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ETC Group
News Release
April 1, 2003
www.etcgroup.org
Terminator Technology & Exorcist Technology:
New Issues and Old Controversies
The ETC Group (formerly known as RAFI) today releases "Terminator Technology: Five Years Later," a report on new issues and controversies surrounding the ongoing development of genetic seed sterilization - plants genetically engineered to render sterile seeds. Terminator technology is being developed as a biological mechanism to extinguish the right of farmers to save and re-plant seeds from their harvest, thus creating greater dependence on the commercial seed market.
ETC Group also reports on "Exorcist Technology," the biotech industry's recent attempt to develop genetically modified crops that shed their foreign DNA before harvest - with the help of chemical inducers - as a means of silencing anti-GM critics. "Exorcist is a new technology, but the basic strategy is the same - the biotech industry wants to shift all the burden to the farmer and society. If gene flow is a problem, the farmer will be obliged to apply a chemical inducer to excise the offensive transgenes. It's the newest bag of genetic tricks to fix the biotech industry's leaky genes and public relations problems," explains Hope Shand of ETC Group.
"We're still
discovering new patent claims on Terminator, this time by Syngenta, and now the
seed industry and the US Department of Agriculture are boldly extolling the
virtues of Terminator technology for small farmers and indigenous peoples,"
explains Shand.
"Even more
dangerous, industry is greenwashing Terminator by promoting it as a biosafety
tool," says Jim Thomas of ETC Group. "The promotion of Terminator seeds as a
biosafety mechanism to prevent GM pollution is biotech's Trojan Horse," explains
Thomas, "If Terminator technology wins market acceptance under the guise of
biosafety, it will eventually be used everywhere as a monopoly tool to prevent
farmers from saving and re-using seed."
Even UPOV, the international body that promotes plant
breeders' rights, concedes that Terminator has "considerable disadvantages for
society." A new memo from UPOV explains that Terminator will hinder access to
genetic resources.
If ministers of
trade, agriculture and environment accept the US government's invitation to
attend the Sacramento Ministerial Conference on Agricultural Science and
Technology, June 23-25, the ETC Group recommends that the US government be held
accountable for its role in developing, patenting and licensing Terminator
technology. The meeting is sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture (owner
of 3 Terminator patents), US AID, and the US Department of State. "If the US
government plans to showcase biotech's new and controversial agricultural
technologies for the South in the lead up to the WTO Ministerial in Cancún, it
should begin by explaining why it supports an anti-farmer, anti-diversity
technology for use in the developing world - where 1.4 billion people depend on
farm-saved seeds," advises Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group.
Five years later, Terminator is not
dead yet. Together with hundreds of civil society, farmers' and indigenous
peoples organizations worldwide, ETC Group concludes that the only solution is
for governments to recommend a global ban on suicide seeds.
The full text of the 10-page report on
Terminator is now available:
http://www.etcgroup.org
For more information:
Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group (Mexico)
silvia@etcgroup.org
Hope Shand, ETC Group (USA)
hope@etcgroup.org
Jim Thomas, ETC Group (UK)
jim@etcgroup.org
The Action Group
on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI, is an international
civil society organization headquartered in Canada. The ETC group is dedicated
to the advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human
rights. www.etcgroup.org. The ETC group is also a member of the
Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Programme
(CBDC). The CBDC is a collaborative experimental initiative involving
civil society organizations and public research institutions in 14
countries. The CBDC is dedicated to the exploration of
community-directed programmes to strengthen the conservation and enhancement of
agricultural biodiversity. The CBDC website is www.cbdcprogram.org
To:
Mark Udall,
(D-CO)
202/225-2161
Wayne T. Gilchrest, (R-MD)
202/225-5311
Neil
Abercrombie, (D-HI)
202/225-2726
Solomon P. Ortiz (D- TX)
202/225-7742
Frank Pallone, Jr., (D-NJ)
202/225-4671
Calvin M. Dooley, (D-CA)
202/225-3341
Ron Kind, (D-WI)
202/225-5506
Grace F. Napolitano, (D-CA) 202/225-5256
Brad Carson, (D-OK)
202/225-2701
Raúl M. Grijalva, (D-AZ)
202/225-2435
Dennis A. Cardoza, (D-CA) 202/225- 6131
Edward J. Markey, (D-MA) 202/225-2836
Rubén Hinojosa, (D-TX)
202/225-2531
Ciro D. Rodriguez, (D-TX)
202/225-1640
Joe Baca, (D-CA)
202/225-6161
Betty McCollum, (D-CA)
202/225-6631
*******************************************
*Your WildAlert for Tuesday, April 1, 2003
*******************************************
This is an urgent request for your
phone calls and
faxes to the U.S. House of
Representatives to protect
the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge yet again. Despite
the Senate's 52-48 bipartisan
rejection of Arctic drilling
on March 19, the House
continues to push its drilling
plans through every
available vehicle.
