Category: Environment (Page 4 of 14)

Republicans Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act

June 5, 2015 / MCDC

Last month, the U.S. Senate considered eight bills that would modify the Endangered Species Act, most of which aim to saddle resource-strapped federal wildlife agencies with burdensome new hurdles and requirements. Many also include rules that would force agencies to consider shoddy science and prioritize economic considerations like dirty fossil fuel drilling over wildlife habitat protection.

One bill, crafted and sponsored by Republican presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul, would be so devastating to our ability to protect endangered wildlife that it was described by one expert as the “Extinction Acceleration Act.”

Paul’s bill would remove protections from 94% of currently listed species, including polar bears, wolves, grizzly bears, and sea otters. It would force the automatic removal of species from the endangered list after five years, whether or not those species had recovered and were deemed safe by scientists.

Worst of all, it would take the entire process of species protection out of the hands of biologists and wildlife experts, where it rests right now, and require the consent of state governors and a joint resolution of Congress. And if an endangered species was found to reside entirely in the borders of a single state, that state’s governor would have the power to overrule the protection of that species.

We need to stand up against all of these attempts now before Congress guts the Endangered Species Act. Tell Congress to leave the Endangered Species Act alone.

Making Science History

April 19, 2015 / MCDC

We’ve all seen those touchy-feely TV ads with baby deer, butterflies, and sylvan streams — claiming that some big corporate polluter is nature’s best friend.

There’s a word for such hokum: greenwashing.

Leave it to the Koch brothers, however, to invent a whole new category of greenwashing. Doling out millions of their oil-smeared greenbacks, David and Charles Koch have been buying their way onto the boards and into the exhibits of elite museums of science.

The fossil-fueled billionaires are using the academic and cultural prestige of these establishments to wash their filthy reputations and to spew the self-serving balderdash that climate change is a natural phenomenon, not one caused by polluting profiteers like them.

Tell Congress: America’s public lands are not for sale

April 19, 2015 / MCDC

Republicans didn’t campaign on getting rid of America’s public lands and national monuments in the last election, but they sure are acting like it.

First they attempted to pass a bill that would abolish the Antiquities Act, a hundred year old executive privilege that allows Presidents to protect threatened public lands and designate national monuments.

Now, they’re using Congress’s annual budget process to lay the groundwork for turning America’s public lands over to state control for sale to private mining, drilling and real estate companies.

Tell Congress: Do not transfer America’s public lands to state or private control.

This latest assault on America’s public lands is at the hands of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the new Republican chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Her amendment, which passed by two votes and is now a part of the Senate’s official budget, would fund state efforts to seize America’s public lands and then sell them off to the highest bidder.¹

Under state control, these public lands would likely be sold off for real estate or fossil fuel extraction.Hundreds of millions of acres of pristine public lands in the American West that are the cradle of future national parks, monuments, and preserves would instead be sacrificed to dirty oil drilling and fracking companies.

According to New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, who stands in opposition to these attacks, “selling off America’s treasured lands to the highest bidder would result in a proliferation of locked gates and no-trespassing signs in places that have been open to the public and used for generations.”

But here’s the good news: Because Congress’s budget is non-binding, these proposals need further legislation to actually take effect. That’s why it’s incredibly important to step in now to let Congress know exactly where Americans stand on this terrible idea.

Tell Congress: Do not transfer America’s public lands to state or private control.

This is a coordinated attack on government management of taxpayer owned public lands. Murkowski’s amendment mirrors a similar proposal by House Natural Resources Committee chairman Rob Bishop, that would spend $50 million of taxpayers’ money to transfer America’s public lands to states for private sale.

With these attacks, Republicans are marching in lockstep with the self-serving ideology made famous by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who refused to pay $1 million owed to American taxpayers for grazing his cattle on public lands on the grounds that states have “sovereignty” over public lands. Even Murkowski herself described President Obama’s decision to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as “a stunning attack on our sovereignty.”²

We need to make sure Congress knows Americans won’t stand by while Republicans wage war on America’s public lands. Tell Congress that America’s public lands are NOT for sale:

Tell Congress: Do not transfer America’s public lands to state or private control.

Thank you for your activism.

“Senate Votes To Help States Sell Off Public Lands,” ThinkProgress, March 26, 2015.
“President Obama Protects a Valued Wilderness,” The New York Times, January 27, 2015.

Republicans Are Saying Environmentalists Caused California’s Drought. Here’s Why They’re Wrong

April 9, 2015 / MCDC

Californian artist Ross Dickinson dramatized his home state’s eternal confrontation of nature and man by exaggerating the steep slopes of the hills and the harsh contrast between the dry red wilderness and the green cultivated land (1934).
CREDIT: FLICKR/ CLIFF

Any way you cut it, California is in the midst of a dire drought — one that has been exacerbated by climate change. As the drought amplifies in impact and exposure — with statewide mandatory restrictions imposed for the first time last week — some would rather attribute its severity to a lack of water infrastructure, rather than the lack of rain. They would rather blame small fish than a changing climate and a growing population.

This straw man argument is not only disingenuous, it is also irresponsible. And it could set back the efforts of those focused on meeting the challenges of the state’s water stresses and climate impacts — like Governor Jerry Brown (D) and many in the state legislature — further harming all stakeholders, from Central Valley farmers to coastal residents.

Example A: Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett Packard CEO, failed 2010 GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, and friend of the fossil fuel industry. On Monday, Fiorina, who is considering a presidential bid, told Glenn Beck that the California drought is a “man-made disaster.” And by man-made she means it has been caused by “liberal environmentalists” who have prevented the state from building the appropriate reservoirs and other water infrastructure.

“In California, fish and frogs and flies are really important,” Fiorina said. ” … California is a classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology.”

Here’s why they’re wrong

How to Die of Dumb

March 8, 2015 / MCDC

By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), right, listens to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) speak at a news conference in Washington about their opposition to the climate change bill on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski / The New York Times)

Sen. James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma since 1994, took to the floor of the Senate the other day with a snowball in a bag. Because it was cold in Washington DC, he said, because there was snow on the ground, that proves climate change is a hoax. “In case we had forgotten,” he said, pulling the snowball from the sack, “because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, do you know what this is? It’s a snowball, just from outside here. It’s very, very cold out.” He went on to denounce what he called the “hysteria on global warming,” and then threw the snowball at the presiding officer.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky since 1984, has been urging state officials all across the US to refuse to comply with the new EPA rule on carbon emissions that was championed by the Obama administration. The rule requires existing power plants to cut their carbon emissions by 30 percent, based on the 2005 requirements, by the year 2030. Senator McConnell is having none of it. “Think twice,” he said, “before submitting a state plan, which could lock you in to federal enforcement and expose you to lawsuits, when the administration is standing on shaky legal ground and when, without your support, it won’t be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism.”

Mitch McConnell, as Senate Majority Leader, has the power to keep any bills he dislikes from coming to a vote. Until January of 2017 at least, that means any legislation seeking to address the issue of climate change will never see the light of day, because McConnell thinks giving attention to the threat of carbon emissions – what is eventually going to kill us all – amounts to “political extremism.” Because of course he does.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, there is no snow..

Category: Environment (Page 4 of 14)

Republicans Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act

Making Science History

Tell Congress: America’s public lands are not for sale

Republicans Are Saying Environmentalists Caused California’s Drought. Here’s Why They’re Wrong

How to Die of Dumb

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