Image by Bela Geletneky from Pixabay
We’re taking a moment away from the mob drama starring our current administration to talk about the environment…
(But in case you missed the latest episode… (slate)(Wapo)(vox)(hill)(npr)(motherjones))
Action #1: Start here! Call to urge passage of S.1111 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
Greetings Friends of the Los Padres National Forest:
The Sierra Club supported U.S. Senate legislation to preserve and protect some of the most wild and pristine ecosystems within the Los Padres National Forest of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties as well as the Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo county needs a boost from YOU.
Senate bill S.1111– Central Coast Heritage Protection Act (Harris D-CA) needs to have a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources before the bill can move to a full U.S. Senate vote.
I would like to ask each of you to contact Senator Harris and request of her to officially request a full committee hearing on S.1111. (Senator Feinstein is the only cosigner)
Contact information: (202) 224-3553, email
You might briefly let her staff know how important the spectacular natural areas of the Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument are to YOU. Brief personal comments are very important for our elected officials to hear, letting them know why something (in this case a national forest and national monument) is important to you as her constituent.
Thank you
for the wild,
Jim
Action #2: Pass this on to friends/family who have senators on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Here are the committee members.
(GOP): Murkowski, Alexander, Barasso, Lee, Cassidy, Hyde-Smith, Risch, Daines, Gardner, McSally, Hoeven,
(DEM): Manchin, Wyden, Sanders, Heinrich, King, Jr., Cantrell, Stabenow, Hirono, Cortez Masto
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Sen. [___] to vote “YES” on on S.1111– Central Coast Heritage Protection Act . We, the senator’s constituents, want to see [him/her] taking active steps to preserve our existing natural environments, along with stopping fossil fuel development to help save us and our families from the effects of climate change.
Contact:
Who is my representative/senator?: https://whoismyrepresentative.com
Action #3: The House version is H.R. – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
The House version is H.R.2199 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Rep. [___] for supporting H.R.2199 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act. (Rep-check here. Brownley cosigned, Carbajal sponsored.)
Contact:
Rep. Julia Brownley: email, (CA-26): DC (202) 225-5811, Oxnard (805) 379-1779, T.O. (805) 379-1779
or Rep. Salud Carbajal: email. (CA-24): DC (202) 225-3601, SB (805) 730-1710 SLO (805) 546-8348
Who is my representative/senator?: https://whoismyrepresentative.com
New Year news from Jim and the Sierra Club.
Happy New Year Friends:
My team and I are off and running with bold new and exciting conservation goals to achieve for our region in 2020:
** congressional passage of H.R.1708/S.774– Rim of the Valley Corridor Protection Act: Protecting 150,000 acres in eastern Ventura county and western LA county, to be managed by the National Park Service as wildlife habitat and open space lands for passage recreational use i.e. hiking and nature study. We are working closely with congressman Adam Schiff to get the bill passed. (S.774 sponsored by Sen. Feinstein – passed Senate Natural Resource Committee)
** working to help secure funding for the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Overpass, over the very busy 8 lane 101 freeway in the Agoura Hills area. Once completed this overpass will be the largest wildlife overpass in North America. We are working closely with the Governors office on this.
** congressional passage of the H.R.2199 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.: Protecting the Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument. Especially important right now with hundreds of pending fracking operations and a proposed uranium mine in the Lake Casitas Watershed. We are working closely with congress Salud Carbajal on this issue.
** The Mountain Lions FOREVER! campaign which I launched last Fall looks for its first 2020 victory with the passage of AB 1788 – Pesticides: use of anticoagulants by the CA state senate. A bill to ban the use of deadly mountain lion ( and other wildlife) killing anti-coagulant rodenticides (rat poisons). More next week as we kick off our state senate lobbying campaign.
** Mountain Lions FOREVER! team will travel to Sacramento in February to the CA Fish and Game Commission where we will roar before the commission for our request to designate critical mountain lion habitat in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura counties as well as the Santa Monica Mtns of LA county.
** The largest marine protection campaign I have ever launched for the Sierra Club, Channel Islands WILD! will rally to engage our communities to speak out against 2020 plans for increased offshore oil platforms off the coast of Ventura and Santa Barbara. First meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Interior on this proposal will be later this month.