The
latest attack comes in the House energy bill, which
the
House Resources Committee will begin debating starting
Wednesday, April 2. The measure will probably come
to the House floor sometime next week. Among its many
damaging provisions, the bill would open the Coastal
Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
and gas drilling.
Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA), Nancy Johnson (R-CT), and others
will offer an amendment on the floor next week to strike
the Arctic Refuge provisions. We can't be sure which
day the vote will come, but House leaders have vowed
to pass an energy bill before they leave for their
spring recess April 11. Two years ago, the House narrowly
approved an energy bill that would have opened the
Arctic to drilling. We expect the vote to be very close
this time as well and we can't afford to take even
a single vote for granted. Drilling proponents are
applying heavy pressure on swing members. Conservationists
are pushing back just as hard.
Because of the accelerated timetable
for this legislation,
we urgently need you to call your
member of Congress
NOW! You can reach your representative
through the
Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Please
make your
call today! We've listed talking points below.
It will help us in this immensely
in this effort if
you will let us know by email
(action@tws.org) what
you hear when you phone your
Representative.
If you are unable
to call, you can send a fax to your
representative
immediately from http://ga1.org/ct/Bda4MzE1d116/house_arctic
**************************************
BACKGROUND
Despite the Senate's
bipartisan 52-48 vote to strip
Arctic drilling out of the
federal budget for 2004,
drilling proponents continue to
press to open the Arctic
Refuge through other bills. The
latest threat comes
in the energy bills being considered
in both houses
right now. The House's version would open
the Refuge
to oil and gas leasing.
Make no mistake: this bill poses a
grave threat to
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The
Senate will
mark up its own version of the bill next
week. In its
current form, the Senate bill does not
contain Arctic
drilling language, but the House passes an
Arctic drilling
provision, then a House-Senate conference
convened
to reconcile differences in the two measures
could
decide to include drilling in the final
bill.
INCOMPARABLE
HABITAT AND WILDERNESS
The rolling tundra of the Arctic
Refuge coastal plain
with the snow-capped Brooks Range in
the background
is a breathtaking sight. The Refuge is
prized the world
over for its wildness, beauty, and the
incomparable
habitat it provides to arctic wildlife,
including wolves,
grizzlies, caribou and millions of
migrating birds.
It is also the subject of an intense
lobbying campaign
by the oil industry.
Oil exploration and drilling in the
Arctic will ruin
one of our last great wild places, all
for what the
U.S. Geological Survey concedes is less oil
than the
U.S. uses in six months, and which wouldn't get
here
for 10 years or more. Moreover, the Energy
Information
Administration has concluded that drilling in
the Refuge
would only reduce American dependence on oil
imports
from a projected 62% of our total oil supply in
2020
to 60% at peak production.
The energy bill the House is now
considering is very
similar to HR 4, the ill-conceived
legislation that
passed the House in August 2001. In
addition to Arctic
drilling, the bill would extend
massive subsidies to
the fossil fuels industries. Other
provisions seek
to "expedite" the development of energy
projects on
federal lands, almost certainly at the
expense of environmental
values.
In fact, throughout the bill, existing
laws and policies
designed to protect environmental
values are labeled
as "impediments" and "restrictions" on
energy development.
Sacrificing our environment in order
to make it easier
for energy companies to exploit
publicly owned resources
should not be the foundation of
an energy policy for
the 21st century. We need an energy
policy that protects
our wild places and invests more in
cleaner, safer,
renewable sources of energy.
***********************************
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Call Now!
Phone calls are the most helpful action you can take
because there is so little time. Please use the talking
points below when you call. The number for the House
switchboard, again, is 202-224-3121. Again, if you
could let us know by email what you hear when you call,
it will help us considerably in defending the Arctic
Refuge.
