (see the tale of the
tucuxi in the box,
below). Talamanca's mountainous terrain and tropical
rainforest vegetation are as biologically rich as the sea,
earning
protection as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In
all, 88% of Talamanca's
territory has some degree of
protection.
Talamanca's
biological diversity is matched by its cultural diversity:
Bribri and Cabecar indigenous groups manage two indigenous
reserves, and
the coast is dotted with fishing-farming
villages founded by immigrants of
Afro-Caribbean
descent. Eco-tourism has become the most important source of
income in Talamanca, drawing visitors from around the world.
The diverse Talamanca peoples
are united in their opposition to oil
development along
their coast. The municipal government declared Talamanca
county an "oil free zone," and 30 citizens' organizations
(virtually all in
the region) formed a coalition called
ADELA to stop oil development before
the damage to
Talamanca ecosystems becomes irreversible.
Who would drill for oil against such united
opposition? The answer is
Harken Energy, a
Houston, Texas, company that has strong links to U.S.
President George W. Bush, formerly a major shareholder and
member of the
board of directors. Harken's
off-shore high-energy seismic explorations
may already
be affecting marine mammals, lobster and other marine species,
according to marine scientists.
ADELA won a major victory in September 2000, when the Costa
Rican Supreme
Court invalidated the Harken
concession. But the same Court later gave in
to pressure from government agencies and oil companies, and
reinstated the
permit. The people of
Talamanca call on Costa Rica, as a signer of the Rio
Declaration of 1992, the Climate Change Convention of 1993
and the Kyoto
Protocol of 1997, to become a leader in
clean energy development, since
fossil fuels threaten
biodiversity, local economies and the global climate.
Requested Action:
Please write letters to the
president of Costa Rica and the CEO of Harken
Energy
Corp., supporting the Talamanca people's demand for no oil
development on the Caribbean coast (see below).
*****************************************************
Background Info
*****************************************************
Biodiversity in Costa Rica -
Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute (INBio)
estimates that 4 to 6
percent of the world's species are
found in Costa Rica, although the
country comprises only
.01% of global territory. Of the estimated 500,000
species, less than 20% have been described. Costa
Rica is especially noted
for the density of its
biodiversity: for every 10,000 square kilometers,
Costa
Rica has 295 tree species, compared to Colombia with 35 and Brazil
with 6.
Tucuxis in Talamanca -
The tucuxi (pronounced "too KOO shee") is one of the
least-studied dolphin
species. Scientists were surprised to find
the diminutive tucuxis off the
Talamanca shore, since
their range was thought to extend only from Panama
south
to Brazil. Even more surprising, the resident population of tucuxis
in Talamanca intermingle and appear to mate with
bottlenose dolphins.
"This is
the only place in the world where we have the opportunity to
observe ongoing inter-species breeding in the wild," says
Dr. Paul
Forestell of Southampton College, who is
studying the dolphins. "In
Talamanca we have
a very rare opportunity to learn completely new things
about inter-species relations. The oil
exploration definitely puts these
marine mammals at
risk."
Studies have shown that
the noise and disturbances of oil exploration and
other
industrial activities cause stress in dolphins and drive them away,
Forestell says. "Prolonged stress is a deadly
disease in mammals -
dolphins as well as
humans. We are pressuring marine mammals to adjust to
our technologies faster than they have evolved to
withstand." Tucuxis
depend on mangrove
habitat for food and shelter. Sensitive mangrove
ecosystems around the world are being seriously compromised
by pollution
from oil development.
With other marine scientists and
local fishermen, Forestell formed the
Talamanca Dolphin
Foundation to study and protect dolphins and dolphin
habitat. Using underwater microphones, they are
learning whether the
tucuxis and bottlenose dolphins
make different sounds when they're in mixed
company
versus single-species groups - a unique contribution to the study
of dolphin "language."
For more information, see: www.dolphinlink.org;
http://library.thinkquest.org/17963;
www.cosmovisiones.com/adela;
www.tmmc.org/dolphins.htm; www.inbio.ac.cr/en/biod/Biod.html.
*******************************************
Requested Action: Please
send polite letters to the president of Costa
Rica and
the CEO of Harken Energy Corporation.
1) Sr. Presidente de la Republica
Miguel Angel Rodriguez
Casa
Presidencial
Apdo. 520-2010 Zapote
San Jose, COSTA RICA
AX: Int'l code+
506-253-9078
Congratulate him on
Costa Rica's leadership in establishing protected areas
and developing eco-tourism to protect the country's
magnificent
biodiversity.
Express your alarm that he would permit oil/gas development
on the
Caribbean coast, endangering exceptionally rich
and fragile marine and
terrestrial ecosystems, and
threatening the eco-tourism economy.
