1. science
2. ecology
3. pollution

2003
Explore, enjoy, and protect the planet
YEAR IN REV I EW
2004
YEAR IN PREV I EW
Planet
The
Sierra Club Activist Resource
January/February 2004
www.sierraclub.org/planet
n
VOL. 11, NO. 1
How to Stop the
Bush Administration?
Start Talking.
Faces of the Sierra Club
Our most important job is
educating our fellow citizens.
n
BY JOHN BYRNE BARRY
Carol Frey, a lifelong Pennsylvanian who
joined the Sierra Club to go on hikes with
her grown daughter, had never been to a
meeting or taken any action on behalf of the
Club. Then she received an e-mail fro m
Pennsylvania Chapter organizers in October
about a community walk in the nearby Mt.
Airy neighborhood to hold the Bush administration to the fire for weakening clean air
and clean water rules. She decided it was
time to do something. So she signed on to
be a “walk captain,” working with 8 other
captains to train and coordinate 54 volunteers to knock on neighbors’ doors.
“I tried to go with an open mind, picturing receptive people,” she says. “And they
were. They were in a hurry, but thankful
we were out there doing something.” Volunteers talked to more than 200 residents
that Saturday. The goal was to engage
neighbors likely to support environmental
protection, but who were not aware of the
extent of the Bush administration’s actions.
In a nutshell, that’s the Sierra Club’s plan
to stop the Bush administration’s assault on
the environment. Start talking.
As Sierra Club President Larry Fahn says,
“The Bush administration is dismantling
three decades of environmental progress and
most Americans don’t even know it’s happening.” But the vast majority of Americans
do support clean air and clean water and
protecting wildlands. And our most pressing
environmental problems do have solutions.
George W. Bush campaigned as a uniter,
not a divider. Well, he’s divided the nation,
and the world, but he has, in a way that no
president has done before, united the Sierra
Club and the environmental community. In a
sense, Bush and his accomplices have simplified things. The best way to protect the environment, whether you’re working to protect
roadless areas in Idaho or clean up rivers in
Kentucky, is to stop the Bush administration.
Unfortunately, Bush has misled the
American public about his administration’s
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SIERRA CLUB
Grinning and Listening: David Simon, at top, chair of the Outdoor Activities Governance
85 SECOND STREET, SECOND FLOOR
Committee, prepares to hug to an award winner at the Sierra Club Annual Banquet in September 2003.
Second from top, students from Alianza School in Watsonville, California, join Sierra Club and O’Neill Sea
Odyssey as part of the Inside the Outdoors program, an outdoor environmental education program for
underserved children. Former Sierra Club President Jennifer Ferenstein, third from top, listens attentively
at the September Board of Directors meeting, with Director Ben Zuckerman to her right. At bottom,
Board of Directors members Jim Catlin and Robbie Cox share a laugh at the board meeting.
See more “Faces of the Sierra Club” on page 3.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105
.
Spreading the Word: “The Bush
administration is dismantling three decades of
environmental progress,” says Sierra Club President Larry
Fahn, “and most Americans don’t even know it’s
Is Your Relationship
In Trouble?
Seven Danger Signs
It’s a new year, time to take stock of
your relationship with your president.
What’s ahead? A ring—or couples’ counseling? How did it feel seeing him over
the holidays? What do your friends think?
Check out our seven warning signs
and see how your relationship stacks up.
1. He says one thing, does another.
He tells you he is going to reduce air
pollution, but his administration allows
old, dirty power plants and refineries to
expand without installing modern pollution-control technology. He tells you
he is going to protect communities
from forest fires, but it’s actually a ruse
to open up national forests to logging.
He warns you about high mercury levels in fish, but won’t recommend
tighter controls on mercury emissions.
2. He won’t introduce you to his friends.
Actually, he won’t even tell you who
his friends are. His energy task force,
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NON-PROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
PERMIT NO. 7138
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Seven Danger Signs
Start Talking
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chaired by Vice President Cheney, drafted
a national energy plan in secret in 2001.
Lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry participated in these meetings, but consumer
and environmental groups were shut out.
And two years later, despite lawsuits filed
by the Sierra Club and others, we still don’t
know who the task force members were.
actions. He uses fuzzy feel-good terms
like “clear skies” and “healthy forests,”
and says soothing things in front of national parks while cameras roll.
So our most important job is to educate
our fellow citizens about the Bush administration’s anti-environmental record. And
the best way to do that is person-to-person. When asked for his secret to organizing, United Farm Workers leader Cesar
Chavez famously said, “First you talk to
one person, then you talk to another person, then you talk to another person....”
The Sierra Club is encouraging members
to get out into their communities and start
conversations—with neighbors over the
fence, with friends on e-mail, with work
associates over lunch. We’re also organizing community gatherings and hosting
book and film discussion groups.
For example, in Vancouver, Washington, the Sierra Club Loo Wit Group hosted
a community meeting that attracted 145
people to hear U.S. Representative Brian
Baird speak on the Bush administration’s
record, and discuss efforts to protect the
Dark Divide Roadless Area from logging.
Getting all those people to attend didn’t
happen by accident. Volunteer Holly Forrest and organizer Shannon Harps devoted countless hours to the event, and
many others, including Nick Forrest, Linda
Wolfe, Roger Cole, Joy Halme, Virg Birdsall, David Benedicktus, and Joan
Pescheck contributed to the successful
gathering. It took the proverbial village.
And that’s the approach the Club is trying
to nurture across the country.
The goal is to build enviro n m e n t a l
communities and develop ongoing relationships with fellow citizens, not just
one-time interactions to sign a postcard.
Sociologist Robert Putnam says Americans have become spectator citizens in
the past few decades. In his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
A m e rican Community, he documents
that interest in public affairs has declined
by 20 percent, voting by 25 percent, attendance at public meetings by 30 percent, and participation in party politics
by 40 percent. Environmental groups like
the Sierra Club have continued to grow,
but only a small percentage of our members are active and engaged with other
members. The Sierra Club’s Building Environmental Communities campaign is
devoted to changing that, to building
more of what Putnam calls “social capital”—the grease that keeps the machinery of a democracy running, that makes
solving problems together a satisfying
shared duty. The Club plans to train and
engage 1,000 committed volunteers in 15
communities nationwide, and collectively
establish repeated one-on-one contacts
with 300,000 to 600,000 citizens. The
Club will also be collaborating with allies
in labor and religious organizations to
shine the spotlight on Bush administration misdeeds.
You know how there’s usually someone in every crowd who’s good to talk to
when you’re trying to understand what’s
3. He lets his friends make a mess and not
clean up after themselves. He allows polluters to break the law and g o
unpunished. For example, in November,
in what was essentially a presidential
pardon for polluters, the administration
announced it would drop cases involving
50 plants and refineries that had violated
the Clean Air Act. The administration also
refused to reauthorize the “polluter-pays”
provision of the Superfund toxic-waste
cleanup, forcing taxpayers to pay
cleanup costs. He is the first president in
history not to put a Superfund trust
request in the budget.
4. He spends your nest egg and plunges you
into debt. And of course, this means cuts
in natural re s o u rce spending, cuts in
enforcement of environmental laws, and
so on. One small example: The EPA cut by
one-third the operating budget of Energy
Star, its highly touted energy conservation
program, that gives a federal government
seal of approval for energy-efficient refrigerators and other appliances. And he gives
no incentives for existing technologies
that would clean up power plants or make
cars more fuel efficient.
5. He tells you everything is fine when it
isn’t. After 9/11, the White House instructed the EPA to hide potential health risks
in Lower Manhattan from the World Trade
Center collapse. The EPA said the air at
ground zero was safe to breathe, despite
the presence of high levels of benzene,
lead, mercury, PCBs, and asbestos.
6. He doesn’t believe in using birth control.
Domestically, he’s pledged to increase
funding for abstinence-only sex education
programs, where contraception is only discussed in terms of failure rates. On the
i n t e rnational level, the administration
rescinded $34 million for family planning
programs abroad. It also brought back the
Reagan-era “global gag rule,” which bars
international family planning organizations
that receive U.S. funds from using their
own money to provide abortions or even
talk about abortions with their patients.
7. You want a hybrid; he wants a Hummer.
Not only that, his administration gave a
$100,000 tax deduction to small-business
owners who purchase sport-utility vehicles, including Hummers.
—JOHN BYRNE BARRY
john.barry@sierraclub.org
For links to all the above Bush
administration actions, please go to
sierraclub.org/planet/200401/trouble.asp.
n
People Power: Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope delivers the keynote speech to kick off the
Building Environmental Communities campaign in Oregon. More than 300 Sierra Club members and
supporters—many at their first Club event—packed the Edgefield Lodge in Troutdale, Oregon; more than
half of the them signed a pledge card to work on the campaign.
going on with the environment? You can
be that person for your friends and family. People want to think things through.
They do that by talking. And listening.
Afraid you’re not informed enough? Just
reading this story makes you more informed than the average American. And if
you you need more facts, and succinct examples of how the Bush administration is
taking us backwards, you’re in the right
place. The Sierra Club has plenty of opportunities for you to learn more about the issues, as well as the most effective ways to
communicate about them. You don’t have
to have all the answers to get a conversation going, just the desire to engage others
in thinking about what’s important.
Last fall, S i e r r a magazine launched
“Let’s Talk” to encourage people to talk
with friends and neighbors about environmental protection. In each issue, the editors recommend an illuminating movie
and book, and provide background reading materials and questions to help spark
a good discussion. While supplies last, the
Club is even offering free coffee (shadegrown fair-trade Sierra Club coffee, bien
sur) to those who send comments from
their “Let’s Talk” book or film discussion.
In January, the book selection is The
G r eat Unraveling, a collection of
economist Paul Krugman’s columns in the
New York Times. The movie selection is
“Blue Vinyl,” a documentary following
filmmaker Judith Helfand and her parents
as they attempt to remodel their home
using “products that never hurt anyone at
any point in their life cycle.” (It’s not easy
being green, but it’s possible.)
For more information, see the January/February 2004 issue of Sierra or go
to s i e r r a c l u b . o rg/sierra/letstalk. Sierra
will be featuring Al Franken’s Lies and
the Lying Liars Who Tell Them in March.
A number of chapters and groups have
similar salons—the Pikes Peak Group in
Colorado Springs and the Bluegrass
Group in Lexington, Kentucky, host regular book groups, and the Miami Group in
Florida is launching a movie night.
The Bluegrass Group has been holding monthly book discussions for seven
years, says Ray Barry, excom member
and host for the past five years. “Every
month, there’s a designated leader who
facilitates discussion and brings snacks
and wine. The conversation is always interesting, even if the book isn’t.”
In Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny
Group launched a similar effort to the
one in Philadelphia, Sierra Club life member Ed Dinnen recently hosted a lettersto-the-editor night at his home. Seven
other Club activists joined him to write
letters to the P i t t s b u rgh Post-Gazette,
mostly focused on the Bush administration decision to drop an EPA lawsuit
against 50 of the nation’s most polluting
coal-fired power plants. Dinnen is planning another letters night in January.