If you can't call, you can send a fax to your representative
immediately from http://ga1.org/ct/Bda4MzE1d116/house_arctic
. If you'd prefer to send your own fax we've provided
a sample below that you can draw from.
Thank you for helping us, once again,
protect the incomparable
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
And thank you for
being an important part of WildAlert,
our online community
of wilderness advocates!
To find the fax number for your member
of the House
of Representatives, go to http://ga1.org/ct/B7a4MzE1d11O/house-gov
***********************************
TALKING POINTS
When you call your
congressional office, simply tell
the person who answers
the phone that you'd like to
provide your Representative
your opinion about the
Energy Bill. That person will take
a message and may
also be keeping a tally of calls.
Please express these
major points:
1. Please ask the Representative to
support the amendment
to the energy bill that will
protect the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge from oil
drilling.
2. The Arctic Refuge
is an incomparable wilderness
and important wildlife
habitat.
3. Oil development
will do little for American energy
security; we need an
energy policy that protects wild
places and invests
more in cleaner, safer, renewable
energy sources;
***************************************
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Representative:
I am very concerned about the
attempt to include a
proposal to drill in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge
in the energy legislation now
under consideration in
the House. A bipartisan majority
of the U.S. Senate
last spring soundly defeated a
provision to drill in
the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. And the Senate
defeated Arctic drilling again
less than two weeks
ago. Those votes reflected the will
of the solid majority
of the American public that
strongly supports protecting
the Arctic Refuge. The
House should stay the course
and reject attempts to
drill the Arctic now.
We need an energy policy that protects our wild places
and invests more in cleaner, safer, renewable sources
of energy. Drilling in the Arctic will ruin one of
our last great wild places. But it will do nothing
to increase national security or reduce our dependence
on imported oil. The U.S. Geological Survey concedes
that the Refuge likely holds less oil than the U.S.
uses in six months and it wouldn't reach consumers
for 10 years or more. Moreover, The Energy Information
Administration has concluded that drilling in the Refuge
would only reduce America's dependence on imported
oil from a projected 62% of our total supply in 2020
to 60% at peak production.
The Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge has long been recognized
as a place too special
to sacrifice for short-term
gain. For more than thirty
years the oil industry has
tried to open it to
development. Thankfully, Senators
throughout the past
three decades have refused to yield
to the industry's
arguments, despite international
wars, rising gas
prices and budget deficits. I look
to you to for such
far-sighted leadership. I urge you
to support the
amendment to strike Arctic Refuge oil
drilling from the
Energy Bill.
Thank
you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
*******************************************
You can take action on this alert
either via email
(please see directions below) or via
the web at:
http://ga1.org/campaign/house_arctic/inbx8bzp7mi6
Visit the web address below to
tell your friends about
this.
http://ga1.org/campaign/house_arctic/forward/inbx8bzp7mi6
We encourage you to take
action by April 11, 2003
Despite Senate Vote, House To Push for Arctic Drilling
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://ga1.org/campaign/house_arctic/inbx8bzp7mi6
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA
EMAIL:
Just choose the "reply to sender" option on your
email
program.
Your letter will be addressed and sent to:
Your Congressperson
----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN
YOUR NAME----
Dear [decision maker name automatically
inserted here],
I am very
concerned about the attempt to include a
proposal to
drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
in the
energy legislation now under consideration in
the
House. A bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate
last
spring soundly defeated a provision to drill in
the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And the Senate
defeated Arctic drilling again less than two weeks
ago. Those votes reflected the will of the solid majority
of the American public that strongly supports
protecting
the Arctic Refuge. The House should stay the
course
and reject attempts to drill the Arctic
now.
We need an
energy policy that protects our wild places
and invests
more in cleaner, safer, renewable sources
of energy.
Drilling in the Arctic will ruin one of
our last great
wild places. But it will do nothing
to increase
national security or reduce our dependence
on imported
oil. The U.S. Geological Survey concedes
that the
Refuge likely holds less oil than the U.S.
uses in six
months and it wouldn't reach consumers
for 10 years or more. Moreover, The Energy Information
Administration has concluded that drilling in the Refuge
would only reduce America's dependence on imported
oil from a projected 62% of our total supply in 2020
to 60% at peak production.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
has long been recognized
as a place too special to
sacrifice for short-term
gain. For more than thirty
years the oil industry has
tried to open it to
development. Thankfully, Senators
throughout the past
three decades have refused to yield
to the industry's
arguments, despite international
wars, rising gas prices
and budget deficits. I look
to you to for such
far-sighted leadership. I urge you
to support the
amendment to strike Arctic Refuge oil
drilling from the
Energy Bill.