Remind him that Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, signed
by Costa Rica,
requires civic participation in
development decisions; the Talamanca county
government
and citizens overwhelmingly oppose oil development.
Urge him to cancel oil/gas concessions and take leadership
in this
century's most important challenge: replacing
fossil fuel dependence with
clean energy.
2) Bruce
Huff, CEO
Harken Energy Corporation
16285 Park Ten Place, Suite 600
Houston TX 77084
FAX: Int'l code+
281-717-1400
Express your alarm
that Harken intends to explore for oil and gas along
Costa Rica's Caribbean coast - one of the most biologically
rich regions of
the planet. Oil development
has harmed and destroyed fragile coral reef,
mangrove,
and estuary ecosystems around the world; Harken cannot guarantee
that such disasters will not occur in Costa Rica.
Remind him that Principle 10 of the
Rio Declaration, signed by Costa Rica,
requires civic
participation in development decisions; the Talamanca county
government and citizen organizations overwhelmingly oppose
oil development.
Tell him that
you stand with the people of Talamanca against oil and gas
development that threatens invaluable natural resources and
the eco-tourism
economy as well.
THANKS FOR
YOUR LETTERS --
PERSONAL LETTERS ARE A POWERFUL TOOL FOR
SOCIAL CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION.
This Global Response Action was
issued at the request of and with
information provided
by Accion de Lucha Antipetrolera (ADELA) and the
Talamanca Dolphin Foundation. Special thanks to
Dr. Paul Forestell,
Southampton College.
--------------------------------------
GLOBAL RESPONSE is an international letter-writing network
of environmental
activists. In partnership
with indigenous, environmentalist and peace and
justice
organizations around the world, GLOBAL RESPONSE develops "Actions"
that describe specific, urgent threats to the environment;
each "Action"
asks members to write personal letters to
individuals in the corporations,
governments or
international organizations that have the power and
responsibility to take corrective action. GR also
issues "Young
Environmentalists' Actions" and "Eco-Club
Actions" designed to educate and
motivate elementary and
high school students to practice earth stewardship.
P.O. Box 7490 Phone: 303/444-0306
Boulder CO, USA 80306-7490
Fax: 303/449-9794
To receive Global Response "Actions" and "Emergency Actions"
by email:
Send a blank message to:
globresmembers-subscribe@igc.topica.com
Visit our website at: http://www.globalresponse.org
from Environment News Service March 14, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
BUSH BLAMES ENERGY SHORTAGE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL ROLLBACKS
By Cat
Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, March
14, 2001 (ENS) - President George W. Bush did an
abrupt
about face Tuesday, reversing a previous pledge to legislate limits
on carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. Bush
said such a rule
would prove too costly - another in a
slew of recent federal and state
government attempts to
roll back environmental protections in favor of
controlling energy prices.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-06.html
************************************************************
TWO RIVERS TOP BRITISH
COLUMBIA'S MOST ENDANGERED LIST
VANCOUVER, Canada, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - Britannia Creek,
the mountain
waterway running through one of the most
polluted abandoned mines in North
America, is British
Columbia's most endangered river.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-11.html
************************************************************
PORTUGUESE DAM CREATES EUROPE'S
LARGEST ARTIFICIAL LAKE
LISBON,
Portugal, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - Logging has begun on one million
old growth oak trees that are being cleared for construction
of Europe's
largest dam. The Alqueva dam on the River
Guadiana in southern Portugal
will result in the largest
artifical lake in Europe.
For
full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-03.html
************************************************************
DAM PROTESTERS OCCUPY BRAZIL'S
MINISTRY OF ENERGY
BRASILIA,
Brazil, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - The Brazilian Ministry of Mines
and Energy was occupied this morning by 1,500 people who
came from all
across the country to protest the negative
effects of large dams.
For full
text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-02.html
***********************************************************
BLACK PEARL DEVELOPERS THREATEN
PACIFIC SEABIRDS
CAMBRIDGE,
United Kingdom, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - A tiny coral atoll in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean that is one of the world's most
important
seabird breeding areas might fall prey to the
development of commercial
black pearl farming.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-01.html
************************************************************
MALAYSIA WINS A BATTLE IN
REPTILE SMUGGLING WAR
KUALA
LUMPUR, Malaysia, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - Malaysian authorities have
intercepted wildlife smugglers in two large seizures of rare
and endangered
reptiles.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-10.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
AMERISCAN: MARCH 14, 2001
Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Clean Water
House Bill Would Open Monument to
Hunting
BP Amoco Agrees to Clean
Up Pennsylvania Sites
Scientists
Use Native Plants as Cleanup Tools
Hardware Stores Team Up to Fight Lead Poisoning
Washington State Buys Land to Aid
Salmon
Fisheries' Dalton Sticks
With Ocean Issues
Peregrine
Falcon Egg Watch Goes Online
For
full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-14-09.html
Copyright Environment News Service
(ENS) 2000 All Rights Reserved.
