I tried writing to Frank Wolf, but apparently you have to be in his district for your e-mail to get to him. Michael Shapiro Richmond ----- Original Message ----- From: Larry R Lynch To: VA-Richmond-General@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 7:21 AM Subject: [va-richmond-general] Write if you care: anti-environmental riders on omnibus bill Forwarding the attached note by request. Our current system of adding totally unrelated riders to important legislation really makes me wonder what our founding fathers would think. That is also how so many pork barrel bills get approved. Off my soapbox and back to birding.... Larry Lynch birder6@xxxxxxxx --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: mmetcalfe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: birder6@xxxxxxxx Date: Thu, 30 Jan 03 21:12:24 GMT Subject: Alert: Get the riders off the 'bus' Dear Larry, Virginia Representatives Jim Moran and Frank Wolf are members of the conference committee on the so-called "omnibus" appropriations bill. This is the bill to cover all the government funding Congress postponed last fall, waiting for the new ones to arrive in 2003. It is filled with new anti-environmental riders, as well as terrible spending cuts. Following is an alert from the folks in D.C. about the omnibus bill, including details about specific anti-environmental riders on the bill. Reps. Moran and Wolf need to hear from Virginians who are opposed to these cuts and these riders. Their contact information is: The Hon. Jim Moran phone: 202-225-4376 FAX: 202-225-0017 email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ The Hon. Frank Wolf phone: 202-225-5136 FAX: 202-225-0437 email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ THANK YOU! Melissa Metcalfe, SE Organizer Endangered Species Coalition ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ACTION ALERT: GET THE RIDERS OFF THE BUS! Last week, the Senate passed a large Omnibus Appropriations bill for the Fiscal Year that began October 1, 2002. The bill combines 11 of the 13 appropriations bill needed to run the country. The Senate was forced to cut spending for a number of programs to meet the demands of the President. In addition to the funding cuts, twice as many anti-environmental riders made it on the omnibus than were in the original committee mark-ups of each individual bill. These include a rider that would harm potential Wilderness designations in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Another dangerous rider would authorize the draining of 200,000 acres of wetlands by the Yazoo Pumps Project in Mississippi. In addition, at the very end of debate, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) inserted a revised amendment which may allow him to add an anti-ESA provision concerning the flow of the Missouri River in conference. These are just a few of the riders that made it in to the final Senate passed bill. As we all know, this is not a proper way to legislate important environmental issues. These very significant issues should be discussed in the light of day through the normal legislative process. It is very important that you contact members of the conference committee and urge them to report out a funding bill free of such damaging anti-environmental riders. ACTION: Call Representatives Jim Moran and Frank Wolf as members of the conference committee, and urge them to remove the existing anti-environmental riders and to oppose any further attempts to attach such riders. In addition, if you want to contact any other members of the committee, or would like to share this information with like-minded friends in other states, here are the main phone number and a list of all the conference committee members. CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121 CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS: House members: Young (FL), Regula (OH), Rogers (KY), Wolf (VA), Kolbe (AZ), Walsh (NY), Taylor (NC), Hobson (OH), Istook (OK), Bonilla (TX), Knollenberg (MI), Kingston (GA), Obey (WI), Murtha (PA), Dicks (WA), Sabo (MN), Mollohan (WV), Kaptur (OH), Visclosky (IN), Lowey (NY), Serrano (NY), and Moran (VA). Senate members: Stevens (AK), Cochran (MS), Specter (PA), Domenici (NM), Bond (MO), McConnell (KY), Burns (MT), Shelby (AL), Gregg (NH), Bennett (UT), Campbell (CO), Craig (ID), Hutchison (TX), DeWine (OH), Brownback (KS), Byrd (WV), Inouye (HI), Hollings (SC), Leahy (VT), Harkin (IA), Mikulski (MD), Reid (NV), Kohl (WI), Murray (WA), Dorgan (ND), Feinstein (CA), Durbin (IL), Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA). Thank you for your help in this first environmental battle of the 108th Congress! We know that there will be many more and that you will be right there with us the whole way. MORE INFORMATION ON SPECIFIC RIDERS Yazoo Pumps Would Harm the Mighty Mississippi - This anti-environment, anti-taxpayer rider is intended to lock the Army Corps of Engineers into building one of the most wasteful and environmentally harmful water projects in history, the Yazoo Pumps project in Mississippi. It would require the Corps to award "continuing contracts" to supply the Yazoo Pumps. This is intended to obligate the federal government - and federal taxpayers - to pay the full cost of the Pumps in future years, $181 million -- locking in this project before the environmental and economic analyses of the Pumps are even completed. EPA has concluded that the Yazoo Pumps will drain and damage more than 200,000 acres of ecologically significant wetlands in the Mississippi flyway - more than 7 times as many wetlands as are destroyed in an entire year nationwide under the Clean Water Act § 404 permit program. An independent economic analysis demonstrates that the Pumps cannot be economically justified, and that the Corps has overstated just the agricultural benefits by $144 million. While billed as a flood control project, the study also concludes that the project would really do no more than "help landowners grow crops on land that is farmed only to earn farm subsidy payments." Those subsidies are substantial; in just the 2-year floodplain of the project area - where 150,000 acres of wetlands will be damaged - 51 landowners split $15.3 million in federal farm subsidies in the six years from 1996 through 2001. One of those landowners received $2.7 million during that time, while four others received more than $1 million each. Tongass Anti-Wilderness Review Rider - seeks to shield a "yet-to-be-made" decision by the Forest Service concerning the agency's ongoing court-ordered review of 115 roadless areas in the Tongass for possible Wilderness protection from administrative appeal and judicial review. The agency's draft proposal released in May 2002 indicated that of the 9 million acres eligible for Wilderness consideration, the agency was considering recommending that not a single acre merited protection. In response, over 95 percent of the more than 170,000 public comments received on the proposal supported more Wilderness protection for the Tongass. It is also significant that more than 85 percent of Alaskans who testified at the agency's public hearings held throughout the forest supported more Wilderness protection on the Tongass. Moreover, Sec. 