> Hi:
> You may have heard about the new Immigration Environmental Impact
> Statement project.
> Please forward to interested parties. Also, please go to the websitehttp://www.immigrationeis.organd submit scoping comments on the
> immigration EIS.
> Thank you,
> Fred Elbel
> --------------------
> Media Contact: Leah Durant FOR
> IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> Phone: 202-543-5325
> Progressives to Launch an Environmental Impact Statement on U.S.
> Immigration Policy
> On Wednesday, August 1, 2012, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR)
> announced a major new project: an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
> on U.S. immigration policy. PFIR also unveiled the website for the new
> project, and invited public comments on the proper scope and parameters
> of the study.
> In recent decades, American environmentalists have debated about whether
> or not to weigh in on U.S. immigration policy. Many environmentalists
> have wondered:
> * What roles immigration and population growth play in driving the
> problems environmentalists seek to solve?
> * Can these problems be solved without addressing immigration and
> immigration-driven population growth?
> * What are the policy choices with regard to immigration levels, and how
> can we choose fairly and wisely among them?
> The main policy decision to be evaluated in the new EIS is what level
> Congress should set for annual immigration into the United States.
> Current legal immigration into the U.S. is now approximately 950,000
> people per year, while an average of 300,000 to 400,000 people immigrate
> illegally.
> According to Dr. Philip Cafaro, a principal investigator in the study:
> "The EIS will identify a number of plausible alternative immigration
> scenarios, regarding how many immigrants to allow into the country
> annually. The study will also develop demographic projections specifying
> future U.S. populations, based on these different annual immigration
> rates." This will be followed by detailed analyses examining the likely
> ecological impacts of different population sizes in areas such as; urban
> sprawl and farmland loss; water demands and withdrawals from natural
> systems; greenhouse gas emissions and resultant climate change; habitat
> loss and impacts on biodiversity; energy demands and national security
> implications; and the international ecological impacts of U.S.
> immigration policies.
> "The EIS project aims to develop a thorough, objective analysis of the
> ecological impacts of U.S. immigration policy, so that policy decisions
> can be made in full knowledge of those impacts," stated Leah Durant,
> Executive Director of PFIR.
> PFIR hereby solicits public comment on the scope and methodology of this
> new Environmental Impact Statement on U.S. immigration policy. This
> initial "scoping" phase of the study will last through October 1. More
> information can be found by visitinghttp://www.immigrationeis.org/.
> ###