************************************************************
SEND
NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ADVISORY/Allied Pilots
Association Announces In-Flight Environmental Issues Forum
FORT WORTH, TX, Mar. 14
-/E-Wire/-- Who: Co-sponsored by American Airlines' Corporate Medical
Department
and the Allied Pilots Association
/CONTACT: Allied Pilots Association, Gregg
Overman, 817/302-2250/
For Full
Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0106.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ENSR International Helps Auto
Suppliers Meet ISO 14001 Deadlines
WESTFORD, MA, Mar. 14
-/E-Wire/-- ENSR International, a leading environmental consulting firm, has
ramped up its ISO 14001 assistance to automotive suppliers that provide goods
and services to Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and Daimler Chrysler. To
retain their "preferred supplier" status, auto suppliers must achieve ISO 14001
certification of their environmental management systems (EMSs) as early as
December 2001 and no later than December 2003.
/CONTACT: John Petraglia at ENSR International
1-800-722-2440; Michelle Bates Deakin, (781) 641-1116/
/Web site: http://www.ensr.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0105.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
TO
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
First American and Honeywell
to explore potential to form a strategic
alliance
offering turnkey energy conservation solutions
VANCOUVER, Canada, Mar. 14
-/E-Wire/-- C.L. Kantonen, Chairman of FASC is pleased to
announce that, after preliminary discussions and successful
meetings in
Toronto, FASC and Honeywell have decided to
commence a formal 9 step
process to assess the potential
of the two companies forming a strategic
alliance to
include the KDS Micronex"! in Honeywell's product offering.
/CONTACT: Call Corporate Communications toll free
at (877) 778 - 7101 or (800)
561- 8656/
/Web site: http://www.fasc.net/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0104.html
***********************************************************************
E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS
RELEASE
***********************************************************************
TO ENERGY AND TECHNOLOGY
EDITORS:
ThermoEnergy's Advanced
Wastewater Treatment Project A Success
LITTLE ROCK, AR, Mar. 14
-/E-Wire/-- ThermoEnergy Corporation
(OTC BB:TMEN)
announced the successful conclusion of the STORS 2000
Advanced Wastewater Demonstration Project sponsored by the
United States
Environmental Protection Agency. This $3
million dollar project, located in
Colton, California
(greater Los Angeles area), confirmed the ability of the
Sludge-To-Oil Reactor System (STORS) process to convert raw
sewage sludge
(biosolids) into a high energy fuel -
known as `bio-fuel'. Bio-fuel can
either be used on-site
to power the STORS/ARP plant or sold to the local
electricity power market.
/CONTACT: ThermoEnergy Corporation, Dennis C.
Cossey, 501/376-6477, E-mail: dcossey@thermoenergy.com or
Alex G. Fassbender P.E., 509/375-0847, E-mail: afassbender@thermoenergy.com/
/Web site: http://www.thermoenergy.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0103.html
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TO ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
EDITORS:
New Corn to Plastic Technology
Receives Department of Energy Honors
MINNEAPOLIS, MN, Mar. 14
-/E-Wire/-- Cargill Dow LLC's breakthrough technology, NatureWorks(TM) PLA, made
a key addition to its list of industry honors with the presentation of the
Department of Energy's Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT)
Technology-of-the-Year award. This honor is awarded annually to a technology
that demonstrates the potential for improved energy efficiency along with
economic and environmental benefits.
/CONTACT: Cargill Dow LLC, Michael O'Brien,
952/742-0523, michael_o'brien@cargilldow.com or Gibbs
& Soell Public Relations, Jennifer Gray, 847/519-9150,
jgray@gibbs-soell-il.com/
/Web
site: http://www.cargilldow.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0102.html
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TO ENVIRONMENT EDITORS:
Audubon of Florida Invites
Birders to Participate in a Statewide Bird-a-thon
Saturday, March 24th &
31st 2001
MIAMI, FL, Feb. 28 -/E-Wire/--
Mark your calendars for fun in the great outdoors during Audubon of Florida's
Birdathon 2001, Saturdays, March 24th & 31st. Not only will you
be participating in guided tours of natural areas across the state, but you will
also be assisting in protecting Florida's natural treasures.