** work closely with U.S. Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D-Orange County) and his staff to develop congressional legislation to create a protected whale sanctuary in federal waters in the Santa Barbara Chanel, legislation will be known as Blue Whales and Blues Skies Act of 2020.
** continue to work for a complete ban on long line drift nets in federal waters of the Santa Barbara Channel. Long line drift nets are nylon nets which lie under the oceans surface for miles to catch a targeted commercial fish species but also entangle and kill hundreds of whales, seals, sea otters, dolphins, sea lions,sea turtles and diving sea birds each year.
** continue to represent the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter (Ventura and Santa Barbara counties) to the CA State Coastal Conservancy Hollister Ranch beach public access outreach program. Look for public meetings in Santa Barbara area this Spring.
I will also continue to work on the Sierra Club National Public Lands Team (working to protect America’s national parks, national monuments, national forests, national conservation areas and national marine sanctuaries) and the Sierra Club Protect Wild Utah campaign.
2020 looks to be a very busy year and it is also an election year. California primary in March and I have my ballot marked. My voting problem is that most everyone running here for local, state and federal offices are friends and I have worked with all of the major candidates this past year. In several cases the two leading candidates for a office are personal friends, oh my what a decisions to have to make. But please everyone get out and vote, YOUR vote matters.
I have exciting goals to achieve in 2020 in keeping with the 128 year old Sierra Club tradition of protecting wildlife and wild places.
onward in 2020.
for the wild,
Jim
There is still a lot of work ahead.
Honorable Raul Grijalva, Chair
House Committee on Natural Resources
It is a warm, sunny day in the American west, people from all across our nation are marveling at the Grand Canyon, watching Bison in Yellowstone NP, diving with dolphins at Channel Islands National Park, hiking in Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, oh how we Americans love our national public lands units….but that warm sunny day in the west is about to have a dark cloud emanating from Washington DC hover over our western national parks, national monuments, national forests, national wildlife refuges and national conservation areas.
I hope that you are aware that plans are now being developed to dismantle the management of OUR national public lands as we know and love those lands, lands which will be turned over to private corporations, fee-free cattle grazing operations, logging companies, mining companies and fossil fuels companies to drill and frack including some companies with foreign investment backing.
The first on the Trump Administration hit list is the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), now gone from its easy to reach 102 year old Washington DC headquarters building to a small Chevron Corp office building in Grand Junction Colorado. The President’s recent appointment of anti federal lands zealot William Pendley has cemented the BLM dismantlement into place now.
Next on the hit list, the U.S. Forest Service which, manages America’s national forests.
Today the President appointed one of his attorney’s and a attorney for Chevron Corp to work as legal staff in the senior office of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior which oversees all of OUR national parks, national monuments and other precious national lands.
Countless actions of Trump appointed Dept. of Interior officials have been found to be ethical violations by the Dept. of Interior Inspector General, yet no one it seems not even congress who has oversight power over Interior is stepping forward to stop this. I urge you to take the strong steps even to the point of holding in contempt of federal law and having arrested those at the U.S. Dept. of the Interior who have been identified by Interior Inspector General as having ethics violations, for we cannot allow America’s magnificent natural heritage to be plundered by those who violate the law.
The power of anti federal lands militia organizations is growing in the halls of power in DC both in congress and in the Dept of the Interior and this is frightening.
So take that walk along the north rim of the Grand Canyon in your state for as you know uranium mines are planned there now and I thank you for your full support to stop those mines.
For 2020 may be the last year to enjoy what belongs to ALL Americans. For shortly after President Trump takes the oath of office for his second term on January 20, 2021 the plans which are now being developed will be given the full speed ahead notice. And then it is too late.
I started visiting America’s national parks and other national public units as a child with my parents and I still visit today. I live close to several of the most spectacular federal lands units in America, Channel Islands National Park, Hopper Mtn National Wildlife Refuge, Los Padres National Forest and Santa Monica Mtns National Recreation Area, San Gabriel Mtns National Monument and Carrizo Plain National Monument. I cherish America’s great natural heritage.
I thank you Mr Chairman for all of your dedicated work in protecting what belongs to the current and future generations of ALL Americans, our sacred and precious national public lands units.
for the wild,
Jim Hines
Ventura, California
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 