Thank
you for your attention to this important matter.
----END OF LETTER TO BE SENT----
Sincerely,
--------------------------------------------------
If you received this message from a
friend, you can
sign up for The Wilderness Society at:
http://ga1.org/wilderness/join.html?r=Gpa4MzE1A1zfE
From:
Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU
To: ACLU
Action Network Members
Date: April 2, 2003
1) Wrong Answer to Victim's Rights!
The Senate Judiciary Committee
is preparing to once again consider a misguided effort to amend the
Constitution. You're receiving this special email because one of your Senators
is on the Judiciary Committee and it is crucial that you speak out now to stop
this amendment before it gets to the Senate floor.
The proposal -- the so-called Victims' Rights Amendment
(S.J. Res 1) -- would, if passed, jeopardize the bedrock legal principles that
the accused are innocent until proven guilty and that everyone in this country
should have the right to a fair trail.
While many provisions of the proposed amendment reflect
laudable goals, it is unnecessary, even counterproductive, to amend the U.S.
Constitution to achieve them. Every state has either a state constitutional
provision or law protecting victims' rights -- or both. For this and other
reasons, victims groups including National Network to End Domestic Violence,
Survivors Advocating for an Effective System, Safe Horizons and the National
Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women are speaking out against this
constitutional amendment.
Take
Action! You can read more and help stop this effort to amend the Constitution by
sending a FREE FAX to your Senators from our action alert at:
http://www.aclu.org/CriminalJustice/CriminalJustice.cfm?ID=9955&c=52
2) Support Oversight over
the Secret FISA Court!
In the
wake of government scandals about illegal wiretaps and break-ins carried out by
the FBI during the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements, Congress passed
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to provide oversight to
intelligence gathering activities in the United States. In the decades since its
original passage, however, FISA and the super-secret court it created have
steadily expanded their reach to where they now pose a significant threat to the
individual rights they were originally designed to protect.
In a rare public opinion, the FISA
court itself criticized the government for going too far with wiretaps. But
citing procedural arguments, the Supreme Court recently rejected the case,
leaving those concerned about an over-reaching government with nowhere to turn
but Congress.
The Department of
Justice, for example, refuses to release even the most basic information about
the FISA court, such as the number of Americans under surveillance and the
number of times FISA information has been used in law enforcement. But
bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa and
Patrick Leahy of Vermont would ensure that this secret court has Congressional
oversight without hindering law enforcement. Without this
legislation, we will be denied the proper public accounting of this secret
court's activities.
Urge your
Senators to support the FISA Oversight Bill and ensure that secret courts have
proper oversight!
Click here to
get more information and take action:
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=12219&c=110
************************************************************************
For more information on other issues and the latest
news, please visit our website at http://www.aclu.org
Help Strengthen the ACLU's Voice in Congress... Click below
to become a card-carrying Member or donate today!
http://www.aclu.org/contribute/contribute.cfm?ORGID=AA02
If you are not already on our
mailing list and would like to subscribe to the ACLU Action Network Updates,
click http://www.aclu.org/team/member.cfm
To find out what more you can do to
protect your civil liberties, please visit http://www.aclu.org/action
 | |||||||||||||||
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|
Help Stop the Assault on Our National Forests
Bush Administration Proposal
Severely Weakens National Forest Protections
Make Your
Voice Heard - 5 Days Left in Public Comment Period!
TAKE ACTION:
Visit the Defenders of
Wildlife "Save Our National Forests" website (http://www.savenationalforests.org) to send a comment
online.
(A sample letter and instructions for comment by
mail, email and fax are included at the end of this alert.)
BACKGROUND:
The Bush administration has proposed to eliminate vital
protections that apply to all of our national forests – including the Tongass
and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. Protections that safeguard our drinking
water by preserving vital watersheds, protect habitat for nearly 3,000 species
of wildlife and assure that our forests remain American treasures for future
generations.
Instead of
listening to scientists, forest experts and the public, the Bush Administration
has apparently heard only one voice -- that of his timber industry supporters
who want to log our national forests without worrying about the needs of
wildlife, the environment and the public.