/CONTACT: Irela M. Bagué or Erin Petra at (305)
371-6399/
/Web
site: http://www.audubon.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/14Mar0101.html
************************************************************
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE --
1-888-764-NEWS
************************************************************
from Sierra Club March 14, 2001
URGENT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR NEEDED ON BUSH'S BROKEN
PROMISES
Yesterday President
Bush did an abrupt U turn on controlling carbon dioxide
from power plants, breaking one of the few pro-environment
campaign
commitments he made. In his budget
he also broke the promise on increasing
funding for the
National Parks, now robbing other valuable underfunded Park
programs to provide funding for Park
maintenance. It's time for
environmentalists
nationwide to expose these early anti-environmental
actions and hold him accountable early in his
Presidency. The American
people need to learn
about these anti-environmental positions through
letters
to the editor in your local papers. Please take the time to send
in a letter on this topic this week so we can hold the
President
accountable and warn him that any future
attacks on the environment will be
noticed.
Here's the details:
President George W. Bush has broken
the campaign promise he made to the
American people to
curb carbon dioxide pollution, the primary gas causing
global warming. This promise to reduce carbon emissions was
one of the few
environmental pledges Bush made during
his campaign. His about-face is a
betrayal and proof
that Bush is a typical politican who can't be trusted.
The President reneged on his
campaign promise to curb carbon dioxide
pollution under
pressure from the coal companies and power plant owners.
Polluters pumped massive campaign contributions into the
Bush-Cheney campaign and
Bush's u-turn on emissions is
evidence that Bush owes and will side with
the
industries that funded his campaign.
In a Sept. 29, 2000 campaign speech in Saginaw, Michigan,
Bush pledged to
curb carbon dioxide pollution:
"As we promote electricity and
renewable energy, we will work to make our
air cleaner.
With the help of Congress, environmental groups
and
industry, we will require all power plants to meet clean air standards
in order to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxide, mercury and
carbon dioxide within a reasonable
period of time."
On March 13,
2001 Bush wrote "I do not believe...that the government should
impose on power plants mandatory emissions for carbon
dioxide."
Carbon dioxide
accounts for about 70% of the global warming problem. The
U.S. is the world's biggest global warming polluter, spewing
25% of the
planet's global warming pollution; one-third
of our emissions come from
power plants. So
the President's refusal to impose mandatory carbon
dioxide cuts will have severe consequences on our nation and
the world.
Already the 1990's
were the warmest decade on record; record heat waves
killed hundreds in the Midwest. Further global
warming will trigger:
*more severe and frequent killer
heat waves in our cities,
*sea level rise, inundating
coastal areas,
*spreading infectious diseases as
disease-carrying insects and rodents
bring diseases to
new areas,
*more severe storms as rainfall patterns
change and warming leads to more
energy in the
atmosphere, and
*more severe droughts as increased heat
leads to more rapid evaporation.
Some regions of the world have already warmed by as much as
5 degrees
Fahrenheit. Physicians at Harvard
University and Johns Hopkins medical
schools have issued
grim assessments that global warming may already
be
causing the spread of infectious diseases and increasing heat-wave
deaths.
At
the same time, during the campaign George W. Bush committed to increase
funding for the National Park Service to deal with the
backlog of
maintenance from old neglected
infrastructure. He highlighted this issue
in
his first address to Congress and got a round of applause. Now it is
apparent that he is robbing Peter to pay Paul,
shortchanging other
underfunded Park programs such as
research and ranger interpretation
programs to steer
money to the maintenance budget line item. He is also
using the need to fund the existing Park's as an excuse to
attack the new
National Monuments, claiming that
President Clinton's actions to establish
new parks has
caused the problem.
Two
environmental campaign promises, two broken promises. This is a
reckless start for the Bush Presidency.
Please let the American people know
you care about this through a letter to
the editor
today.
from World Wildlife Fund March 14, 2001
Save Spectacled Bears and Other Species From Global Warming
Dear WWF Conservation Action
Network Activist:
Despite new
scientific findings that global warming is already having a
serious impact on species and their habitats, President Bush
recently
reversed a campaign pledge and decided not to
seek reductions in the
carbon dioxide emissions of the
nation's power plants. He has also
said he
will not support the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement
that calls on industrialized countries to reduce their
carbon pollution in
order to curb global
warming. His decision means the spectacled bear
of the Andes, the mountain gorilla in Africa, the
resplendent quetzal of
Central America, and many other
species of mammals, invertebrates,
reptiles, birds,
amphibians, and insects will remain at risk from our
overheated atmosphere.
More than 100 governments
represented on the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate
Change recently endorsed a report which states that
climate change is already having a "widespread and coherent
impact"
on the planet, and that it is occurring in all
environments and on all
continents. President
Bush's decision not to seek emissions reductions
flies
in the face of dire warnings about the irreparable damage global
warming is causing and is at odds with the position of his
administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. His
change of heart came after heavy
lobbying from the oil and coal
industries and
congressional Republicans.
