Action #1 – Call your legislators with support for two local environmental bills.
(Message from Jim Hines, Sierra Club)
Good Morning Ventura and Santa Barbara County Friends!:
Noon (west coast time) February 12th…vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on:
- Central Coast Heritage Protection Act: Protecting fragile and scenic ecosystems in the Los Padres National Forest.
- Rim of the Valley Corridor Protection Act: Creating a vast protected wildlife corridor of open space lands in eastern Ventura county to be managed by the National Park Service. (Fact sheet here. – nearly half of Californians live within two hours of the Rim of the Valley Corridor)
Both bills protecting lands within Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
It has been exciting working on these two bills, lobbying members of congress for passage and now we will see tomorrow if we are successful.
for the wild,
Jim
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep. [___] to know how important [his/her] support for HR 2199 – Central Coast Heritage Protection Act and HR 1708/S.774 – Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act is for the protection of our environment and wildlife.
- Rep-check for HR 2199 here – Brownley has cosponsored, Carbajal is the original sponsor.
- Rep-check for HR 1708 here – Brownley has cosponsored, Carbajal has not.
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
Action #2 – Put your legislator on notice – “Don’t let selling off our public lands and our national parks to destructive industries happen on your watch.”
“There’s a quiet, almost covert, effort to dismantle the public lands management infrastructure,” said Jim Lyons, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Interior Department in the Obama administration. “It’s very effective. I call it evil genius.” So let’s let in a little sunshine, folks!
(Message from Jim Hines, Sierra Club below)
Hello Friends:
APOCALYPSE NOW COMING TO A NATIONAL PARK YOU LOVE
Planning an upcoming trip to one of YOUR national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments or national conservation areas? Well you had better hurry! Why?
Yesterday, the Trump Administration released their proposed 2020-2021 federal budget, and among other cutbacks is a 17 percent reduction in the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, the federal agency which manages YOUR national public lands. This is on top of already major cuts to the agency.
But have no fear. If you want to drill for oil and gas, destroy rivers and stream with fracking fluids, cut timber, mine for underground resources at little or no cost, this is a budget you will like.
Cut the on-the-ground ranger staffs at national parks…what the heck. Who needs park rangers protecting YOUR most spectacular lands? Want to loot ancient native American historic sites? Have at it – the budget allows. Need backcountry medical assistance in Canyonlands National Park? No worries – you have a cell phone and you can call your friends back home and ask them to come and help you.
Pay a massive increase in national park entrance fees while no-fee livestock grazing is allowed on national public lands…so you can visit for free – if you have a herd of cattle. Everyone else must pay at the park entrance.
I can go on and on but today’s discussions with U.S. Dept. of the Interior staffers was not a discussion of a positive future for YOUR national public lands, the discussions today were a vision the administration has for America’s national public lands like something out of the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’
Oh, by the way, if you are a foreign-owned company, you get priority for use of America’s national public lands….lithium mining by an Australian firm, coal mining by a Chinese firm, uranium mining by a Canadian firm on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. (Read this report on uranium mining in the region by the Grand Canyon Trust)
(“Leasing of public lands for oil and gas is accelerating across the West. Companies are locking up tracts of federal land for 10 years while paying minimal fees. “We’re going to have repercussions about these decisions for decades to come,” said Jayson O’Neill, of the Western Values Project, a conservation nonprofit focused on public lands.”)
Meetings and discussions will officially begin soon on the proposed budget and whether or not congress should adopt such a destructive plan to destroy YOUR national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges and national conservation areas.
I will keep you updated as discussions move along with more specific information on individual national parks and other national public lands units proposed for massive cuts.
for the wild,
Jim
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want three things:
- I want Sen. [___] to cosponsor S.3127 – The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act, which permanently protects this area.The House has already passed their version.
- I also want [him/her] to prevent the administration’s reckless and destructive defunding of our national park system and the privitization and abuse of our public lands from unchecked destructive industries.
- I want you to publicly call for a vote on the still-unconfirmed BLM director William Pendley, an anti-public land extremist, who is selling off or destroying our heritage.
Senator-check for S.3127 here – (There are currently no cosponsors – Call Feinstein and Harris)
Contact:
Senator Feinstein: email, DC (202) 224-3841, LA (310) 914-7300, SF (415) 393-0707, SD (619) 231-9712, Fresno (559) 485-7430
and Senator Harris: email, DC (202) 224-3553, LA (213) 894-5000, SAC (916) 448-2787, Fresno (559) 497-5109, SF (415) 355-9041, SD (619) 239-3884
Who is my representative/senator?: https://whoismyrepresentative.com
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 