The Sierra Club has plenty of resources to help members start, or continue, these important conversations. The
best place to find out more—other than
The Planet, of course—is to go to the
Club Web site at sierraclub.org. You can
find links to local book and film groups
at sierraclub.org/planet/200401/talk.asp.
Should Sierra Club Make a Presidential Endorsement?
The Sierra Club Political Committee is seeking input from Planet readers on the endorsement of a presidential candidate. Club endorsements are based primarily on three
criteria: (1) the candidate’s overall environmental record and platform, as measured by
their record of public service, stated positions, platform, and responses to Club interviews and questionnaires; (2) the candidate’s performance on environmental issues as
an incumbent (if this applies); and (3) the candidate’s prospect of winning the election or at least mounting a credible campaign.
All the registered candidates for president have been sent questionnaires and offered
an opportunity to be interviewed—five have completed both these steps. All chapters will
have a chance to contribute to the decision, as will other Club leaders. Endorsement requires a two-thirds majority of the political committee and the national Board of Directors.
To see the candidates’ records and positions on the environment and to weigh in
with your opinion, go to clubhouse.sierraclub.org/go/policies/presidential_profiles or email political.desk@sierraclub.org.
2003 YEAR IN REVIEW
8
J A N UA RY
8
Cleanin’ up the Pig Sty
ReNewable New York
The Sierra Club celebrates a future of clean
drinking water for Western Oklahomans
after pressing one of the country’s biggest
industrial hog farmers to clean up its act.
With the threat of a Club lawsuit haunting
them, the Seaboard Corporation cleaned
up their waste disposal, installed a pollution-control system, and contributed
$100,000 to wetlands conservation projects in Oklahoma’s panhandle.
The Bush administration may not be
embracing renewable energy, but New
York’s Republican Governor George
Pataki is. In an address to the New York
State Legislature, Pataki announces that
it is his goal to make New York a national leader in sustainable energy.
Within a decade, according to his plan,
25 percent of the state's electricity supply should come from sources such as
solar and wind power.
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You Say ‘Water,’
They Say ‘Whatever’
In a startling display of rh e to ri ca l
ingenuity, the Bush administration
redefines “water.” The new definition, issued by the EPA, is based on
an extreme inte rp re t ation of a
2001 Supreme Court decision, and
would severely restrict the total
area of Am e ri can waterways that
can be pro te cted under the Clean
Water Act.
Wildlands Threatened
The Bush administration releases a final environmental impact statement authorizing
the largest oil and gas project ever on public lands—39,000 new wells in the Powder
River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. This
follows by four days the official release of a
new rule allowing western states and
counties to use RS2477—an obscure provision of a repealed 1866 mining law—to
turn old trails, abandoned dirt roads, and
stream beds into new paved highways.
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Faces of the Sierra Club
Who We Are: Clockwise from top left—
Inner City Outing participants in San Diego walk arm-in-arm and chase
their shadows at WIlliam Heise County Park. n At the annual awards
banquet, California Representative Sam Farr, at left, recipient of the Edgar
Wayburn Award, which honors service to the environment by a person in
government, receives congratulations from Club Executive Director Carl
Pope. n Piney Woods Group Outings Chair Jim Lemon shows fungi to
young participants in a Sierra Club Cubs Camp, on a private nature preserve
managed by Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas. The
Austin Group of the Lone Star Chapter has held Cubs Camps for several
years; 2003 was the second year for the Piney Woods Group. n
In Tennessee, forest activist Kirk Johnson joins a Club rally to protect the
Cherokee National Forest. n Florida volunteer Heidi Lovett, Lettie French
from California, and Lois Snedden from Nevada at the Sierra
Club’s Annual Meeting n Also at the Club’s Annual Meeting in September,
Kim Bolser-Aumen, former Club Director Michael Dorsey, and current
Director Nick Aumen share a laugh. n Salmon supporters Kathleen Casey,
Northwest field staffer, Robert Ridihalgh, and Lisa Dekker protest Bush
administration salmon policies during the president’s visit to Washington
in August.
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Investing Green With
Your Green
Lewis and Clark
Relaunch
The Sierra Club launches its mutual fund.
The Sierra Club Mutual Fund represents a
way for Club members and others who care
about environmental protection to use their
financial resources in positive ways to invest
in environmentally responsible companies.
Every company in which the Fund invests is
passed through a set of rigorous environmental and social screens.
sierraclubfunds.com
The Sierra Club joins a diverse group of historians,
scholars, Native Americans,
government officials and citizens from across the country at “Jefferson’s West” to
launch the Bicentennial of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition in Charlottesville,
Virginia.
Corporate Crime
As world business and political leaders gather in
Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum,
a coalition of groups including the Sierra Club release “International Right to Know: Empowering
Communities Through Corporate Transparency”—a
report documenting the irresponsible environmental, labor, and human rights practices committed by
corporations including ExxonMobil, Nike, Unocal,
Doe Run, Freeport McMoRan, and Newmont Mining. For example, a Chinese manufacturer of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys employs 13-year-olds to
work 16-hour days for $3 a day.
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Victories to Savor
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BY BRIAN VANNEMAN AND TOM VALTIN
Let’s be honest: 2003 was a tough year for environmental headlines. “Clean Air Act Weakened.” “Mercury
Limits Rescinded.” Wherever you looked, Bush administration appointees were busy dismantling the laws that
protect our air and water, our public lands, and the
health of our communities. Some days you wanted to
skip the front page and go directly to the cartoons.
But on November 21, environmentalists celebrated a
huge victory when the Bush Energy Bill—a smorgasbord of subsidies and gifts to the oil and coal industries—was defeated in the Senate. Fox News called the
vote Bush’s biggest defeat since taking office.
That may have been the biggest victory of 2003 and
one of the few at the federal level, but the Club’s 65
chapters and 300-plus groups fought and won countless
other victories in the past year. Here are just a few
examples:
1 Grizzly Habitat Saved
Grizzly bears of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
secured a permanent home when the holder of grazing
rights in a 75,000-acre area adjacent to Grand Teton
National Park waived his claim to the land. The Blackrock/Spread Creek retirement, just 20 miles from Yellowstone National Park, ensures that a huge block of
habitat will be protected, not only for grizzlies but also
for the resident wolf pack, black bears, and mountain
lions. Conflicts between bears and cattle in the area led
to 108 documented incidents where grizzlies killed or
injured cattle on this grazing allotment between 19921998. These conflicts resulted in bear relocations, bear
removals, and the illegal killing of grizzlies. The National Wildlife Federation, working with the Sierra Club,
other conservation groups, and state and federal agencies, raised money to persuade the existing permit holder to waive his grazing rights, allowing the Forest Service
to retire the grazing allotment. To help protect grizzlies
and their habitat further, please contact
grizzly@sierraclub.org.
2 “Do it the Right Way, No New Highway!”
Through an outpouring of public support on National
Trails Day in June, the Club’s Alaska Chapter successfully
made its case against a highway reconstruction project
that would have included a bridge spanning a wilderness
canyon just above Juneau Creek Falls in the Chugach
National Forest. Eighty-five people made the 10-mile
round-trip hike to the falls, where they held placards to
represent the proposed path of the highway. A Fish and
Game biologist and Chugach Forest Service district
ranger joined protesters to warn that moving the highway
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F E B RUA RY
acres —the last large wetlands remaining in Los Angeles
County—for permanent protection. The Sierra Club Ballona Wetlands Task Force was at the forefront of the
fight, which turned into a movement that has changed
the nature of land use struggles in Southern California.
San Francisco Bay Saved from Airport Runways
Despite the rash of bleak
announcements from the White House,
the Club had plenty to cheer about in
2003—especially the Senate rejection
of the Bush energy bill.
could drastically impact the Kenai River Brown Bear
population, for whom the area is an important feeding
ground. In November, after months of deliberation and
continued public opposition to the Juneau Falls plan, the
Department of Transportation removed the so-called
“Wilderness Variant” from its list of alternatives for the
project. “This is a huge victory,” said Club Alaska organizer Betsy Goll. “It was at one time the preferred alternative but the DOT was forced to reanalyze the project.”
3 Oink if You Love Family Farms
Sometimes a five-foot furry pig costume can help you
make your point. That, and it’s hot inside. Both insights
came to Minnesota eighth-grader Emily Barnes when
she played the part outside the Wedge Co-op in Minneapolis. Emily and her fellow Sierra Club activists
worked diligently to educate consumers about the risks
of eating meat raised on routine antibiotics. They urged
consumers to ask their grocer for meats raised by traditional family farmers—who treat animals humanely and
don’t abuse important medicines. Activists were assisted
by the Antibiotics and Agriculture Campaign, a part of
the Sierra Club’s Clean Water effort. Because of the
work of Emily and other stellar North Star Chapter members, the Byerly’s and Lunds grocery store chains began
carrying antibiotic-free meats, and ran a series of billboard ads around the city publicizing their willingness
to provide consumers with a choice.
Three Decades of Activism Pay Off—
Ballona Wetlands Saved
When filmmaker Howard Hughes died in 1976, a prime
p a rcel of Hughes-owned Los Angeles coastal re a l
e s t a t e — m o re than a thousand undeveloped acre s
known as the Ballona Wetlands—was targeted for development. Twenty-seven years, half a dozen lawsuits, ten
Angeles Chapter resolutions, countless town hall meetings, protests, rallies, giant puppets, posters, op-eds, and
one gubernatorial recall later, the state stepped in on
October 1 to finalize the acquisition of more than 600
In July, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) withdrew
its plans to fill as much as 1,000 acres of San Francisco Bay
for new runways. “I couldn’t be happier,” says volunteer
leader Jane Seleznow, who for four years has been leading
the Sierra Club Bay Protection Campaign efforts. “Four
years ago, when [San Francisco] Mayor Willie Brown
announced his plans to fill in and pave 1.5 square miles of
the Bay, the conventional wisdom was that new runways
were a done deal.” But opposition from groups such as the
Sierra Club, along with leaner economic times, have
caused SFO to reconsider. Thousands of S.F. Bay and Loma
Prieta Chapter members wrote or called their county
supervisors expressing opposition to the bayfill plans, and
according to Loma Prieta Chapter leader Richard Zimmerman, their efforts made a dramatic difference.
Kentucky Activists Hold Tyson Accountable
A Kentucky federal court ruled in November that factory
farms operated by food giant Tyson expose local communities to dangerous pollutants, and that Tyson must
take responsibility for its record. The Sierra Club and
local residents sued Tyson for failing to report hazardous
releases of ammonia from four animal factories under its
supervision. These huge operations pack tens of thousands of chickens into closed buildings and release
ammonia and other toxic gases that can cause sometimes fatal respiratory problems. “This decision is a huge
victory for Kentuckians,” says Aloma Dew, organizer for
the Sierra Club. Tyson had argued that it was not responsible for pollution from its factory farms because the
operations are run by outside contractors. Federal Court
Judge Joseph McKinley was unconvinced by the company’s arguments. Tyson, he said, is, “clearly in a position
of responsibility and power with respect to each facility...and has the capacity to prevent and abate the alleged
environmental damage.”