Let's show President Bush there is tremendous support for
protecting our
living planet. Please go to http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/ to send
a free message urging him to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
and
support the climate change protocol.
P.S. Don't miss "Trade
Secrets," an investigative report on the
chemical
industry airing on PBS on Monday, March 26 (check local
listings). Mark your calendars and watch to
discover how our health
and safety have been put at risk
and why powerful forces don't want
the truth to be
known
from Environmental Defense March 14, 2001
You can take action on this alert either by email or
preferably on the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/take-action.tcl?key=419220A18048B0314060003C169
Alert expires on April 13, 2001
Here's what this alert is about:
Take Action. Fight
Global Warming!
----------------------
President Bush Breaks Campaign Promise on Global Warming.
Take Action to
Support Pollution Reduction From Power Plants.
***************************
Action Network from Environmental Defense.
Finding the ways that work. Funded by members like
you.
***************************
The Bush Administration has taken a major step backwards
in the fight against global climate
change. Just yesterday,
President Bush
reversed his campaign promise to curb
all key pollutants
from electric power plants, including
carbon dioxide, a
major contributor to global warming.
Power plants are
responsible for 40 percent of carbon
dioxide releases in
the U.S. - the most important greenhouse
gas.
This is a major
reversal. Just days ago, the Bush
Administration, including EPA administrator Christie
Whitman, publicly stated its support for requiring
greenhouse gas pollution reductions from power plants.
However, pressure from coal industry lobbyists was
enough to convince the Administration to back away
from progressive solutions to global climate change.
The administration has reneged on a
major environmental
campaign
commitment. Also, in opposing the Kyoto Protocol
and power plant pollution controls, it has effectively
blocked the only two proposed vehicles for fighting
global warming, the key environmental threat of this
century, while offering no alternative path to protect
the planet.
TAKE ACTION:
Follow the simple
instructions below and send a message
to President Bush
and Administrator Whitman expressing
your disappointment
with this reversal. Urge him to
follow
through on his campaign promise to seek effective
solutions to global climate change, beginning with
basic reductions in power plant pollution.
SPREAD THE WORD:
The President needs to hear from you and your friends
and family. Visit http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/globalwarming/forward.
Iinvite others to take action on this critical
issue.
For more information
about Environmental Defense's
efforts to fight climate
change, visit http://www.environmentaldefense.org/programs/GRAP/.
----------------------
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:
If you have access to a web browser, you can take action
on this alert by going to the following URL:
http://actionnetwork.org/take-action.tcl?key=419220A18048B0314060003C169
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA
EMAIL:
Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your
email
program, and edit the letter below as you
wish. You
must include the whole letter in
your response including
"-YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER
BELOW-" and "-END OF LETTER-".
Please do not add your
name and address to your letter.
Action Network
automatically does this for you.
We STRONGLY encourage you to make edits directly to
our sample letter below, and put the alert talking
points into your own words. An individualized letter
is worth ten computer generated letters. Of course,
hundreds of unedited letters will still create a large
impact, so please reply even if you don't have time
to personalize the letter.
Your letter will be addressed and sent to:
President George W. Bush
-------YOU MAY EDIT THE LETTER
BELOW---------
I am deeply
disappointed that you have gone back on
your campaign
promise to reduce carbon dioxide from
power
plants. The science is clear that greenhouse
gases are causing an unprecedented warming of our earth,
and power plants emit 40 percent of U.S. emissions
of carbon dioxide -- the greenhouse gas most responsible
for global warming. Refusing to regulate these
emissions
is therefore a failure to take this issue
seriously,
at a time when the world needs American
leadership
on the issue.
I urge you to reconsider your decision not to reduce
power plant emissions of carbon dioxide. Please
resist
industry pressure and follow through on your
commitment
to fighting global warming.
-------END OF
LETTER-------------------------
from Alaska Rainforest Campaign March 14, 2001
Dear Friends:
Yesterday, March 13, 2001 was the date the Roadless Rule was
to go into effect-protecting more than 58 million acres, including Alaska. s
Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has
delayed implementation of the Policy until May 12, 2001. Furthermore, several
members of Congress are looking to overturn the rule as quickly as possible. It
was your letters and phone calls that helped make the Roadless Rule a reality
and now we need your help to defend it. Please take a few moments to
write your two senators and one representative and urge protection of this
landmark conservation legacy.
Handwritten letters are the most effective (we have included
a sample letter below). To find out who your lawmakers are and their contact
information visit: http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml
If you can not write your own letter, please take a few
moments to send a personalized letter from
http://www.akrain.org/action/faxes/actionpage.asp
As always, thanks for your support!
