SC Action #227 HOUSE ACTION ON CLEARCUT RIDER REPEAL
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Defending the Environmental Agenda
June 18, 1996
"Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our
effort to understand and preserve this capacity."
-- Aldo Leopold
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IN THE MAIN THE RING: House Floor Vote on Clearcut Rider Repeal
Cows, Trees and Parks Don't Mix
IN THE FIELD: Nothing Fair about Faircloth
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HOUSE FLOOR VOTE ON CLEARCUT RIDER REPEAL
Other Forest and Wildlife Protection Amendments Also Likely
************** PLEASE TAKE ACTION ***********************************
Please call your representative right away and ask them to
support amendments to the Interior Appropriations Bill to protect
endangered wildlife and national forests. In particular, ask
them to support the Porter/Furse amendment to repeal the clearcut
logging rider. The 1997 Interior Appropriations bill will be on
the House floor Wednesday, June 19 and perhaps into the wee
small hours of Thursday morning, so please call right away.
THANK YOU
When the Interior Appropriations Bill comes to the floor, we
expect two key amendments to be offered that would protect our
national forests from irresponsible activities by the Forest
Service and the big timber companies. Rep. John Porter (R-IL)
and Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) are expected to offer an
amendment to repeal the disastrous clearcut salvage rider. The
clearcut rider is allowing indiscriminate lawless logging on
forests all around the country, including ancient forests in the
Northwest.
In addition, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) is expected to offer an
amendment that eliminates federal funds used by the Forest
Service to subsidize construction of *new* logging roads in
Fiscal Year '97. The Kennedy amendment will save $50 million in
FY 1997 and reduce the losses from below-cost timber sales -- a
subsidy that cost American taxpayers $337 million in FY 1994.
But that's not all the action on the Appropriations Bill!
Overall, FY '97 funding levels for the Department of Interior and
related agencies were cut $500 million from the already-low FY
'96 levels. And despite assurances to the contrary, the House
leadership continues to include anti-environmental riders in
budget bills. We need your help to stop this continued war on
our wildlife and forests.
The bill contains an anti-endangered species rider that would
prohibit the use of any funds for the designation of critical
habitat on private lands in Northern California for an endangered
bird, the marbled murrelet. This rider is a special interest
bailout sponsored by Rep. Frank Riggs (R-CA) for one big timber
company, Pacific Lumber, that is trying to sidestep a court order
to comply with the Endangered Species Act.
The bill also contains a rider carried over from last year's
budget bill, that would override environmental laws and grant
Forest Service approval for siting a telescope on Mt. Graham in
Arizona despite the presence of the endangered Mt. Graham Red
Squirrel.
PLEASE ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO:
SUPPORT AMENDMENTS TO PROTECT OUR NATIONAL FORESTS AND ENDANGERED
WILDLIFE
* Support the Porter/Furse amendment to repeal the clearcut
salvage rider.
* Support the Kennedy/Porter amendment to cut funding for new
roads in our National Forests
* Support an amendment by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) to strike the
anti-wildlife Riggs rider that allows special interests to evade
the Endangered Species Act.
* Support an amendment by Rep. Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) to strike
the Mt. Graham rider and protect endangered wildlife.
IN THE OTHER MAIN RING:
Remember back in March when anti-environmentalist Senators tried
to slip the ugly Utah "wilderness" bill into a huge omnibus lands
& parks bill that included some good provisions like Sterling
Forest acquisition and protection for the Presidio park in
California? Well, that effort failed, and the Utah and Sterling
Forest provisions were dropped. But now, Utah Representative Jim
Hansen is trying to stick the destructive livestock grazing bill,
S. 1459, into the same omnibus parks package as it moves through
a House/Senate conference committee.
Right now, the bill contains mostly good provisions, including
Presidio protection, plus a few stinkers like the Snow Basin land
exchange deal in Utah. But Hansen and his allies have a plan to
add all kinds of little "bribes" (a park here, a protected river
there) to get swing members' votes, and then to balance S. 1459
on top of the whole mess and ram it through the House. They are
even trying to hold the Senate-passed, bipartisan Sterling Forest
bill hostage to the grazing bill by adding it to the mix.
The Sterling Forest bill (H.R. 400) will allow more than 15,000
acres of critical wildlife habitat, recreational open space, and
watershed protection lands to be acquired through the combined
contributions from the federal government, the States of New
Jersey and New York, and private philanthropy. Speaker Gingrich
has recently expressed his support for Sterling Forest, and the
House Interior Appropriations report highlighted the need for $9
million in federal acquisition funds in FY 1997. But linkage
between Sterling Forest and any legislative package that has
grazing or other controversial issues will jeopardize this
important legislation.
But environmentalists aren't falling for the ploy. There is no
reason why responsible environmental legislation should be held
hostage to the dreadful grazing bill. Please help out...
************** TAKE ACTION**************************************
Please let your House members know that you oppose S. 1459, the
grazing bill that would cause serious environmental damage, cut
public participation out of grazing management decisions, and
continue taxpayer subsidies to the livestock industry. Ask them
to oppose S.1459, no matter what form it's in.
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IN OUR WATERWAYS:
This week's North Carolina Raleigh News & Observer is running a
news series that investigates animal waste spills from the
factory farms of Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC). Sen. Faircloth
is pushing a bill, S.851, that is bent on turning back the clock
on wetlands protection. S.851 would remove protection from at
least 60% of each state's remaining wetlands, resulting in a
serious decline in fisheries; an increase in damage from coastal
storms; and the loss of lives and property from unabated
flooding. In addition, Sen. Faircloth's Wetlands Destruction
Act, S. 851, would create a list of exemptions for special
interest groups including large factory farms. And what a
coincidence, Sen. Faircloth is one of North Carolina's largest
factory farm owners.
The Raleigh News & Observer reports that as early as 1984, Sen.
Faircloth's farm manager was warned that one of the Senator's hog
farms was directly piping hog waste into a tributary of Great
Coharie Creek. And in 1994, a cattle farm owned by our favorite
Senator was causing fish kills in Sampson County, North Carolina.
In this case, a drainage pipe leading from a cattle feeding area
to a nearby ditch, one that the North Carolina Division of
Environmental Management (DEM) informed Sen. Faircloth was to be
plugged or removed, was simply blocked with clay. The clay
eroded and once the trough overflowed, the unobstructed pipe
spilled 250,000 gallons of potato waste to tributaries of the
Black River where the waste sucked oxygen from the water and
caused at least 6,100 fish to be killed in a 30-mile stretch.
The normally tea-colored water was stained pink; a nice color for
a dress perhaps, but not a river.
Environmentalists and residents near the Black River who say that
other farmers in Sampson County have been run out of business for
spilling waste, question why the same has not happened to Sen.
Faircloth.
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