Students Protest, Boise Agrees:
No More Endangered Forests in our Paper
The Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), the student arm of
the Sierra Club, applauded Boise Cascade for its
promise to eliminate the purchase of wood products
from endangered forests. Boise Cascade became the
first major U.S. forest products company to adopt a
comprehensive environmental statement and the first
distributor of wood and paper products to extend an
environmental policy to its suppliers. Boise’s decision
came in the wake of sustained pressure from the SSC
and other environmental consumers. SSC members
postcarded at local distribution centers and kicked
Boise Cascade off their campuses. “Thousands of stu-
M A RC H
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Go Solar, Not Ballistic
Bad Friday for Tongass
Students Send Message
Lowering the Bar
Sierra Club members march with an
environmentalists-against-the-war
contingent to speak out for peace in
San Francisco. The Club Board of
Directors takes an official position
against unilateral preemptive war
against Iraq and calls for strong measures to reduce the nation’s oil consumption.
The Forest Service denies wilderness
protection for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, paving the way for logging. Once again, the Bush
administration makes its announcement on Friday afternoon, knowing
that fewer Americans follow the news
on Saturday than any other day of the
week.
150 Sierra Student Coalition members
from 30 states visit Capitol Hill to send a
message to legislators: patriotism starts
with the protection of America's heritage
and public lands. The high school and
college students are in town for the
group’s fifth annual Lands Action Summit,
where they plan campaigns to protect
Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
Utah Wilderness, and our national forests.
If rules released today by the Bush administration today stick, more Americans will have to live with more smog.
In 1997, the EPA announced tough
new rules that would monitor smog
over an eight-hour period. The EPA decides to revert to an older system that
has been shown to be less effective in
protecting against asthma and other
lung diseases.
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dents across the country who organized on their college
campuses to protect our endangered forests can pat
themselves on the back,” says SSC National Director
Meighan Davis. “The forest products industry has relied
on logging these pristine endangered forests for far too
long. Boise’s decision shows that there is a better way.”
’Safe Communities, Not Bush’s FTAA’
Okefenokee Gains Permanent Protection
In August, DuPont announced the largest gift of conservation lands in Georgia history. Under an agreement with the
Conservation Fund, International Paper, and the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service, 16,000 acres of land on Trail Ridge,
adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, will
receive permanent protection not only from the titanium
mining that DuPont had proposed, but also from all mining, oil and gas extraction, and development. This resolves
permanently any threat that mining will take place east of
the swamp and north of Suwanee Canal Road. Sierra Club
activists in Georgia, Florida, and Delaware have been
active in this fight for the last eight years. (Watch for feature story coming in March 2004 Planet.)
Forested Watershed Saved from the Saw
The Wenoca Group and residents of western North Carolina won a quick and decisive battle to prevent the logging of a lush municipal watershed located at the head
of the Reems Creek Valley. Earlier this year, a local
landowner found logging company employees on his
property surveying an extraction route. Word spread
quickly: the board members of the Woodfin water district had settled on a plan to sell timber rights and use
the money to replace old water lines, but the board had
not investigated any alternatives to logging and did not
seem interested in exploring any. Residents of Reems
Creek and Woodfin started asking tough questions about
the logging plans, and a University of North Carolina
environmental scientist argued that clearing a forest to
provide better water was a misguided approach. The
Wenoca Group helped put several candidates on the ballot for election to the water board, three of whom won
election. One of them, Robin Cape, became the first
write-in winner in at least 25 years.
Keeping the Country Country
In September, the Hawai’i Chapter won a major court victory in its campaign to stop urban sprawl on Oahu, when
a circuit court judge ruled that an environmental impact
statement must be completed before hundreds acres of
agricultural land could be turned into a residential development. “This is a tremendous victory towards keeping
the country country,” said Chapter Director Jeff Mikulina.
“We only have one chance at ensuring smart growth on
the remaining farmlands in central Oahu. Once they are
developed, they are gone forever.” Developers Castle &
Cooke argued that the appropriate time to prepare an
environmental impact statement was after they received
approval to build, but the court disagreed.
Even the Horses Wore Armor: Sierra Club President Larry Fahn, top, in front of police, joined with dozens of Sierra Club activists
and thousands of other protesters in Miami opposing the Bush administration’s Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) proposal. “The
police presence was more than intimidating," he says. "There were hundreds of riot-equipped police on every street corner in
downtown Miami, several tanks, and even the horses of the mounted police had face shields and protective armor. But the crowd was
predominantly peaceful and the Sierra Club, with its big green banners and hundreds of placards, was a visible presence at the rally and
march.” Fahn and about 20 other speakers, including Jim Hightower, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, union and religious leaders, and
representatives from Latin American countries, spoke to a rally crowd at Bayfront Park amphitheater estimated at 8,000 to 15,000
people. Above, Sierra Student Coalition member Rachel Ackoff, in green, and Club field staffer Natalie Foster, in red, join Steelworkers
during the Miami march. The Sierra Club opposes the FTAA, says Dan Seligman, director of the Club’s Responsible Trade Program,
above right, because it would weaken environmental safeguards. FTAA talks wrapped up a day early after negotiators agreed to a
slimmed-down version of the treaty, which allows countries to opt out of key provisions. The Bush administration plans to seek
adoption in Congress next year of a mini-version of the FTAA covering only Central America.
mental struggle,” says Karp. “Had the Club not helped
flush this out of the closet from the beginning, the outcome might have been very different.”
Rhode Island Port Dead in the Water
When Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri (R) took
office earlier this year, one of his first actions was to kill
the controversial Quonset Point project, a massive deepwater container port proposed for Narragansett Bay. For
nearly a decade, Carcieri’s predecessor had championed
the port project, which would have accommodated a
new generation of mega-ships too big for the ports of
New York or Boston to handle. “As they saw it,” says Caroline Karp, an environmental studies professor at Brown
University and former Rhode Island Chapter, “Narragansett Bay would be the best place to site such a facility.” But the chapter kicked into high gear, organized
statewide opposition to the project and staged an event—
widely covered by the media—demonstrating just how
huge these ships would be. From that point on the Sierra
Club became the group the media came to for the opposition point of view. “This was an archetypal environ-
19
Senate Protects Arctic
In a huge victory, 52 senators vote to turn
back an effort to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A bipartisan group of
senators prevail in safeguarding this national treasure and the native people who
depend on it, despite heavy lobbying by
the Bush administration and the oil industry. Senators passed an amendment to strip
Arctic drilling revenues from the Budget
Resolution, marking a pivotal vote in the 25year fight to protect the Arctic.
21
Farmland Preserved, Sprawl Halted
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s the
approach that the Huron Valley Group took in Michigan in their ongoing battle against suburban sprawl.
They were part of the losing coalition in 1998 when a
land preservation proposal was defeated soundly at the
polls. But they made some headway in ’99 and 2000,
and never gave up. This year, they forged a coalition
with business leaders, farming interests, and environmental groups to advance a ballot measure extending
Ann Arbor’s Parkland Acquisition program for 30 years
and using two-thirds of the money to acquire development rights on farmland outside the city. This time,
they won handily, garnering two-thirds of the vote.
According to the Trust for Public Land, this marks the
first and only time sprawl developers have been defeated after funding an opposition campaign.
APRIL
An Earth Day Message:
‘America Can Do Better’
Sierra Club organizers reach out on Earth
Day to encourage their neighbors to push
their local, state and federal public officials
to “do better,” by cleaning up our air and
water, protecting our families from toxic
pollution, and conserving the land we love.
Volunteers put up over 14,000 localized yard
signs proclaiming “we can do better,” referring to the nation’s 33 years of progress in
safeguarding the environment.
2
Wide Swath of Wisconsin Woods Saved
While building an activist network focused on forest
conservation in Wisconsin’s northwoods, the John Muir
Chapter has been successful in protecting nearly 13,000
acres of high quality forest habitat for rare wildlife such
as Canada lynx, American marten, and Northern
goshawk. U.S. Forest Service plans for timber sales on
the heavily logged Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest called for thousands of acres of clearcutting, thinning,
and other logging in some of best remaining unprotected habitat on public land in Wisconsin. Working with a
coalition of conservation organizations, the chapter’s
forestry committee is working to ensure that logging is
done in a manner that protects the outstanding trout fisheries, wildlife habitat and recreational qualities.
The list goes on. To explore the work of the Sierra Club,
visit sierraclub.org, click on any state, and see how
your fellow Sierrans are striving to keep the air clean
and the rivers running for future generations.
M AY
Arctic Banned to Basement
Poor Subhankar Banerjee! Quite by accident,
his stunning arctic photographs of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge (like “Tundra Swan,”
at right) becomes a political football and the
venerable Smithsonian Institution decides to
deep-six his exhibit. First it is relocated to an
out-of-the-way gallery, then already-approved captions are stripped from its pictures.
Despite the cover-up, you can still find a compilation of his photos in the book “Seasons of
Life and Land.”
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January/February 2004
Going Beyond
Partnerships Program Builds Bridges
For 111 years, the Sierra Club has worked
to build effective coalitions to advance its
conservation goals. But these ad hoc issuebased coalitions usually faded away when
campaigns ended or individuals moved on
to other challenges. Club leaders saw the
growing need to build more pe rm a n e nt
strategic partnerships, and in 2002 the E nv i ro n m e ntal Pa rtnerships prog ram wa s
launched in a dedicated effort to broaden
and diversify the base of active public support for environmental issues.
Volunteers and staff have enthusiastically
embraced the objectives of the program,
working with partners on current issues of
common co n ce rn, but also investing the
time and energy nece s s a ry for building
long-term trusting relationships with diverse constituencies and communities. Prog ram staff lend suppo rt to ex i s t i n g
conservation efforts, as well as break new
g round with constituencies like labo r
unions, religious groups, Latino organizations, and hunters and anglers.
“ Eve ryone wa nts healthy co m m u n i t i e s
with open space and clean air and water
for their families,” says Melanie Griffin, national director of the program. “It’s a matter of listening to people’s co n ce rns and
learning how to present positive solutions
in terms that they can embrace. It isn’t always easy. We are used to being advocates
and taking action at every turn. But building relationships means taking the time to
listen and respect different approaches.”
At the national level, the Partnerships program has sponsored joint TV ads on energy policy with the National Council of
Churches, produced a video with famed
football personality Pat Summerall on the
natural alliance between the Sierra Club
and sports enthusiasts, and helped organize workshops, trainings, and rallies with
a number of labor unions.
Perhaps the broadest partnership effort
undertaken in the past few years is the national education campaign aimed at exposing the Bush administration’s effort to
pack America’s courts with extreme, ultraright wing judges. Partnership staff and
vo l u nteers have been wo rking with the
Club’s Legal Program to educate members
and the public about the impo rt a n ce of
the courts and the serious risks posed by
the lifetime appointments of judges who
believe that env i ro n m e ntal laws are unconstitutional. “You know you are representing mainstream America when you’re
sitting at the table with the NAACP, AFLC I O, Planned Pa re nt h ood Fe d e ration of
America, and the Mexican American Legal
Defense Fund,” says Griffin. “This powerful
partnership is about protecting our communities and our civil rights from a wellf u n d e d, orc h e s t rated campaign to
politicize America’s courts—it’s no wonder
so many diffe re nt constituencies are
speaking out.”