Alaska Rainforest Campaign
SAMPLE
LETTER:
March __, 2001
Dear
Senator/ Representative _________,
March 13, 2001, was the date one of the most important
conservation initiatives in the last century was to go into effect.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has delayed implementation of America¹s
new National Forest protection policy, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule,
which would protect the last 31 percent of our National Forests from destructive
activities like road building, mining and most logging. It includes forests in
38 states as well as Alaska. s Tongass National Forest, a unique and highly
vulnerable temperate rainforest. Locally, (insert your local forest here) has
been protected.
The Roadless
rule is the product of two decades of debate and over two-years of focused
discussion and public participation in the largest public comment process ever
conducted by the Forest Service on an administrative rule. Over 600 public
meetings, attended by over 25,000 citizens, were held in each National Forest
and in each Forest Service region. During the official public comment
period, a record-breaking 1.6 million Americans submitted official comments and
more than 95 percent of which supported the strongest possible protection for
remaining roadless areas.
Strong
support for this policy reflects the fact that many people use our national
forests for many different purposes. The roadless rule at its heart restores
balance to management of the forests after years of management almost
exclusively for logging at the expense of all other activities. Alaska. s
Tongass is a prime example of the problems inherent with this approach. Though
it still contains the largest tracts of intact temperate rainforest in the
world, a logging first policy has resulted in over 70% of its most valuable old
growth trees being logged. The roadless rule will help protect the remaining
critical wildlife habitat and watersheds in the Tongass as well as forests
closer to home like ________________________.
Protecting
what's left of the wild portions of our forests creates jobs in tourism,
recreation, fishing, hunting, and other sustainable businesses. However, perhaps
most importantly, millions of Americans will be able to continue to enjoy the
great outdoors through the national forests. The Roadless Rule ensures that
American. s special relationship with the wilderness will be available to future
generations.
Please oppose any efforts to overturn the Roadless Forest
Protect Rule and/ or any attempts to undermine or delay the rule's application
to Alaska. s Tongass and Chugach forests. Lastly, I ask you to urge
the Administration to quickly implement this rule. Protection delayed is
protection denied.
Sincerely,
(Make sure to include your
mailing address)
from Environment News Service March 15, 2001
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
(ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We
Cover the Earth For You"
************************************************************
GREENHOUSE EFFECT CONFIRMED OVER
27 YEARS
LONDON, United Kingdom,
March 15, 2001 (ENS) - While the political fight is
heating up in Washington and Brussels over how to limit the
emissions of
greenhouse gases linked to climate change,
scientists have published new
evidence that global
warming is really occurring.
For
full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-02.html
***********************************************************
BIPARTISAN EMISSIONS BILL
COUNTERS BUSH'S BROKEN PROMISE
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, March 15, 2001 (ENS) - A bipartisan group of
U.S. Congress
members introduced a bill today that would
set emissions limits for carbon
dioxide and other power
plant pollutants that contribute to global warming
and
pose a risk to public health. The bill was released two days after
President George W. Bush's controversial decision not to
support limits on
carbon dioxide emissions from power
plants.
For full text and
graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-06.html
************************************************************
SEVEN ARRESTED DEFENDING
YELLOWSTONE BUFFALO
WEST
YELLOWSTONE, Montana, March 15, 2001 (ENS) - The buffalo battle on the
edge of Yellowstone National Park heated up again this week.
For the first
time this winter, buffalo, also known as
bison, were captured and killed by
Montana officials.
For full text and graphics
visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-01.html
************************************************************
U.S.-CANADA TRADE WAR LOOMS OVER
SOFTWOOD LUMBER
VANCOUVER,
Canada, March 14, 2001 (ENS) - The end of an agreement this
month governing softwood lumber exports between Canada and
the United
States could be the beginning of a trade war
with significant implications
for the environment.
For full text and graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-11.html
************************************************************
TEN COMPANIES CONTROL FATE OF
WORLD'S FORESTS
LONDON, United
Kingdom, March 15, 2001 - Just 10 companies could halt
logging old growth forests and still meet the world's
industrial wood and
wood fiber needs, according to a
report published Wednesday by the World Wide
Fund for
Nature (WWF).
For full text and
graphics, visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-10.html
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT NEWS AMERISCAN:
MARCH 15, 2001
DC Area Landlord
Lied About Lead Paint Hazards
Arizona Historic Officer Defaces Historic Site
Stabilize Population to Curb Sprawl
Clean Coal Technology Burner
Sales Top $1 Billion
Bill Would
Help Cleaners Protect the Environment
Tucson Hosts Desert Tortoise Conference
Wildlife Enthusiasts Asked to
Participate in Survey
Nickelodeon Teams Up to Teach Kids About Wildlife
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-15-09.html
Copyright Environment News Service
(ENS) 2000 All Rights Reserved.