Not that his timber industry supporters haven't already
benefited from the president's help. His administration has already:
* Appointed a former timber
industry top lobbyist to set policy for the U.S. Forest Service.
* Failed to recommend wilderness
protection for a single acre in the Tongass National Forest, out of over 9
million roadless acres reviewed.
* Rollback back Wilderness
recommendations in the Chugach National Forest which at 98 percent road-free is
arguably the wildest forest in the nation.
* Opposed, undermined and failed to
defend the Roadless Rule which permanently protect from logging and
road-building our remaining 58.5 million acres of wild, road-free national
forests.
* Actively
sought to exempt the Tongass Chugach from the Roadless Rule.
And now the Bush administration
has launched its most far-reaching attack yet. Under the guise of simply
changing federal regulations implementing the National Forest Management Act,
they plan to eliminate or seriously weaken vital environmental protections that
apply to every one of our 155 national forests, protections that have been
supported by Democratic and Republican presidents alike since 1979.
Specifically, President Bush's
proposal would eliminate a longstanding requirement to maintain native wildlife
species on national forests; exempt forest management plans from environmental
analysis; make forest plans meaningless by allowing projects like timber sales
to proceed even if in violation of the plan; limit opportunities for public
participation in public forest planning; and eliminate requirements for
scientific input and monitoring and evaluation of plan impacts.
You can help stop this latest
giveaway of our national forests. Tell Forest Service Chief Bosworth that the
national forests belong to all Americans, not the administrations corporate
friends in the timber industry.
Comments on there regulations are due by April 7th 2003.
****
To send your comments:
Online:
Defenders of Wildlife “Save Our National Forests” (http://www.savenationalforests.org)
By Mail:
USDA FS Planning Rule
Content
Analysis Team
PO Box 8359
Missoula, MT 59807
By Email: planning_rule@fs.fed.us
By Fax: Attn: Planning
Rule Comments at (406) 329–3556.
****
Sample NFMA comment letter:
Dear Chief Bosworth,
I am registering my strong
objection to the newly released proposal that seriously weakens protections for
wildlife and the environment under the National Forest Management Act.
Mandatory rules to keep native
species on National Forests are needed, especially since these forests are
heavily used for logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. Maintaining our
native wildlife must be required by law, and not be voluntary or subordinate to
logging and other extractive interests. Mandatory environmental impact
statements, scientific review, public participation, monitoring and evaluation
are also needed.
National Forests provide sanctuary for
millions of wild animals. It is the Forest Service's obligation to maintain
species that depend on healthy forest habitats, and to prevent them from
becoming endangered by excessive logging, clear-cutting, road-building and other
extractive industrial processes.
Too many of America's National Forests have already been
seriously damaged. I urge you to stop this proposal -- and protect our National
Forests by managing them so they include healthy populations of all their native
wildlife.
Sincerely,
NAME
ADDRESS
****
For
more information on this issue or other issues effecting Alaska's rainforest,
contact: Laurie Cooper, Forest Outreach Director (laurie@alaskacoalition.org).
Action Deadline: April 10, 2003
We urgently need your help to
oppose yet another attempt to open the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The House of
Representatives will vote next week on national energy legislation that
authorizes drilling in the refuge. The bill also proposes a flawed
and unsustainable energy policy that would cause more global warming, pollution,
and wildland destruction. Caribou, penguins, coral reefs, estuaries,
and other wildlife and habitat would all suffer from adoption of such a policy.
PLEASE FOLLOW THE SIMPLE STEPS
BELOW TO SEND A FREE MESSAGE URGING YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TO KEEP OIL RIGS OUT
OF THE ARCTIC REFUGE AND TO OPPOSE THE OVERALL ENERGY PACKAGE.
You can have an even greater
impact by also calling the Washington, D.C. office of your member of Congress
and relaying the same message. To do so, call 1-877-703-9491 (toll-free).
Please forward this alert to your
friends and colleagues.
**************************TAKE ACTION
NOW!*********************
If
you received this email from World Wildlife Fund's Conservation
Action Network, follow the steps below for taking
action. If a friend forwarded this email to you, go to http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/ctt.asp?u=26681&l=2012
to take action.
TO TAKE ACTION
QUICKLY -- To send the message below, as is, to your member of Congress, hit
"reply" to this email and then "send." We will automatically send the
message for you.