3
JUNE
Club Joins Launch of
‘Inside the Outdoors’
A coalition of Los Angeles law enforcement and religious leaders, educators, and public officials joins
with the Sierra Club in announcing a campaign to
extend outdoor educational opportunities to every
California child. Supporters include Mayor James
Hahn, County Sheriff Lee Baca, Police Chief William
Bratton, State Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell, and L.A. Lakers’ star Shaquille O’Neal.
“These programs help turn lives around,” said
Sheriff Baca. “Few investments are as worthwhile.”
Fishing with Lewis and Clark
WASHINGTON—In connection with the Lewis &
Clark Wild America Campaign to preserve lands
and habitat along the Lewis and Clark Trail , the
Club has been forming alliances with anglers
and spo rtsmen in Ne b ra s ka, South Da ko t a ,
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In 2003 the campaign published a fishing guide, “Fishin’ Along the Lewis and Clark
Trail,” by professional guide Drew Winte re r,
describing 10 spectacular places to fish along
the Lewis and Clark trail.
Green
BY TOM VALTIN
’The Difference Between Winning and Losing’
COLORADO—In Denver, the Club has stood with the building trades
in promoting an initiative to fully fund the transit build-out of the
Denver metropolitan area. In Colorado Springs, the Club recently
organized a joint training for environm e ntal and labor leaders. “Mu t u a l
i nte rests co nve rge more than yo u
m i g ht think,” says Roc ky Mo u nt a i n
Chapter leader Ross Vincent, left, who
organized the event. Vincent, a Pueblo
re s i d e nt, also help ed fo rm Be t te r
Pueblo, a coalition of environmentalists, labor leaders, farmers, ranchers,
and businessmen who succe s s f u l l y
fo u g ht an army plan to incin erate
chemical weapons in Pueblo; under pressure, the army converted
the facility to employ a safer disposal technology, liquid neutralization. “In the future, these kinds of partnerships will mean the
difference between winning and losing,” Vincent says.
Club staff and volunteers tabled at fly-fishing
shows during the summer, and two Seattlearea events—co-sponsored by the Sierra Club,
the National Wi l d l i fe Fe d e ration, and the
Washington State Council of the Federation of
Fly Fishers, and Orvis Company Store, Inc.—
were held in June to promote the guide. Local
water issues were discussed, and participants,
including many anglers, signed postcards urging pro te ction of Wa s h i n g to n’s ri vers and
streams. “These events provided the opportunity to initiate relationships with anglers and
outfitters,” says Mary Kiesau of the Club’s Seattle office, “and the Club has since been invited
to local fly fishing meetings and encouraged
to table during Orv i s’ fishing wo rkshops to
promote our conservation message.”
sierraclub.org/lewisandclark/wildamerica
Club, S
Green Buildings, Clean Energy, Worker Safety
CA L I F O R N I A — The Club has been wo rk ing on the Ca l i fo rn i a
Labor/Environmental Solar Energy Project, a joint project of the
Sierra Club, Service Employees International Union, International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and UNITE!, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, to install solar panels on
union buildings and the homes of Sierra Club members and union
families across California. “In California, unions and environmentalists are working together for a safe energy future, while the Bush
administration is trying to take us backwards to the failed polluting
policies of the past,” says Tanya Tolchin, Partnership Program Rep.
“We hope to expand this partnership in other communities across
the country to show the administration that there is a better way.”
The Club has also been working with
labor and the building trades on a varie ty of pro j e ct s, ranging from clean
power plants to transit villages. The
Club supported the building trades in
litigation opposing a Bush administration order to ban the use of fe d e ra l
funds on any project covered by a project labor agreement. Project La bo r
a g re e m e nts are usually negotiate d
between a contractor or government
agency and a labor union to establish a common set of workplace
rules. In addition to protecting workers rights, these agreements
help ensure that skilled workers conduct essential environmental
projects like cleaning up toxic sites. “It was a great opportunity to
expand our dialog with the building trades,” says Tim Frank,
above, of the Challenge to Sprawl Campaign. “And we won. The
administration was overreaching and needed to be challenged;
we helped do that.”
Tribes, Club Partner to Save Zuni Salt Lake
ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO—Sierra Club activists partnered with several southwestern Indian tribes to protect Zuni Salt Lake, a spring-fed body of water in
western New Mexico. The lake is a sacred gathering place for the Zuni and
other tribes, who make pilgrimages to collect salt for religious ceremonies.
The Salt River Project, the nation’s third-largest electrical utility, had wanted
to build a massive coal mine ten miles from the lake and a rail line across Zuni
burial grounds. In 2001, a coalition of tribes, environmental groups, and citizens joined the Zuni in publicizing the issue throughout Arizona and New
Mexico, gathering signatures in opposition to the mine. Zuni runners ran 350
miles from the Zuni Pueblo to SRP headquarters in Phoenix to deliver the
coalition’s message. In August 2003, SRP cancelled its plans for the mine.
IOWA—In
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In January, the Club is sponsoring a major conference bringing
together union leaders and Club activists to form a statewide
coalition that fights for good jobs, safe and healthy working conditions, renewable energy, and environmental protection.
23
6
J U LY
Earn Money While You Sleep
Club to Fund Green Projects Sou
After Christie Todd Whitman steps down as EPA chief and the
Sierra Club pitches in to help find her successor, running a mock
ad, in Roll Call, the magazine of Capitol Hill, titled “Earn $$$
While You Sleep. Playing off of the Bush administration’s expectations of Whitman, the ad calls for candidates “who are fluent in
doublespeak” and willing “to work late on Friday evenings when
all potentially unpopular announcements are made.” It also reminds candidates that “selection will be based solely on merit
without regard to race, color, religion, age, gender, or interest in
protecting America’s natural heritage.” A full copy of the ad is
available at sierraclub.org/epaj.ob
The Sierra Club announces that it will fund environmen
Mexican grassroots organizations to fight pollution and
and living conditions of border communities. “Environ
caused by the explosive growth of maquiladoras has re
throughout the border region,” says Jenny Martinez, S
The grants, which range from $10,000-$25,000, are par
yond the Borders, Mexico project. The funds can be us
from fighting illegal dumping and garbage burning to
tamination, promoting recycling programs, and expan
cation campaigns.
Anglers on Board
Coalition Pushes for Affordable Housing
MINNESOTA— The Club organized a November anglers
WISCONSIN—The John Muir Chapter has been working with the labor,
faith, and environmental justice communities in Milwaukee to develop affordable housing and community gardens on the site of a
demolished freeway. Among the groups partnering with the Club are
the Milwaukee County Labor Council, the 9 to 5 Association of Working Women, the Metro Fair Housing Council, the Milwaukee Intercity
Congregations Allied for Hope, at right, the AFL-CIO, the Union of
Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Workers, the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future. Club activists participated in a December Human Rights
Day rally with these groups at Milwaukee city hall. “The fight for environmental, human, and worker rights will continue and the Sierra
Club will be a part of that fight.,” local Club leader Rosemary Wehnes
told the crowd.
summit in Minneapolis to promote a dialog between
anglers, environmentalists, and state agencies on mercury and its effects on fish and health. Attendees included manufacturers of fishing equipment, the editor of a
flyfishing magazine, several fishing writers/authors, the
Minnesota Conservation Federation, the Bass Federation, the state Public Pollution Control Agency and the
Departments of Health and Natural Resources. Midwest
field staffer Eric Uram says a larger event embracing the
entire Midwest is in the works for the spring. “It’s important to have anglers groups on board if we hope to have
an impact on mercury rules and regulations,” says the
Club’s Matt Little, an organizer of the state summit who
also foresees an increasingly active partnership with
Native Americans. The Sierra Club is currently working
with local tribes to get fish consumption advisories
posted across Minnesota.
100-Mile Wilderness Gains
Ground
M A I N E —Env i ro n m e ntalists and the hunte r /
angler community often see eye-to-eye when
it comes to clean water and wildlands. So the
Maine Chapter has been working with hunters
and anglers to promote the 100-Mile Wilderness, the longest stretch of the Appalachian
Trail not crossed by a paved ro a d. In some
p l a ce s, though, the industrial forest comes
within 500 feet of the trail, and designated
wilderness is sorely needed to enlarge and
protect the wilderness corridor, which includes
world-class indigenous brook trout fisheries.
The Si e rra Club and Trout Un l i m i ted have
joined the state-sponsored 100-Mile Wilderness Working Group to promote conservation
in the 100-mile region. Club organizer Maureen Davin has also been working with the
Izaak Walton League and Trout Unlimited in
opposing Bush administration efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act.
sierraclub.org/planet/200307/maine.asp
The Club is also considering legal action against Cintas Corp., the
largest public uniform supplier in North America, for consistently
discharging excessive amounts of oil and grease into sewers in the
Milwaukee suburb of Franklin, where they operate an industrial
laundry facility. All of the other major industrial cleaners in the area
have made investments in equipment that prevents excess grease
and oil from being discharged into sewers. The Club is also working
with UNITE to protect communities from pollution from industrial
laundries and to urge the Bush administration not to exempt industrial laundries from federal hazardous waste requirements for shop
towels contaminated with toxic chemicals.
Blue/Green Alliance For Clean Water
Getting the Lead Out
OHIO—The Sierra Club has been collaborating for several years
NEW YORK—The Club’s New York City Group is
working with a coalition of medical doctors,
labor leaders, tenants associations, community
and religious organizations, parents of leadpoisoned children, and environmental groups
to educate the public and decision-makers
about childhood lead poisoning. The coalition
is trying to pressure landlords to clean up lead
p a i nt hazards that cause pe rm a n e nt bra i n
damage in young children. Co-chaired by volunteers Chris Rembold and Laura Hepler, the
coalition has participated in press conferences,
rallies, and educational events. “We’re working
hard to convince Mayor Michael Bloomberg to
come on board,” says local Club staffer Suzanne
Mattei.
with Steelworkers from AK Steel, which has major plants in four
states. Ohio Club organizer Susan Knight, below, and numerous Club volunteers have worked jointly with Steelworkers to
end a three-year worker lockout and compel AK management
to negotiate with the Sierra Club about ongoing environmental problems. Last year Club Water Sentinels visited locked-out
workers in Mansfield, Ohio, to train them in water monitoring,
and developed environmental “rap sheets” for all AK Steel facilities in coordination with the Steelworkers. “The Steelworkers
union researched several AK facilities and their environmental
violations in 2003,” says Knight, “and we have been exploring
other joint ventures. The company is currently showing good
faith in negotiations.”
lub, Steelworkers Organize Broad Coalition
WA—In preparation for the January presidential caucuses and
andidate visits, the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers of
merica organized a meeting in September with 20 other environmental, labor, religious, farmer, minority, and advocacy groups to
scuss the formation of a Blue/Green Coalition. The coalition’s core
members have now held five meetings and developed four major
solutions—on energy, factory farms, worker rights, and trade.
embers will use these resolutions as models for questions as they
ncounter candidates from both parties. “We want to maintain an
ngoing collaboration into the future,” says the Club’s Lyle Krewon, who organized the September meeting along with Steelworks rep David Foster.
