Tell Sen. Boxer: Don't Weaken Critical Environmental Law
Fracking on BLM land. Uranium mine waste in California. Excessive military flyovers of Joshua Tree National Park. These are just a few examples of environmental hazards kept in check by the National Environmental Policy Act. Take action here!
Sen. Boxer has been an environmental champion for decades, fighting damaging offshore oil drilling and protecting California’s coastal resources. But this move to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is extremely concerning. It’s not too late for Sen. Boxer to stand with the environment and strike these damaging measures, but she needs to hear from you right away.
Fracking on BLM land. Uranium mine waste in California. Excessive military flyovers of Joshua Tree National Park. These are just a few examples of environmental hazards kept in check by the environmental review process provided by NEPA.
Environmental reviews are a critical safeguard provided for by NEPA. That’s why it’s so troubling for Sen. Boxer to back provisions that undermine the environmental review process. Sections 2032 and 2033 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2013 (S.601) would do just that, unless Sen. Boxer strikes those dangerous sections from the bill.
Tell Sen. Boxer: Don’t weaken the environmental review process provided by NEPA. Strike sections 2032 and 2033 from the Water Resources Development Act now.
Here are a few ways in which these provisions would substantially weaken NEPA:
- The process is tilted toward project approval, no matter what the objections or who is making them. The appeals are allowed only for those favoring, not opposing the project. The thumb is on the scale to approve every project, good or bad.
- The time for agencies and the public to comment on federal projects is shortened.
- The agency carrying out a project – in this bill, the Army Corps of Engineers – could fine other federal agencies for being too slow in submitting comments. This creates an incentive to rush environmental analyses.
Sen. Boxer voted 100% for the environment last year and she has a lifetime score of 90% from the League of Conservation Voters. It’s not too late for her to strike the provisions and continue her strong record of environmental leadership. Urge Sen. Boxer to protect the environment and stop this effort to weaken NEPA. Send your message now.
In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America’s “visa waiver” program, and all of them - all 37 - reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.
The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA’s Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US’s visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.
As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel’s membership in the program while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it “takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law.” In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it’s being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.
S.3525 Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act
I am writing as your constituent in the 51st Congressional district of California. I am writing as your constituent in the 51st Congressional district of California. I oppose S.3525 - Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act, and am tracking it using OpenCongress.org, the free public resource website for government transparency and accountability.
The summary of the bill states that it “Amends the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to direct the Secretary of the Interior to issue a permit for the importation of any polar bear part (other than an internal organ) from a polar bear taken in a sport hunt in Canada to any person who meets specified requirements.” As I recall ,we have done little to curb climate change - one of the most glaring examples of that is the reduction of the Artic Ice Sheet which is the polar bear’s habitat. This animal is endangered. I object to encouraging hunting of this majestic animal where it is not acting out one’s cultural heritage.
24 Hour Challenge: Stopping the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline: www.StopTar.org
The environmental movement is joining in an all out, 24 hour push to keep Congress from approving the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. From noon eastern on Monday to noon on Tuesday, we are aiming for 500,000 messages to show the clear public support for President Obama’s decision to deny the permit for this dirty energy project.
The reason for this urgency is that we think there will be an attempt to put a provision to approve Keystone XL in the Senate transportation bill. And this can happen at any moment. So we are showing that there is widespread public support for the President’s rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The American public does not want to see Congress approving a dirty energy project.
I protested NDAA alone today
I asked on Twitter and Facebook, but no one wanted to walk in to the field offices of our U.S. Senators downtown with me. The only hassle to meet would have been parking because the field offices are across the street from each other.
It seems that U.S. Senators have a concern about crazy, violent people dropping in on them. Both offices have intercom systems with cameras on the the frames of their front doors. After one is let in, one enters the reception where a woman greets you through a glass partition, a bit like when one goes to a theater box office…not very welcoming for a constituent, but who walks in to a federal officers unannounced as I did full of happiness and light? I didn’t, but I wasn’t violent and I was restrained…go figure. No, I was not invited past the next door to speak to someone without a piece of glass between us.
In both cases, my pitch was mostly like this:
- I’m here to talk to you about the Senator’s vote on NDAA
- Sections 1021 and 1022 violate my civil rights; they violate:
- My 4th Amendment rights
- The standard for Habeas Corpus
- It violates standards set by The U.S. Constitution and the Magna Carta
- I’ve been told that one should be polite discussing issues with congressional aides, but there is no polite way to truly describe how obscene I find the way the senator voted.
In both offices, I was told that Senator Feinstein has proposed legislation to clean this mess up. Considering the source, it’s a flip of the coin that it will really make a difference - I said as much to the woman who I spoke with in Sen. Feinstein’s office. I can’t say that I expected much from my protest of one at the offices, but I followed through and did what I said I would do. It’s that last point that motivated me to follow through.
“My country tis of thee….sweet land of <redacted>”
“This week, the United States Senate passed S. 1867 also known as the National Defense Authorization Act including sections 1031 and 1032 which authorize the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens without trial or charge.”
Thanks, Carl Levin
I warned my senators about this, neither of them heeded my call.
These are what fascists look like.
You know what Senator Boxer isn’t leveling with you about? The byzantine Senate rules she has worked under for nearly 2 decades she has served in the Senate. They were probably in place before she took her seat.
We thought that the Democrats wanted to use rules that the rest of the developed world that runs governments with legislatures would understand, but that doesn’t seem to be the case today. It seems that the Democrats are playing politics to run up to the 2012 election to give voters the choice of serfdom or a chance at getting it back…maybe, if they get the majority in both houses and Obama remains POTUS. What are your chances of that happening? Your guess is as good as mine.
What is clear about My U.S. Senator Whose Politics Most Closely Resemble My Own is that she has many masters to please. And over 5 million of them are inscrutable requests of her. One of the few things you can say that the GOP does right is that they make no bones about from who or which interest group they take their campaign money from; the Democrats have lawyers scrub the fingerprints of the offending donor(s) off of donations before they are reported to the FEC. If or why lawyers would want the Senate rules to stay in place or change is a question I can’t answer now. All I’m sure about is that they don’t seem to have any problems with Barbara Boxer doing a kabuki dance on a cable TV channel emoting for her un-monied constituents about how were gipped yesterday.
and which bill was that, professional journalist?
One of my senators was mentioned in an article on a topic that I had contacted her about a couple days ago. No mention of the name of the bill, nor, at the very least, the number of the bill.
While I commented about railed against SB 510, Senator Dianne Feinstein replied by e-mail about a different bill, Senator Barbara Boxer replied to me about a third bill (mind you now, we still don’t know which bill is discussed in the A.P. story that Boston.com published). I’m getting used to being snowed by my federal representatives, I’ve blogged about it before. It’s the press that I have an issue with this time.
Why don’t professional journalists mention the titles and numbers of bills when they report on legislation?
It would be fulfilling that nebulous public interest if I got some lead time on legislation coming up for important votes so I can call them up and tell them their business give input on pending legislation, but can’t I just get the minimum information? Is it so much to add the bill name and number to reporting?
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