BETTER YET, ADD YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND GREATLY INCREASE YOUR
IMPACT -- Log in to your Personal Action Center -- http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/ctt.asp?u=26681&l=2013
-- with your email address (alerts@earthhopenetwork.net) and your
password. Once you are in your Personal Action Center, click on
"Critical Arctic Refuge Vote" and follow the instructions for adding your own
thoughts to your message.
If
you have any questions or problems with taking action, contact us at
actionquestions@takeaction.worldwildlife.org for help.
***************************LETTER
TEXT**************************
Dear (your representative's name will be inserted here):
When the House considers the
Energy Security Act of 2003, I urge you to support an amendment to be offered by
Edward Markey (D-Ma.) and Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) to remove provisions that
would authorize oil and gas development in the pristine coastal plain of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The United States faces real energy issues that deserve
consideration. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would do nothing to help
lower the nation's gasoline or electricity bills, nor would it help reduce the
carbon emissions that cause climate change. The government estimates
that only six months of economically recoverable oil exists in the coastal
plain.
Drilling would
devastate the coastal plain of the refuge. A recent report by the
National Research Council confirmed that oil and gas activities on Alaska's
North Slope have taken a serious toll on the arctic environment and that the
federal and state government have failed to do the planning necessary to
minimize these impacts. The North Slope is a globally outstanding area for both
marine and terrestrial wildlife species including polar bears, caribou, bowhead
whales, and ringed seals. The area affected by drilling is already
the size of Rhode Island and is expected to double. Therefore, I urge
you to support the Markey/Johnson amendment and, if you haven't already done so,
to cosponsor H.R. 770, which would protect the coastal plain of the refuge as
wilderness.
I also encourage
you to reject the overall energy bill. Overly reliant on fossil fuels
such as oil, coal, and natural gas, this proposal is a short-sighted approach to
our country's energy future. As a nation, we hold only 3 percent of
the world's reserves of oil, yet we consume almost 25 percent of the world's
daily production. As long as this is the case, we will remain
dependent on world oil markets, and we will pay the world price for oil, whether
it is produced domestically or abroad.
The safest and fastest way to increase our energy security
is to improve the energy efficiency of our cars, trucks, homes, factories, and
offices, and to increase the use of renewable sources of energy such as wind,
solar, and geothermal. Simply increasing fossil fuel production, at
the expense of the wilderness areas and wildlife we all cherish, will not buy
America energy security--in either the short or the long run.
Please do all you can to protect
the Arctic Refuge and to support our country's transition to a sustainable
energy future.
Sincerely,
Your name and address
will be inserted here
***********************END OF LETTER
TEXT*********************
Tell
your representative to support Representative Dingell's
hydropower amendment to the energy bill that will uphold
existing
standards for protecting rivers and fish!
PLEASE ACT TODAY - the
House of Representatives is
aggressively moving an energy bill, and
the full House
is expected to vote on the bill next week.
Take action today:
http://amriversaction.ctsg.com/wac/index.asp?step=2&item=2573
The hydropower title (Title
III) of the proposed Energy Bill will
undermine basic
environmental protections for our nation's rivers and
will only further complicate hydropower dam
licensing. Legislative
action isn't
necessary - collaborative efforts already underway will
improve the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC)
licensing
process without harming
rivers. The approach taken in Title III will
have environmentally harmful consequences and won't fix
anything.
Because hydropower dam licenses last 30 to 50
years, the results of
this bill are critical to the
long-term health of our rivers.
Please urge your member of Congress to oppose this
unnecessary and
misdirected
legislation! Urge your Representative to support the
Dingell amendment! Visit:
http://amriversaction.ctsg.com/wac/index.asp?step=2&item=2573
Representative Dingell's
(D-MI) amendment would remove the energy
bill's
ill-conceived hydropower title, which will make hydropower
licensing slower, more expensive, and worse for the
environment.
Instead, the amendment would
replace the hydropower title with
straightforward
process changes - a compromise struck last year
between
Chairman Tauzin and Congressman Dingell, and between the
environmental community and the industry.
Specifically, the hydropower title
of the proposed energy bill
creates several problems:
1. It would decrease protection for public resources
including public
land, fish, and wildlife by lowering
the standard for agency
conditions;
2. It would vastly increase the red tape, time and expense
of the
relicensing process; and
3. By excluding all parties except the hydropower
applicant, the
proposed hydropower title would skew
licensing outcomes toward
hydropower interests and shut
out all other users of the river.