************************************************************
SEND
NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
***********************************************************************
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TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATIONAL
EDITORS:
Bush Makes Right Call on CO2;
NCPA's Burnett Applauds President's Decision On Emissions Caps
DALLAS, TX, Mar. 15
-/E-Wire/-- President Bush's announcement that the
administration will not impose mandatory emissions
reductions for carbon
dioxide on the nation's power
plants is good news for our nation's energy and
environmental policy, according to H. Sterling Burnett,
senior policy analyst
with the National Center for
Policy Analysis (NCPA).
/CONTACT: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center
for Policy Analysis,
972-386-6272
/Web site: http://www.ncpa.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/15Mar0103.html
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
BAT
International Signs Two Licensing Agreements To Distribute Its Fuel Catalyst
SAN DIEGO, CA, Mar. 15
-/E-Wire/-- BAT International, Inc. (OTC:BAAT), announced today that it has
signed licensing agreements
with Bio-Clean Fuels, Inc.
(BCF), and Dolphin ACI, a company which BAT owns
an
equity position, to distribute BAT's A-1 catalyst, an emissions reduction
additive.
/CONTACT: William Wason, 619/409-8977/
/Web site: http://www.baat.com/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/15Mar0104.html
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TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
EarthCare Company Reaches
Settlement in Arbitration Proceedings With World Fuel Services
DALLAS, TX, Mar. 15
-/E-Wire/-- EarthCare Company (Nasdaq: ECCO) today
announced it has reached a settlement in its arbitration
proceedings with
World Fuel Services (NYSE: INT) related
to EarthCare's acquisition of World
Fuel Services'
oil-recycling segment in February 2000.
/CONTACT: Bill Solomon, Chief Financial Officer
of EarthCare Company,
972-858-6025, ext. 113, or
bsolomon@earthcareus.com/
For
Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/15Mar0102.html
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TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
EDITORS:
Fund for Animals Releases New
Report on Unfair,
Unsporting,
And Unhealthy 'Canned Hunts'
SILVER SPRING, MD, Mar. 15
-/E-Wire/-- The Fund for Animals, a
national animal
protection organization founded by author Cleveland Amory, has
released a new report on the practice of "canned hunts," the
trophy shooting
of tame, captive animals within fenced
enclosures. The 64-page report, "Canned
Hunts: Unfair at
Any Price," documents the ethical and biological aspects of
canned hunts, offers a legal analysis of the statutes and
regulations
pertaining to the shooting of captive
mammals in all 50 states, and proposes
model ordinances
for legislation to ban canned hunts.
/CONTACT: Heidi Prescott, 301-585-2591, ext. 213,
or Michael Markarian,
301-585-2591, ext. 216, both of
The Fund for Animals/
/Web
site: http://www.fund.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Mar01/15Mar0101.html
************************************************************
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE --
1-888-764-NEWS
***********************************************************************
ENVIRONMENTAL
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT!
***********************************************************************
SWCA Inc., Environmental Consultants is seeking a
Natural Resource Division
Director in Denver, Colorado
Office. It is a full-time salaried position.
Job
title: Natural Resource Division Director
Find
out more by going here:
http://www.naturalist.com/eco-jobs/index.cfm?temp=job&job=3255
Courtesy
of EnviroNetwork.com
The
leading job network for environmental professionals.
************************************************************************
www.EnviroNetwork.com
************************************************************************
from Sierra Club March 15, 2001
SC-ACTION Vol. III, #29
DEFENDING
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
March 14, 2001
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the Day:
"If you are thinking one year ahead, sow seed. If
you are thinking ten
years ahead, plant a
tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate
the people."
-Chinese proverb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
1. Special Alert -- Tell President
Bush to Keep His Promise on Global
Warming Pollution
2. Special Alert II -- Campaign
Finance Reform Debate Begins Next Week
3. From the Field -- Major Newspapers in Los Angeles and
Minneapolis
Promote Progressive Politics and New Ideas
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Tell President George W. Bush
to follow through on his Campaign Pledge
to Regulate
Carbon Dioxide Pollution.
President George W. Bush yesterday broke his campaign
promise to curb
carbon dioxide pollution, the primary
gas causing global warming. In a
Sept. 29,
2000 campaign speech in Saginaw, Michigan, Bush pledged to curb
carbon dioxide pollution. President Bush rejected
the advice of EPA
Administrator Christie Whitman and
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to keep
his campaign
pledge and consider the long-term consequences. Carbon
dioxide accounts for about 70% of the global warming
problem. The U.S. is
the world's biggest
global warming polluter, spewing 25% of the planet's
global warming pollution; one-third of our emissions come
from power
plants. So the President's refusal
to impose mandatory carbon dioxide cuts
will have severe
consequences on our nation and the world.