“We’ve collaborated with the Sierra
Club on a lot of levels,” says Steelworkers’ representative Adam Lee.
“Personally I’ve been involved in
our joint struggles to co nv i n ce
companies that it’s in their best
interest to respect workers and the
environment. These joint effo rt s
have been very effective, showing
how powerful blue/green alliances
can be.”
Preserving Delta Wetlands
Explore, Disfrute y Proteja
ISSOURI— Jill Mi l l e r, Mi s s o u ri org a n i zer for the Cl u b’s Gl o b a l
MISSISSIPPI—The Sierra Club is partnering
arming and Energy Program, took part in a three-day labor/envionmental workshop in February with 13 Sierra Club organizers
nd 30 Steelworkers. Participants explored labor and environmenal issues, with an emphasis on global warming. “It was incredibly
warding to discover just how much we have in common,” Miller
ays. “Steelworkers and Sierrans are great natural allies in holding
orporations and lawmakers accountable in order to protect jobs
nd the environment.” The train-the-trainer format led Miller to
evelop a small-group wo rkshop in St. Louis in Ju n e, which
rought together a dozen Sierra Club leaders and a dozen Steelo rkers to ex p l o re ways to fight global wa rm i n g, and the
bor/environment rapport has since grown around trade issues.
iller addressed the “March to Miami” rally in St. Louis in October,
rotesting Bush’s FTAA, in which foreign corporations can sue over
nvironmental protections they deem “burdensome to trade.”
here are plans for future collaboration with Steelworkers, includg op-eds, teach-ins, and more workshops.
with farmers and landowners in the Mississippi Delta to oppose two environmentally destructive Army Corps of Engineers
projects, the Yazoo Pumps and Big Sunflower Dredge Pro j e ct s. “Working with
farmers, landowners, hunters and anglers
will be k ey in defeating these antiquated
and senseless pro j e ct s, ” says Ho n ey
Ussery, a Mississippi Club organizer. Other
allies in the fight are environmental justice groups such as the Mississippi Workers for Human Rights and the Concerned
Parents of Leland (one of the Delta’s larger towns). “Citizens are getting involved
in this campaign because these projects
will harm public health and waste taxpayer money,” says Usery.
P U E RTO RICO — Local ac tivists Sa m a r ys
Seguinot, Francisco Perez, Patricia Burke and
Myrna Fernandez are currently working to protect the Northeast eco l og i cal corridor from
over-development. The corridor is the only
surviving example of pre-Columbian coastline
left on the island, and one of only two places in
the U.S. where the leatherback turtle nests. The
Marriott and Four Seasons hotel chains have
each proposed a mega-resort complex along
this stretch of coast. Local activists are also
starting an outings program on the island, and
re ce ntly held a training for 25 new outings
leaders.
Blues and Green Warm Up
FLORIDA—On Earth Day, April 22, Sierra Club Executive Direc-
tor Carl Pope addressed a large interfaith ecumenical gathering in Ja c k s o nv i l l e, Fl o rida, where re p re s e nt at i ves fro m
Christianity, Islam, Hunduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Native
American religions read from their sacred scripture. “Environmental co n ce rn s, like religion, call for long-range vision,”
Pope told the congregants. “They consider issues of the common good, and deal with the world as a gift, not just an exploitable re s o u rce. Like env i ro n m e ntalism, religion is a
language that takes us beyond mere economic discourse.”
For more information:
Contact: Tad Williams, Sierra Club Environmental
Partnerships Program, 408 C St., NE, Washington,
DC 20002; (202) 547-1141; tad.williams@sierraclub.org.
15
s South of the Border Grassroots Groups Join Forces
ironmental projects run by four
tion and to improve the working
Environmental degradation
as has reached alarming levels
tinez, Sierra Club Program Officer.
, are part of the Sierra Club’s Ben be used for activities ranging
rning to monitoring water cond expanding environmental edu-
Finding Common Ground
The Sierra Club joins forces with America’s other largest grassroots groups to register, educate, and mobilize the public for
the 2004 elections. The groups are linking arms as America
Votes, a non-partisan political organization that will capitalize
on the groups’ strong strategic abilities and large membership
bases to break new ground in electoral politics. America Votes
will combine resources, research, and strategy to develop
highly targeted, state-of-the-art methods to reach out to voters on issues that they care deeply about to encourage greater
voter participation.
16
SSC tours with Lollapalooza
Think of it as a travelling Gen-X Woodstock.
The Lollapalooza tour, first launched in 1991,
was back on the road this year after a five-year
layoff. What does this have to do with the
Sierra Club? Lollapalooza committed its 2003
tour to promoting alternative energy solutions. Many of the vendors and tabling organizations were environmentally oriented,
helping educate concertgoers about everything from the the Bush judicial appointees—the Club opposed xxxxxxxxxxxx— to ways to make houses, cars, and
home appliances more energy efficient.
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January/February 2004
The Energy Plan That Could Be
(If only they’d allow some environmentalists to help write the rules.)
n
BY BRIAN VANNEMAN
In late November, the Senate narrowly
voted down the Bush administration’s
2003 Energy Bill. The pork-stuffed legislation came in with a $37 billion price tag—
the coal industry alone would have
collected $4.5 billion in tax credits and
“clean” coal research investments, and the
oil, gas, ethanol, and nuclear industries
were similarly favored.
The cost of the bill was so monstrous
that we couldn’t help but wonder: Couldn’t
we find a better use for that money? The
Planet asked energy experts which projects they would favor to move the country
toward a reliable energy future without
sacrificing our air, water, health, national
security, and wildlands.
We anticipated suggestions like: “A $5
billion fund to build enough wind turbines to halve our imports of Middle-Eastern oil.” But what we heard instead was
people like Jim Caldwell of the American
Wind Energy Association telling us, for
example, that, “All we really want is a
level playing field.” In other words, either
subsidize all sources of energy, or don't
subsidize any.
Just as surprising was the assertion by
many on the Sierra Club’s Energy and
Global Warming Committee that the best
way to use billions in federal funds
would be to first concentrate on smart
technologies that can drastically reduce
our energy consumption, and then invest
in new sources of energy like wind turbines and solar panels. Increasing auto
fuel economy is the single biggest step in
curbing global warming—but stopping
e n v i ronmental destruction caused by
electricity use starts with conservation.
Most of us are aware of the emphasis
the environmental community places on
energy conservation. We tend to put on a
sweater before cranking up the heat, or
put in compact fluorescent bulbs in place
of old incandescents. But what’s less
widely known is that government can,
through well thought-out conservation
policies, encourage smart energy use and
chop kilowatt use in homes, businesses,
and schools. Fred Heutte of the Club’s
energy committee passionately believes
that with such policies, a little human energy can create energy use reductions in
the range of 10 to 20 percent nationwide—a return not likely to be matched
by any amount of power-plant building.
Vice President Dick Cheney, leader of
the administration’s 2001 Energy Ta s k
Force, dismissed conservation as a “personal virtue.” But robust conservation and
efficiency measures managed by the federal government—and states like Oregon,
Vermont, California, and New York—flatly
contradict that view and show that conservation can be a public benefit.
The Environmental Protection Agency's
Energy Star program is one such measure.
Energy efficiency saves the U.S. economy
an estimated $150 billion each year, and
Energy Star plays an important part. Many
of the energy-saving products and features we take for granted, like LED traffic
lights and low standby energy use for personal computers, were introduced to the
market by Energy Star. The program partners with 1,600 construction companies
around the country to build energy-efficient homes. And it helps to educate factory owners nationwide about energ y
saving and cost-cutting electric motors.
Yet while President Bush publicly praises
the Energy Star program, his administration moved to cut its funding by 30 percent.
Diana Enright, of Oregon’s Department
of Energy, offered evidence of efficiency’s
efficacy for small businesses. “In Portland,”
she says, “Hot Lips Pizza was awarded a
There’s an udder way: While the Sierra Club supports increased investment in renewable energy
sources like wind power, the most important first step, say Energy Committee members, is to concentrate on
smart technologies that can drastically reduce our energy consumption through conservation and efficiency.
26
tax credit for installing a high-efficiency
oven and pan-washer. In Corvallis, dentist
Greg Soriano bought bikes for his two employees. They drove their cars 255 fewer
days per year and saved 178 gallons of
gas. Soriano was awarded more than $100
as a tax credit.”
The state’s DOE is also working to
propel large energy consumers toward
greater efficiency. Through a partnership
with corporations and schools, companies that lower their energy consumption
are awarded a tax credit, which they can
then pass on to schools. After nixing
wasteful processes at its headquarters,
Nike passed on $1 million for energy-efficiency projects at 100 Oregon schools.
One recipient, Principal Tim France of
Powers High School, says his energy bill
has been reduced by 60 percent. “And
due to new lighting,” he adds, “the illumination has also improved. Our small
town really appreciates the help.”
“Significant savings on energy means
m o re money for teachers and school
supplies,” aff i rms Fred Heutte of the
Club’s energy committee. According to
the Alliance to Save Energy, schools pay
more for energy than for textbooks and
computers combined. Oregon’s new
High Performance Schools Program offers $50,000 grants to school districts that
are planning to build new facilities using
the highest level of energy and resource
efficiency. That’s a powerful incentive to
embrace energy efficiency while lowering operating costs.
The Energy Trust of Oregon, which
Huette helped to found, gathers $45 million from electrical rate-payers throughout
the state, then reinvests the money in programs that encourage efficiency and renewable energy development. “Part of its
goal,” he says, “is to save 300 megawatts
29
21
of electricity by 2012, which will reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and delay or
avoid the need to construct new fossil fuel
plants.” (One megawatt is enough to
power 600 average American homes.)
E n e rgy efficiency also puts money
back into communities, while increasing
energy production often disperses funds
to remote utilities. “Efficiency stimulates
local labor,” contends Heutte. “You have
people installing insulation around town,
not in an oil platform offshore.”
A million bucks here, a kilowatt there—
it might sound like small potatoes compared to the Bush administration's $5.5
billion proposal for “clean” coal technologies or the 1.7 million gallons of oil we import from the Persian Gulf every day. But
programs like those run by Oregon's Department of Energy and Energy Tr u s t
could be expanded to work on a national
level, in which all school districts are encouraged to build efficient classrooms, and
all small businesses are offered tax credits
for conservation measures.
Obviously, we can’t meet all our energy needs by maximizing energy efficiency—we will need to build new
power sources. When we do, we should
turn increasingly to wind, solar, and other
types of renewable energy, not fossil
fuels and nuclear power plants. Federal
energy policy can take the lead and encourage non-polluting energy sources in
numerous ways. The most effective and
immediate would be establishing a Renewable Portfolio Standard, which would
set a percentage of the country's energy
use that must come from renewables.