Please visit http://amriversaction.ctsg.com/wac/ to read more and
contact your Representative.
Thank you-
American Rivers' Running Rivers Campaign
http://www.amrivers.org/hydropowerdamreform/default.htm
*************************************
Thank you for helping to protect and
restore America's rivers, and being a part of American
Rivers' River
Action Center (http://www.americanrivers.org/takeaction/).
To contact American Rivers, email
us at outreach@amrivers.org
To: All
Activists
USDA FS Planning Rule, Content
Analysis Team
PO Box 8359, Missoula, MT 59807
Email: planning_rule@fs.fed.us
/ Fax: (406) 329-3556
Dear Forest Service,
As an individual with an interest in how my public lands
are managed, I am filing these comments on the proposed changes to the National
Forest Management Act (NFMA) planning regulations 36 CFR Part 219. I
believe that the proposed regulations violate several laws including the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Appeals Reform Act (ARA), and NFMA
itself. The proposed regulations undermine the very purpose of NFMA - to
guide the Forest Service to manage the public estate in a manner that is
sustainable and in the best interests of its owners as a whole. For
these reasons and the reasons outlined below, I believe that the proposed
regulations should be withdrawn.
The proposed regulations are largely discretionary and are
written so as to make them voluntary and unenforceable. "Shield's appear
where "must, will, or shall's belong. Site-specific projects would not
have to comply with the land and resource management plans (forest plans or
plans). Interim amendments lasting four years could be issued without
public review. The discretionary language and loopholes are meant to
address problems implementing the current planning regulation and give forest
managers more flexibility in designing and carrying out management plans.
But, there has been no evidence made available to the public that shows any
problem in implementing the current plans or that the new regulations would
increase administrative efficiency. The Forest Service has neither earned
nor justified the need for the greater trust from the public that accompanies
more flexibility for the Service.
Most troubling about the proposed regulations is the fact
that forest plans would be able to be categorically excluded from environmental
analysis. This categorical exclusion (CE) of forest plans significantly limits
the ability of the public to participate in the management of the national
forests. With the CE, there is no opportunity for administrative appeal
and there is no requirement that "all reasonable alternatives" be considered in
the development of the plans. These limitations effectively exclude the
public from the decision making process. CEs are accompanied by much more
cursory environmental analysis than is done for environmental assessments (EA)
or environmental impact statements (EIS), thus giving the public less
information on which to comment and the Forest Service less information on which
to base its decisions. Since they were mandated, the forest plans have
always been the vehicle for evaluating the cumulative impact of multiple
projects that an area could be expected to endure. This analysis of
cumulative impacts is critical to maintaining the sustainability of our national
forests and must be subjected to the rigorous environmental analysis embodied in
an EIS. Forest Plans should not be categorically excluded; to do so
violates NEPA, NFMA, and ARA.
There was no consultation with a committee of scientists
during the formulation of the proposed regulations as there has been for every
prior rewriting. This lack of independent scientific input epitomizes how
the Forest Service plans on conducting all of its decision-making under the new
regulations. There are no requirements for peer review, scientific
advisory boards, adaptive management, or standardized monitoring. Species
protections will be significantly weakened with the elimination of the
requirement to monitor management indicator species (MIS) or do population
surveys. There are no binding requirements to ensure the viability of
species or safeguards adequate to protect the habitat of MIS or threatened and
endangered species as required by NFMA. This shunning of science in the
management of the forests will lead to the listing of ever more species as
threatened or endangered, the decline of the productivity and resiliency of our
forests, and the violation of the public trust.
The proposed plans clearly prioritize logging and natural
resource extraction over all other uses in contradiction of the will of the
public for whom these lands are held in trust. This prioritization of
logging and the resulting de-emphasis of sustainability violates the Multiple
Use and Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA), which requires that public lands are used
to "best meet the needs of the American people," and the Renewable Resources
Planning Act (RPA). The public must be allowed to express its desires for
the use of its lands and the Forest Service is under legal obligation to meet
the public's management goals. For years the public has sustained its
message that it doesn't want logging to undermine the many other resource and
ecosystem values of its land. Any regulations that do not recognize values
such as recreation, aesthetics, water quality, species habitat, and ecosystem
integrity should not be considered.