Take Action:
Send a message to President Bush. Tell him to
reconsider his decision not
to regulate carbon dioxide.
Go to:
http://whistler.sierraclub.org:8080/takeaction/globalwarming/index.jsp
For further information,
please contact Alex Veitch, Sierra Club Global
Warming
& Energy Program, Tel: 202 547-1141, alex.veitch@sierraclub.org
-------------------------------------------
2. Send a Letter to
the Editor on Campaign Finance Reform.
Debate begins next week on the McCain Feingold bill.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
of 2001 (better known as the McCain
Feingold bill) will
be introduced in the U.S. Senate for debate on Monday,
March 19. S.27 includes a ban on "soft money",
the unregulated and
unlimited contributions to political
parties, and will be a strong first
step towards real
reform. Every Senator's vote is crucial!
Please write a letter to the editor for your
local newspapers. Do it right away so that the
Senators are hearing from
us as the debate is going on.
To find a current list of
cosponsors of S. 27, please check
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Thanks for your help.
If you have any questions, please contact Deanna White at
deanna.white@sierraclub.org
Today's political arena is polluted
by large dirty money contributions from
anti-environmental special interests. Polluting industries
wage
multi-million dollar campaigns to influence who
runs for office, who gets
elected, and what issues
dominate the political agenda. In the last
election
cycle, polluting industries gave more than $60 million in
political donations. The McCain-Feingold bill (S. 27) offers
an opportunity
to clean up politics and keep dirty money
out of the system.
This year,
McCain-Feingold has strong bipartisan support and a record
number of cosponsors. Despite widespread public
support in favor of
campaign finance reform, special
interests still have the ear of many
Senators. The most dangerous challenge to this
historic legislation comes
in the form of
amendments. Potential amendments could increase individual
contributions and undermine the very essence of the bill or
insert
provisions that would force Senators to withdraw
their support and collapse
its bipartisan base.
-------------------------------------------
3. From the Field
Progressive Politics Develop in Los
Angeles
Los Angeles, with its
economic disparities, ethnic diversity, and sprawling
geography, is making more headway in progressive politics
than any other
U.S. city. As a recent OpEd by
Peter Dreier and Gottlieb in the Los
Angeles Times
demonstrates, a new progressive movement is forming, and
political forces are converging, in L.A. today.
One example of this activism is in
regard to the housing issue in the city.
Recently,
leaders of the Sierra Club have joined in coalition with major
labor unions, churches, immigrant-service groups, community
organizations,
senior citizen groups, nonprofit
developers, and tenant groups. This
coalition
of activists is working to devise a strategy to bring Los
Angeles' severe housing shortage to the center of the
political spectrum.
This new
generation of grassroots leaders, including the Sierra Club,
recognizes the importance of forming coalitions to address
the city's
problems. These advocacy groups
realize it is essential to identify a
clear alternative
agenda along with a winning political strategy.
-------------------------------------------
Star Tribune Editorial Supports
Minnesota State Green Purchasing Initiative
A Green Government initiative introduced recently in the
Minnesota state
legislature and supported by the North
Star (Minnesota) Chapter of the
Sierra Club earned
praise and an endorsement this week from the editorial
page of Minnesota's largest newspaper, the Star Tribune. The
editorial
pointed out that since state governments
contribute significantly to local
and regional
economies, state government purchases guidelines "can have a
very large impact" on the impacts of the economy on the
environment.
According to the
editorial, the Minnesota initiative, sponsored by State
Sen. John Hottinger and State Rep. Phyllis Kahn, would
"accelerate the
purchase of recycled paper products...
encourage more purchases of
super-efficient
gasoline/electric hybrid cars, and require more use of
ethanol and soybean-derived 'biodiesel' in state vehicles."
The legislation
would also help protect public lands
statewide, encourage recycling of old
computers, and
encourage "green building" materials and techniques in
construction projects.
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Sierra Club Legislative Hotline - 202-675-2394
Sierra Club National Headquarters - 415-977-5500
Sierra Club World Wide Web - http://www.sierraclub.org
Sierra Club Vote Watch Website - http://www.sierraclub.org/votewatch/
White House Comment Line - 202-456-1111
White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
George W. Bush's e-mail -
president@whitehouse.gov
Dick Cheney's e-mail
- vice-president@whitehouse.gov
White House Address -
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20500
US Capitol
Switchboard - 202-224-3121
To contact your senators - http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
To contact your representative - http://www.house.gov/writerep
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