Again, the states are leading the way.
California has mandated that 20 percent of
its energy must come from renewables by
2017. Twelve other states, including New
[MORE ON P. 9]
AU G U S T
Activists Hit the Beach
Senate Caves
Speaking for Salmon
The last thing beachgoers want to see on
a sunny day is an oil slick washing in to
shore. So Sierra Club staffers donned oil
barrel costumes to let sun worshippers
from Florida to Maine know that under
the Bush administration’s Energy Bill, offshore oil drilling—and spills—could be a
reality. They also collected postcards
signed by to locals who wanted to let
their legislators know they opposed
drilling, and were watching Washington.
The Senate passes up an opportunity to
make progress on fuel economy standards by supporting the Levin-Bond
amendment, which leaves fuel economy
and safety issues to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which
has not significantly raised fuel economy
standards for the past 25 years. Meanwhile, the Senate votes down a competing amendment that would significantly
boost vehicle fuel economy.
In the midst of a tour of the Pacific Northwest to tout
his administration’s efforts to protect salmon, President Bush abruptly cancels his only Seattle-area appearance when he is greeted by protesters assailing
him for threateningsalmon. Bush opts to deliver his
talk instead at the Ice Harbor Dam in eastern Washington, one of the major salmon killers in the Pacific
Northwest. Bush arrives in Portland on the same tour
to unveil his “Healthy Forests” initiative, only to find
the Sierra Club had scooped him, holding a press conference the day before to denounce the plan.
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How to Protect
National Forests
When Your
President Won’t
Energy Future
[FROM P. 8]
York, Minnesota, Texas, and Nevada, have
set their own standards. The Bush Energy
Bill, however, was silent on the issue.
In 1980, the wind and solar industries
were barely sustainable business propositions that survived due to the convictions of a dedicated few. Today, they
have the momentum to compete with
fossil fuels as reliable and inexpensive
energy sources, and renewable portfolio
standards can ensure that they keep driving forward . The cost of generating
power from a wind turbine has fallen
d r a m a t i c a l l y - f rom nearly 40 cents per
kilowatt hour two decades ago to as low
as 3.5 cents today. Some of the Midwestern states that currently use the highest
percentage of coal also have the greatest
wind potential due to their vast stretches
of blustery plains. According to a 2003
Union of Concerned Scientists re p o r t ,
Minnesota could produce 20 times its annual energy usage from wind alone.
Christopher Childs, air toxics co-chair
for the Club’s North Star Chapter, has
seen good things come from the renewable standards adopted in Minnesota. In
1994, when the state first directed Xcel
energy to produce a portion of its power
from renewables, wind power there was
virtually nonexistent. Today, more than
470 turbines rise from the farmland southwest of Minneapolis, providing enough
power for 100,000 homes and prompting
Childs to dub his state “the Saudi Arabia
of wind.” It hasn’t been easy, he admits,
for citizens to cajole the utility and legislature into setting standards for renewable
production. But with the smoke stack of
a coal-fired power plant visible from his
living room window, he’s constantly reminded it’s a worthwhile job.
Solar energy’s future is also bright. It's
not yet as economical as wind power,
but because it’s so easy to install an
array of rooftop panels that power lights
and air conditioners below, org a n i z ations from the U.S. Postal Service to
Lowe’s home improvement centers have
recently made major commitments to
solar. And solar has quietly proven its
utility-scale viability based on the success of installations like SEGS in the California's Mojave Desert, which provides
power for approximately 240,000 homes
serviced by Southern California Edison.
For the past 15 years, SEGS has basked
in the sun, and pumped out power, with
very little maintenance or pollution. And
by all accounts, the technology is getting
cheaper.
When Congress reconvenes in the
new year, energy lobbyists will be back
at their doorsteps, pushing them to exhume 2003’s Energy Bill and give it another run. “But President Bush's energy
plan won’t work,” caution’s Sierra Club
Executive Director Carl Pope. “We can’t
drill, dig, or destroy our way out of our
energy problems. That’s why we’re pushing for an honest policy that promotes
energy efficiency and renewable energy.”
n
BY SEAN COSGROVE
NATIONAL FOREST POLICY SPECIALIST
I know it; chances are you know it; even the Denver Post
knows that “when it comes to the environment, President
George W. Bush may be the worst president the nation has
had in at least a century.” But most Americans, distracted by
the war in Iraq, security issues, and the economy, still don’t
know it. A big part of our job is to let them know.
One of the areas where the Bush administration’s regressive environmental policies are most flagrant is its proposals
for national forest management. Led by Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, formerly the timber industry’s top lobbyist,
the administration has spent the last three years ramping up
the taxpayer-subsidized federal logging program.
The very day he took office, Bush issued a halt on new Clinton regulations such as the Roadless Area Conservation Rule,
the Roads Transportation Rule, and a raft of other environmental and worker safety protections. From the get-go, the administration has worked assiduously to remove or reduce protection
of wild roadless forests, increase logging under the guise of preventing forest fires, degrade wildlife habitat, and remove citizens’ ability to participate in the planning of forest projects.
Capped by the notoriously ill-named “Healthy Forests Initiative,” the administration and their political allies have proposed a bounty of gifts that any timber industry executive
would love to receive. In fact, during a summer fundraising
swing, House Speaker Dennis Hastert boasted that the
Healthy Forests Initiative is “an important bill for the forest industry” and called it “a common sense approach to make sure
we can build the roads we have to build so this industry can
start to come back.” That’s a far cry from the Forest Service’s
stated mission to “Caring for the Land and Serving People.”
A few examples of what the Bush administration has in mind:
n Dismantling the 14 years of science and collaboration that
produced a sound management plan for the Sierra Nevada
national forests. The administration announced in June that it
would scrap the current plan for one favored by the timber
industry that will triple logging levels on eleven national
forests in California. The Bush plan would open spotted owl
reserves to logging and allow cutting of trees nearly 8 feet in
circumference under the guise of “fuel reduction.”
n The Forest Service has proposed a post-fire logging project in
Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest to log 500 million board
feet—the single largest timber sale proposed in modern
times—in more than 12,000 acres of wild roadless forest
burned in 2002. The administration’s proposal diverts funding
and resources from real fuel reduction around threatened Oregon communities in order to helicopter-log remote wild areas.
n The Bush administration is rewriting forest plans to increase
logging on national forests in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia. In one case, a
Forest Service whistleblower in Tennessee released information that the agency was ignoring scientific evidence in order
to promote a larger timber program. Because of the “Healthy
Forests Initiative” we can also expect the Forest Service to
promote logging in pristine southern forests under the guise
of “insect infestations” and “fuel reduction.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Sierra Club’s vision for
the national forests calls for defending the rights of citizens to
take part in federal land management, protecting wild undeveloped forests from logging and roadbuilding, ending commercial logging on the national forests, and restoring
damaged forests. In the next year it means stopping the Bush
administration’s attacks on forest safeguards. In the long run it
Siskiyou at Risk: A post-fire logging project—the single largest timber
sale in modern times—has been proposed for 12,000 acres of the Siskiyou
National Forest, above. The Bush administration proposal diverts funding and
resources away from fuel reduction around threatened Oregon communities in
order to helicopter-log remote areas.
comes down to “Protecting the Best and Restoring the Rest.”
The first step is to get informed. The Sierra Club’s National
Forest Protection and Restoration Campaign has information
and materials to help you and your chapter or group stop the
Bush attacks and help keep our forests standing. For example:
In California, the campaign worked with the Mother Lode
Chapter to appeal and bring suit on the “Red Star” roadless
area logging project; the federal district court issued a temporary restraining order ruling that such logging would increase
rather than decrease fire risk. In Montana, the campaign provided support and coordination to the Montana Chapter for a
lawsuit challenging a Lolo National Forest post-fire salvage sale
that would have logged 4,600 acres; the federal district court issued a historic order in the Club’s favor on water quality issues
that will set a nationwide precedent. In the Southern Appalachians, the campaign worked with five chapters to draft
and submit legally comprehensive comments on the 15-year
management plans for national forests in Virginia, Tennessee,
Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama.
“Restoring America’s Forests,” a report available in print
and online, establishes the economic and ecological benefits
of investing in forest ecosystem protection. The “Community
Protection Plan” developed by the Club and our allies provides solutions communities can use to protect themselves
from forest fires. More data on logging subsidies, economic
loss caused by logging, economic benefits of forest protection, job creation from restoration, and the values of clean
water, wildlife, and recreation will help to highlight that there
are better solutions for individual national forests and the nation than the Bush administration has provided. You can find
all this and more at sierraclub.org/forests.
Each new Bush attack is an opportunity to bring in more
of your friends, neighbors and local Club members into forest
protection efforts. One major issue to get engaged in is the
Bush administration’s effort to rewrite the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. These are excellent opportunities for building
environmental community with town hall meetings, door-todoor outreach, mailings with follow-up phone banks, and repeated editorial board visits. Forest protection trainings,
speaking events, and campus outreach will also be helpful to
find new friends and train new volunteers.
Holding the administration accountable on the ground and
in the court of public opinion will be key to stopping the
SEPTEMBER
27
28
4
Clean Air Act
Weakened
Bush Throws in Towel
on Global Warming
Seven Filibusters Later Club Wins Emmy
The Bush administration announces the final rule eviscerating the New Source Review
provision of the Clean Air Act.
The change widens an existing
loophole, allowing more than
17,000 factories to make
changes that increase pollution without installing modern
pollution-control technology.
In response to a legal action initiated by
the Sierra Club, the EPA announces that it
lacks the authority to regulate carbon
dioxide, a major global warming pollutant, under the Clean Air Act. The agency
claims that carbon dioxide emissions are
not pollutants and therefore not subject
to regulation. The decision ignores sound
science and undermines state efforts to
regulate global warming pollution.
Controversial judicial nominee Miguel
Estrada asks President Bush to withdraw
his name from consideration for the
federal appeals court in Washington,
D.C. Senate Democrats filibustered
seven times to block a final vote on
Estrada’s nomination until he answered
more of their questions in a public hearing or until the White House released
his working papers from his time at the
Justice Department.
4
The National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences awards a News and
Documentary Emmy to Sierra Club
Productions for Ansel Adams: A Documentayr Film. The feature length
documentary, written and directed
by Ric Burns, highlights the life and
art of America’s famed photographer
and environmentalist. It first aired on
PBS on WGBH Boston’s “American Experience” and is now available on
home video and on DVD.
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Family Planning Yields Results In Ecuador
Pioneering Program
Combines Family Planning
With Community Assistance
n
BY TOM VALTIN
“Guinea pigs are a good source of protein, and they
take up very little room to raise,” explains Annette
Souder.
Souder, Sierra Club Global Population and Environment Program dire c t o r, who
doesn’t rank guinea pig high
on her personal list of food
p re f e rences, was joined last
August by a dozen Sierra Club
population activists on a 10day trip to Ecuador, including
a visit to Bolivar Pro v i n c e ,
w h e re a pioneerin g family
planning program has been
established in several rural
Andean villages.