I am also very concerned about the cumulative effect of the
numerous proposals and actions taken by the Bush Administration in the last
several months. Together these changes in the regulations guiding forest
management would affect changes that could not be predicted or analyzed by
looking at any single proposal. If all regulations are adopted, the total
effect would be to allow the categorical exclusion of nearly every project on
our national forests, eliminate most avenues available to the public for
weighing in on public lands management, and eliminate meaningful consideration
of the cumulative impact of multiple projects on a landscape.
Please withdraw these proposed
regulation and thank you for the opportunity
to
comment.
… America's National
Forests comprise some of the most biologically and economically significant land
left on earth. The 191 million acres that comprise our National Forest system is
the best wildlife habitat in the US for over 3,000 fish and wildlife species and
10,000 plants. In fact, more than one quarter of the nation's imperiled species
are found on National Forests.
… Despite the high value of these irreplaceable
treasures, the Administration in Washington, D.C has put career
… While the nation is distracted by the war on Iraq, Rey
and the timber industry are working behind-the-scenes to re-write our
environmental laws. Their goal: increase commercial logging and resource
extraction by eliminating public participation and the laws that restrict
logging.
… If Rey's corporate
takeover is successful, logging corporations will have more authority over
America's Forests than the Americans who own the forests.
… The American people
overwhelmingly support the complete protection of National Forests from logging
and commercial exploitation. We treasure our national forests for providing
clean water, places to hunt, fish and camp and open spaces.
… Commercial logging and
road-building in national forests costs us, U.S. Taxpayer's, over $1.2 BILLION a
year to supply the country with only 2% of the wood we use.
… It's time we put local people to
work restoring the damage caused by over a century of logging on our National
Forests. The National Forest Protection and Restoration Act does this by
permanently protecting our federal public lands from commercial logging and
redirecting those funds toward ecologically based restoration. Learn more at
www.forestadvocate.org and www.americanlands.org.
These changes
are part of a systematic assault by the Administration on the role of science
and public participation in the decision making process for our national
forests.
Without sound policies, our public forests will be left vulnerable to
profit-oriented exploitation. The letter asks the President to withdraw
these misguided proposals immediately. The proposals relate to the way the executive
branch is enforcing, or failing to enforce, bedrock environmental legislation
such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management
Act. Specifically the letter states, "the cumulative effect of these proposals
is a radical rewrite of national forest policy to the detriment of the
public."
Here in the state of (your state), (members who signed on), should be
commended for this support for this letter. Those that did not should be called and
encouraged to speak up, for their silence equals compliance with this
destructive agenda. The Forest Service is taking your comments on these changes
to the National Forest Management Act regulations until April 7th at
planning_rule@fs.fed.us.
YOUR
ORGANIZATION
Defenders of
Wildlife has notified Interior Secretary Gale Norton of our
intent to sue her for trying to weaken protections for
America's endangered gray wolves. Norton wants to classify
gray wolves in most of the Lower 48 states as merely
threatened rather than endangered. It's the first step toward
putting wolves under the control of states where politicians
want to eradicate these magnificent animals. Meanwhile, in
Alaska where wolves aren't federally protected, state
legislators are considering letting hunters shoot wolves from
airplanes or helicopters. Hundreds of wolves would be
needlessly killed by this notorious land-and-shoot
hunting. 
Environmentalists
are celebrating a great victory in the Senate, which recently
voted to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil
drilling. This incomparable wilderness isn't safe yet, though.
We could face a major vote on the issue next week in the
House. If the House allows drilling, that could send the
matter back to the Senate for reconsideration. In pressuring
senators to vote with Big Oil, Secretary Norton derided
America's greatest wildlife preserve as "a flat, white
nothingness." But as the New York Times pointed out, the
Senate "struck a blow for the environment and for common
sense" by rejecting this Bush administration proposal for the
second time. "It is plainly time to move forward in a
systematic way with new ideas," the Times observed. "But the
best we can do, it appears, is to beat back bad ones."
Defenders of Wildlife
will join other environmentalists next week in urging a
federal judge to save dolphins from death in the nets of tuna
fishermen. The Commerce Department, under pressure from the
Mexican fishing industry, is trying to severely weaken the
requirements for dolphin-safe labels on tuna cans. That could
result in the deaths of tens of thousands of dolphins every
year. Our lawsuit asks the judge to stop the department from
taking action until our case can be fully heard.
Tell-a-Friend!