326 is an affront to democracy in that it attempts to shut the public out of further involvement in this process, regardless of whether or not the agency is responsive to their comments. Devil's Lake Project Would Pollute Sheyenne River - would authorize and appropriate $5 million for the construction of the Devils Lake project. The entire project, costing $100 million, is a scheme to relieve rising water levels in Devils Lake by pumping the highly polluted water into the Sheyenne River, a major tributary of the Red River. The project would consist of a pumping plant and 13-20 miles of pipes, dams, and canals that would reduce the surface elevation of Devils Lake by a only a few inches a year - less than 10% of the current annual rise - while damaging water quality and increasing flooding downstream. The outlet would be the first intra-basin linkage between the Devils Lake Basin and the Hudson River Basin. Besides authorizing construction, the rider attempts to weaken consultation requirements under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between the United States and Canada. The Canadian government has expressed concern that any outlet that links Devils Lake with the Sheyenne River and the Red River, which flows north into Canada, threatens not only to degrade water quality, but also could introduce invasive species into the Hudson Bay. Halt Strategic Planning on National Forests - would halt funding to carry out important long term strategic planning under the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA). A similar provision has been included in the final bills signed into law since FY 1998. Forest Plan Revisions Stalled - would exempt national forests from meeting a fifteen-year deadline for updating forest plans. Under the National Forest Management Act, each of the roughly 155 national forests throughout the country developed a master plan that guides how that forest is to be managed, governing such issues as wildlife management, logging, recreation, and roads. These forest plans are required to be updated at least every fifteen years. This new rider continues one that was added last year and bars, for another year, legal challenges based on the failure of a national forest to meet the fifteen-year deadline unless it is proven the agency is dragging its heels, or unless the Forest Service is failing other forest planning duties. Most national forests already operate under outdated forest plans that reflect the Forest Service's priority in the 1980s - logging - not the public's priority of today, which is balanced, environmentally sensible forest management. While there are virtually no lawsuits based on this deadline, it is inappropriate and unnecessary to set a precedent for barring citizen suits, and to remove a tool that could help bring the Forest Service into the modern era. A similar provision was included in the final bill signed into law in FY 2002. Stewardship Contracting Rider Undermines Real Restoration- authorizes the Forest Service to enter into 28 new "stewardship contracts," which allow the Forest Service to combine several activities in one project, such as timber sales, road repair, forest thinning, and habitat or stream rehabilitation. While the Forest Service needs to address restoration needs in a comprehensive manner, this rider, as with similar riders in past years, increases the existing incentive for forest managers to pay for environmentally important work with environmentally destructive timber sales. The rider creates a direct link between restoration and commercial activities by allowing forest managers to trade goods for services in stewardship contracts, and by allowing commercial timber sales to be tucked in with other projects. The Forest Service does not need new authority to conduct meaningful restoration, and should maintain a separation between commercial logging projects and restoration projects. Using similar stewardship contracting authority passed in recent appropriations bills, the Forest Service has proposed a number of harmful "stewardship" projects that call for extensive logging. Similar stewardship contracting provisions have been included in the final bills signed into law since FY 1998. Allow Damaging Grazing on Public lands to Continue Without Environmental Review - seeks to allow grazing on public lands to continue without environmental review - regardless of the environmental damage that is occurring. The rider is included in the bill notwithstanding prior congressional commitment not to enact this rider for BLM again, and would extend it to Forest Service lands for the first time and, unlike the House version, attempts to apply its provisions retroactively. This rider tries to allow the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to extend indefinitely grazing permits that expire or are transferred or waived in the coming fiscal year without reviews required under federal environmental statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Endangered Species Act- even though in FY2000, Congress explicitly stated in the report that accompanied the appropriations bill, that it would suspend these laws for the BLM for one year only. Despite this promise, the FY03 rider, just like its predecessors, seeks to require that expiring or transferred permits be reissued on their original terms regardless of the resource damage that has resulted. This year's rider, like prior year's appears to prohibit any changes in existing practices. We believe that a legal argument can be made that interim changes, i.e., the annual operating permits, can still be made unless and until the agency has complied completely with all applicable laws and regulations- even when there is a resource emergency. This rider attempts to prevent the public from being able to force Interior Department and Forest Service agencies (through appeals or litigation) to take action, while allowing ranchers to always challenge the "completeness" of the process. In short, this provision would preserve the status quo for livestock at the expense of the public's lands and resources for yet another year. A similar provision restricted to the BLM has been included in the final bills signed into law since FY 1999. Bond Missouri River Rider: Senator Bond has proposed a rider that would override a biological opinion issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service which protected endangered shore bids. This rider was amended to direct the Missouri River states and tribes to come to an agreement in 2003 on Missouri river operations. Although the rider in its current form is not environmentally damaging, it does give Senator Bond the opportunity to change the language in conference. You are subscribed to VA-Richmond-General. To unsubscribe, send email to va-richmond-general-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. To adjust other settings (vacation, digest, etc.) please visit, //www.freelists.org/list/va-richmond-general. You are subscribed to VA-Richmond-General. To unsubscribe, send email to va-richmond-general-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. To adjust other settings (vacation, digest, etc.) please visit, //www.freelists.org/list/va-richmond-general.