Ned Grossnickle
The program is a joint vent u re of World Neighbors, an
Oklahoma-based organization that promotes sustainable agriculture, and CEMOPLAF, an Ecuadoran organization that provides health care and agricultural
assistance to rural communities. It combines family
planning with agricultural and health care assistance to
the poorest-of-the-poor.
One of the major problems afflicting rural Andean
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4
SEPTEMBER
communities is chronic malnutrition—hence the recommendation that guinea pigs (for protein) and swiss
chard (for vitamin A) be incorporated into people’s
diets. Many villagers are learning for the first time that
some vegetables provide more nutrition than others.
Past efforts to promote family planning in the region had largely failed. When family planning was offered by itself, people tended to be suspicious of it
and stay away. But when family planning services are
combined with other community assistance, people
are much more likely to participate.
“The way we’ve been able to get the confidence of
the community is in agriculture and animal husbandry,
because that’s where their income is,” says Julio Beingolea, an Ecuadoran who works for World Neighbors. “I
talk about the need to space the corn for a healthy crop
and can use that same metaphor with regard to children.”
Birth rates in Ecuador remain high—the country’s
population density is the highest in Latin America—
and extreme poverty is the norm in the Andean highlands, where more than three-quarters of indigenous
children ages 3 to 5 years suffer from malnutrition. In
Bolivar Province, widespread deforestation is a bleak
reminder of the indigenous population’s impoverishment.
“Still,” says trip participant Gayle Loeffler, “it was
clear that the integrated approach is reducing starvation and alleviating pre s s u res on the enviro n m e n t
through reduced birth rates and the use of sustainable
agriculture. I told Annette early in the trip that even if
we went home tomorrow, what I’ve seen here has
changed my life forever.”
“It really demonstrates the wisdom of John Muir’s
words when he described how everything in the universe is hitched together,” says Todd Daniel, another
Sierran on the expedition. “This program provides a
total package for the well-being of the women, the
children, the family, and the community.”
The Sierra Club group traveled by bus to several of
the communities where the integrated program is in
place, accompanied by World Neighbors’ executive director Ron Burkhardt and a local leader of CEMOPLAF.
“We were able to observe first-hand what works and
what doesn’t work.” says Ned Grossnickle, chair of the
Sierra Club’s Global Population and Environment Program Committee. “The results were striking.”
Grossnickle says the simple act of communicating
with people and asking what their needs are establishes a strong level of trust that makes a world of diff e rence. “The integrated approach has resulted in
smaller families, greater crop yield per acre, reduced
poverty, and less environmental degradation than in
the program that off e red just health care,” he says.
“And spacing the births of children and having fewer
children per family isn’t just healthier for the mothers,
it allows families to raise enough food to sell at market
rather than struggle just feed their own families.”
“Plus,” adds Ramona Rex, another Club activist on the
trip, “the program has been set up so that local volunteers get the skills to continue the health and agriculture
programs that are so beneficial to their communities.”
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has eliminated badly needed funding for the United Nations
Population Fund, and imposed restrictions on the U.S.
Agency for International Development, resulting in less
funding for critically needed programs. The Sierra Club
is uniting in a major effort to make the Bush administration more responsive to environmental challenges.
“Our job as Sierra Club population activists is to educate others about the dangers of overpopulation and
advocate for the programs that can reduce the human
‘footprint’ on the earth,” Ramona Rex says. “There’s no
question that one of the most effective ways to slow
population growth is to provide family planning services to all who want them.”
“This trip showed all of us the extreme importance
of international family planning,” says Todd Daniel.
“Coming back to the U.S. and educating our elected
officials and the public about what we saw in Ecuador
is really what this trip was all about.”
For more information, contact xxxxxxx
Life Members Give Back: New York City native Ann Loeb
jokes that she “barely noticed a leaf until I was an adult.” Now she
and her husband Michael are Sierra Club life members, and each of
the couple’s grandchildren is made a life member once they reach the
age of 12. The Loeb’s affiliation with the Club reaches back nearly four
decades, and their financial support has been ongoing since 1975.
Michael was recruited for the Club’s Books Publication Committee,
and he has served in a number of volunteer roles, most recently as
president of the Sierra Club Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Before her
retirement, Ann worked for a low-income housing organization, and
her environmental involvement has a distinctly urban focus—from
promoting energy efficiency to preserving small parks in Manhattan.
The couple has helped the Club partner with environmental
champions like New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and
New York City Congressman Jerrold Nadler. “Not only do they
contribute substantial financial resources,” says John DeCock,
executive director of the Sierra Club Foundation, “they open up their
home and address book to the Club, providing an important venue
from which to engage other New Yorkers.”
O C TO B E3 0R
16
10
Art: Denver’s New Vehicle for
Transportation Improvements
Club Launches National
Purpose, Local Action
‘Right to Pollute’xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
for
Animal FactoriesxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIn
?
an unprece-
Denver is back on the EPA’s non-compliance list for
air pollution, and has the worst traffic in the nation
for a city of its size. So the Rocky Mountain Chapter
teams up with local college students, at right, to
stage “Back on Track”—an exhibition of art inspired
by transportation. The event is intended to attract
attention and win support for a proposed sales tax
increase that will benefit public transportation. And
it does: nearly 200 art lovers and regional leaders
showed up to be moved.
Working with Harvard University, the Club
kicks off an ambitious research project to survey all 4,500 chapter and group excom members. During the Club annual meeting
weekend, 140 chapter leaders are trained as
facilitators. Led by Steve Baru, Greg Casisi, and
Lisa Renstrom, the study aims to help groups
and chapters to identify their greatest
strengths and fulfill their unrealized potential.
The EPA proposes giving condented
cen- move, the BLM announced
trated animal feeding operatthat
ionsit plans to sell oil and gas leases
immunity from the Clean Airfor
Actapproximately 16,000 acres in
Utah
and Superfund law. The agree- that the agency itself had declared to be of wilderness character.
ment would allow these facilities
to pay a mere $500 fine andThe
buyareas had been protected before
a
deal reached last spring by Interior
permanent immunity from lawSecretary
suits—a major reduction from the Gale Norton and the State
of Utah removed BLM protections on
existing fine of $27,000 per day.
the 2.6 million acres in Utah that
were deemed to have potential for
wilderness designation.
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Common Sense Solutions
[FROM P. 12]
alternative energy vision launched by a
group of labor unions led by the Steelworkers, the Machinists, and the Electrical
Workers. The project calls for investing
$300 billion over 10 years into a new energy economy based on innovation and
efficiency. It envisions major investments in
h i g h - p e rf o r mance buildings, eff i c i e n t
factories, ene rg y - e ff i c i e n t
appliances, and
better mass transit as well as efficient hybrid
vehicles. While $300 billion is only a fraction of what America spends in a single
year on imported oil, economic modeling
shows that these programs could create 3
million new manufacturing jobs.
3. Install mod e rn air pollution co nt ro l
equipment in old power plants, refineries,
and factories. Many states have already
done this. California has re t i red all its
“ g r a n d f a t h e red plants.” Florida makes
coal-fired boilers scrub their emissions.
Why should citizens of Arizona and
Georgia breathe unnecessary and avoidable soot and smog? The owners of these
dirty old plants have had 30 years to
clean them up. Now it’s time to pull the
plug. Legislation proposed by Senator Jim
Jeffords (I-Vt.) would require all power
plants to be cleaned up by the time they
are 40 years old, or by 2014 at the latest.
4. Restore the Superfund tax and the “polluter pays” principle. Getting the successful toxic waste cleanup program back up
and running—with the polluters rather
than their victims paying for it—is the
first step. There are 1,000 facilities sitting
on the list today, and probably another
600 that ought to be added over time. If
Congress restores the Superfund tax, we
can get back to cleaning up 80 sites a
year. In another 20 years we’ll be free of
the curse of toxic waste dumps.
5. Re i n s t ate the env i ro n m e ntal pro te ctions enjoyed by our national fo re s t s,
rivers, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and public lands as recently as January 21, 2001.
The first day President Bush took office,
he rescinded standards set by the Clinton
administration and opened up million of
acres to the oil, gas, mining, and logging
companies. Restoring these safeguards
will leave us with a core of wild country
that can act as a repository and nursery
for endangered and threatened species
fighting for survival, and a sanctuary
where future Americans can find renewal
and inspiration.
6. Restore rural America. We are spending
$18 billion a year on agricultural subsidies, 70 percent of which go to agribusiness giants like Cargill and J.G. Boswell.
These conglomerates use their subsidies
to drive family farmers out of business by
bidding up the price of land and driving
down returns to small, integrated farms
that combine grain and livestock production. They destroy rural communities and
environments with hellish factory feed
lots, which are virtually exempt from environmental laws. If we spent the same
$18 billion to help small farmers, restore
wildlife habitat, clean up rural waterways,
and reduce erosion and pesticide use,
rural America would have more jobs and
economic security, the quality of our food
supply would be enhanced, and the country’s air and water would be cleaner and
healthier. (Actually, we could do all these
things for a lot less money if we helped
farmers in places like Texas, Kansas, and
the Dakotas grow a new crop: windmills.
We need the electricity a lot more than we
need surplus wheat.)
7. Retire Smokey Bear. Prevent fire in endangered communities, restore it to forest landscapes. Focus the Forest Service
on what ought to be Job One—protecting communities from fire. Redire c t
money now spent on logging our national forests to fire prevention, specifically to creating Community Protection
Zones—a half-mile perimeter aro u n d
homes or towns that needs to be cleared
of brush and small trees to reduce the
risk of wildfire.
Simultaneously we should phase out
the Forest Service’s commercial timber
program, and begin managing our National Forest System exclusively for public benefits like wildlife, recreation and
watershed protection. Most of America’s
best commercial timber land is already
in private hands. We don’t need to log
raw
4
N OV E M B E R
Bird-Dogging Bush in
Birmingham
When President Bush made a swing through Birmingham, the CEO of Alabama Power and other executives came out to contribute cash and laud his
performance. One hundred and fifty activists from
the Sierra Club and other groups, including Mattie
Pleasant and Elaise Fox, at right, from the United
Food and Commercial Workers, rallied in downtown
Linn Park to remind citizens of the administration’s
poor environmental record.
xxxxxx: Hikers admiring the San Francisco city skyline from Marin County on the Coastal Medley national
outing, California. In 2003, the Club’s National and International Outings program took appr. 3,700 people on
more than 300 trips. One quar ter of a million participants went on one of the 18,000-plus chapter and
groups outings in 2003. The Inner City Outings program, which gives at-risk youth outdoor experiences they
might not otherwise enjoy, ran more than 750 trips with 8,000 young people. For more information, go to
sierraclub.org/outings.
our national forests to meet our need for
timber—they only provide 4 perc e n t
today. Since we waste about half the
timber we consume, just reducing that
waste by 8 percent would replace the
timber we currently take off the national
forests.
8) K ee p the p romi se Co n g re ss m ade
when it authorized oil and gas drilling off
our coasts. Use the royalties from those
activities to fund the Federal Land and
Water Conservation Fund which purch ases and protects wild lands an d
wildlife habitat.
9. Solve the sewage problem. The water
treatment programs of the Clean Water
Act were one of the great environmental
success stories of the 1970s and 1980s,
but we still have thousands of beach closures every year because of inadequately
treated sewage. It’s time to finish the job
the Clean Water Act started by restoring
watershed quality and, where necessary,
separating stormwater and sewage systems. We also need to address the problem of runoff from farms, feedlots, and
logging and development sites.
To keep tabs on the latest disdeeds of the Bush
administration, subscribe to Raw, the uncooked
Facts of the Bush Assault on the Environment.
Go to sierraclub.org/raw
8
10 . Rej oi n t he wo rl d. The rest of the
planet is waiting for the United States to
join the coalition of the environmentally
willing. Our agreement alone could put
the Kyoto Protocol into effect. Then we
need to move ahead and propose a more
fundamental system to stabilize the
global climate. (If the United States
adopted the first two solutions in this list,
we would achieve far more than Kyoto
demands.)
In addition, we need to rejoin, not
block, such international initiatives as
the propo sed convention to re d u c e
emissions of mercury, to protect rainf o rests, to stop overfishin g o f the
world’s oceans. We must work to undo
NAFTA, not sign new trade agreements
that embody all of NAFTA’s flaws. We
must start by eliminating our huge subsidies to agribusiness, then get rid of
N A F TA’s language on investor rights,
which allows foreign companies to sue
state and lo cal govern ments in the
United States and Mexico whenever
they enforce their environmental laws
against a foreign polluter.
Finally, if we simply began to fulfill
our commitment to the world’s families
under the Amsterdam Agreement on
family planning, developing countries
could reduce their childbearing rate by a
third. We could save the lives of more
than half a million women who die from
p re g n a n c y - related problems each year
and also prevent 80 million unintended
p regnancies and 45 million abortions
each year.
Strategic Ignorance will be published by
Sierra Club Books in spring 2004. For more
information, go to sierraclub.org/books.
10
Challenging Ford
Energy Bill Rejected!
Hundreds of volunteers in dozens of cities urge
Ford to raise the fuel economy of its vehicles in a
national Day of Action against Ford, organized by
the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Global
Exchange, the Sierra Student Coalition, and others.
According to a 2003 EPA report, Ford’s vehicles
rank the lowest of any major automaker in overall
fuel economy. Activists say that hybrid technology
and other existing fuel-saving innovations that
could make Ford’s cars, trucks, and SUVs go farther
on a gallon of gas.
Medio Ambiente ha desarrollado en tres años medidas para recuperar las poblaciones de flora exclusiva de esta zona del planeta. Un proyecto Life
sobre recuperación de áreas con flora amenazada
de Sierra Nevada, cofinanciado por la Unión Europea y la Consejería de Medio Am b i e nte de la
Junta, ha permitido duplicar, y en algunos casos
cuadruplicar, el número de plantas de algunas especies exclusivas de esta zona consideradas en p
P
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10
PLANET
The Planet (ISSN 1077-4998) is published eight times a
year by the Sierra Club to help activists fight for
environmental protection at the local, state, national,
and international levels.
Managing Editor/Designer: John Byrne Barry
Senior Editor: Tom Valtin
Associate Editor/Designer: Brian Vanneman
Contributors: Sean Cosgrove, Carl Pope
Poll after poll has shown that what the
American people want and expect from
their leaders is progress. They believe that
a combination of common sense, commitment, and American ingenuity will enable
the country to solve its enviro n m e n t a l
dilemmas, and that their children should
be able to look forward to a better and
brighter world, not a grimmer one.
H e re are ten practical steps that
could, in the next 20 years, transform the
nation. They will not solve all of our
problems; but the next generation will
have its own challenges, and we owe
them a nation that is moving forward on
the old ones.
Subscriptions
The Planet is free to all Sierra Club leaders as well as to
members who join the Club’s activist network.
Members will be contacted throughout the year and
asked to take action as part of the Club’s local, state,
and federal efforts to preser ve and strengthen
environmental protection. To join the activist network,
call:(415)977-5653; or write: Sierra Club Activist Desk,
85 Second St., 2nd Flr., San Francisco, CA 94105; or go
to www.sierraclub.org/planet.
For membership information: (415) 977-5653
Sierra Club National Headquarters, 85 Second St.,
2nd Flr., San Francisco, CA 94105
Legislative Office, 408 C St. NE, Washington, DC 20002
Stories in The Planet may be reprinted with credit to the
author and The Planet.
1. Build and drive more fuel-efficient cars,
SUVs, and other light trucks. We can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern
oil, cut air pollution and our disproportionate 25 percent contribution to the
global warming problem, slash our trade
Printed by union labor on recycled paper with soybased ink.
Keep the Bush
Energy Bill
Where It
Is Now—
Dead, But
Not Forgotten
26
for the Next 20 Years
enable a Ford Explorer, for example, to
improve from 19 miles per gallon to 35,
with no loss of roominess or acceleration. If Ford, GM, and Chrysler would
offer the package....
In 20 years our vehicle fleet could be
averaging 40 mpg, saving 4 million barrels of oil daily, and cutting global-warming emissions from autos in half.
Detroit can’t do it alone. At present, car
buyers don’t pay enough attention to fuel
efficiency, even though they may regret
their decision later when emptying their
wallets at the pump. Those who buy gas
guzzlers don’t pay the full costs of their
decisions—costs that range from more forest fires in Colorado as the climate dries
due to global warming, to American soldiers killed in Iraq because of our continued dependence on oil.
[Adapted from the upcoming book,
“Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration is Recklessly Destroying a
Century of Environmental Progress,” by
Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director,
and Paul Rauber.]
To submit story ideas or letters to the editor, contact The
Planet at: Sierra Club, 85 Second St., 2nd Flr., San
Francisco, CA 94105; (415) 977-5752; Fax: (415) 9775799; planet @sierraclub.org;www.sierraclub.org/planet.
1
Common Sense Solutions
We know how: Our most pressing
e nv i ro n m e ntal problems have solutions we can put
into place now, says Sierra Club Executive Director
Carl Pope.
deficit, and save money at the gas pump
by requiring automakers to make vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas.
We don’t need to wait for an all-hybrid auto fleet, much less the fuel cells of
the future, because the technology already exists. The “freedom package”—a
combination of technologies including
more efficient engines, smarter transmissions, and sleeker aerodynamics—would
2. Reindustialize Am e ri ca by creating a
twenty-first-century energy industry. By
adopting a clean energy policy that conserves energy and relies on renewable
power sources such as wind and solar energy to generate electricity, we can create
jobs and clean up our air and water.
The Apollo Project, for example, is an
[MORE ON P. 11]
CHAPTER AND GROUP PLAN-IN-A-CAN
Sierra Clubbers Do It With Their Group (or Chapter)
On November 21, the Senate rejected the
pork-filled, fossil-fuel-focused Bush Energy Bill.
Six Republicans joined in a bipartisan filibuster
to prevent the bill from passage. “This bill would
benefit the worst polluting industries in America
without cutting our oil dependence, decreasing
the risk of blackouts, or creating jobs,” said Club
Executive Director Carl Pope. Unfortunately,
Bush administration allies in the Senate vow
they will bring it back. The Sierra Club’s goal is
simple: Kill the bill, and make sure the American
people know what a backward, misleading energy policy the administration is promoting.
Take Action Over the past few years, we’ve
used this space for the One-Minute Activist and
asked you, from the comfort of your own home,
to clip and send a brief letter in support of environmental protection. Now we’re asking you to
take action together, with other members of your
group or chapter. The idea is to put together a
team to get as many letters to the editor published as you can before the energy bill comes
up again, perhaps as early as late January.
We’ve put together a user-friendly guide to
creating a letters-to-the-editor campaign. We’re
printing an abbreviated version of it here. For
the whole enchilada, go to clubhouse.sierraclub.
org/can.
The first step is to assemble a team. Here are
the positions you’ll need to fill:
N OV E M B E R
15
DECEMBER
n
Callers to Group Leaders: You might need several callers if you have more than five groups in
your chapter. Assign three to five groups to each
caller who will talk with group leaders to find an
Energy Letters Coordinator.
Energy Letters Coordinators: Depending on
your time and energy, there are three ways you
can do this: good, better, or best. Good means
personally writing a letter to the editor to each of
the papers in your area. Better means asking several others to write letters too. Best is planning a
several week mini-campaign of multiple letters
each week by people from various walks of life.
A letter-writing party at someone’s house is always a good idea.
n
n Chief of Re s e a rc h : Ideally, each team has
someone who will compile the complete list of
newspapers in your state. You can find a list at
www.50states.com/news. This person can also
distribute information to letter writers.
Team Leader: The team leader checks in and
asks team members if they’ve done what they
said they would. Note: team leaders shouldn’t
double up on too many of the roles listed here.
Find different people to help with the different
roles. Engaging multiple people to help implement this plan is a key factor to its success.
You can find sample letters and background at
clubhouse.sierraclub.org/can. To get a password,
go to clubhouse.sierraclub.org.
n
SAMPLE LETTER
Despite the fact that all Americans
recognize the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the Bush administration is promoting an energy
bill that would take us backwards by
entrenching this dependence on polluting fossil fuels. By using existing
technology to make our cars and
trucks go farther on a gallon of gas,
we can cut our dependence on foreign oil and protect our special
wilderness places from drilling at the
same time.
Unfortunately, the Bush energy bill fails
to require automakers to take this step.
Instead, the bill exempts oil and gas
drilling sites from adhering to Clean
Water laws and provides $37 billion in
tax breaks and subsidies to corporate
polluters. We can do better. Right now
this bill is on hold because Republicans
and Democrats in the U.S. Senate have
banded together to stop it. They’re
right, and those who want to bring it
back for another vote are wrong. This
bad bill should be rejected for good.
15
Governor Supports Maine
Woods Wilderness
Supreme Court To Hear
Club’s Case
Roar of Engines Gone
From Yellowstone
Maine Governor John Baldacci (D)
announces his support of the Maine
Woods Legacy and protection of 100Mile Wilderness Region. Protecting the
Maine Woods is one of the Sierra Club’s
priority wildlands campaigns, and the
Maine Chapter has been on the frontlines
in the effort to establish a 100-Mile
Wilderness area.
The District Court and D.C. Court of Appeals both
saw it the same way: Vice President Cheney must
allow the Sierra Club—and all Americans—access to the records of his secret meetings with
e n e rgy exe c u t i ve s. Now that Ch e n ey has appealed again, the Supreme Court will hear the
case, and hopefully close the book on the issue.
Americans have a right to know how our energy
policy is created—especially if energy executives
take a central role in the process.
Just in time for the holidays, Judge Emmett Sullivan delivered some wonderful news last night by
blocking the Bush Administration's plan to allow
snowmobiles in Yellowstone. The ruling a group
of plaintiffs including the Sierra Club puts the
Clinton Administration's plan into effect immediately, meaning there will be limited snowmobile
traffic this year, with the phase-out complete by
next winter—when the park will once again be
free of snowmobiles.