Alexandra Jacobo / Nation of Change Staff & The Center for Biological Diversity – 2017-07-13 23:51:59
Check out which Senators have the best environmental records
Check Out Which Senators
Have the Best Environmental Records
Alexandra Jacobo / Nation of Change Staff
(July 13, 2017) — Business Insider, using information from the The League of Conservation Voters (LVC), recently released a list of the top Senators that consistently voted for environmental safeguards. The list is made up entirely of Democrats and no Republicans. Are you surprised?
Notably absent from the list is Senator Bernie Sanders, whose overall score was hurt by his absences from many key votes last year, while he was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. Note: Each of the following Senators scored a 100% for the year 2016.
* Sen. Jeff Merkley, (D-Oregon) Lifetime score: 99%
* Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-Massachusett) Lifetime score: 98%
* Sen. Cory Booker, (D-New Jersey) Lifetime score: 98%
* Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-Rhode Island). Lifetime score: 98%
* Sen. Tammy Baldwin, (D-Wisconsin) Lifetime score: 97%
* Sen. Chris Murphy, (D-Connecticut) Lifetime score: 96%
* Sen. Richard Blumenthal, (D-Connecticut) Lifetime score: 96%
* Sen. Al Franken, (D-Minnesota) Lifetime score: 96%
* Sen. Tom Udall, (D-New Mexico) Lifetime score: 96%
* Sen. Jack Reed, (D-Rhode Island) Lifetime score: 96%
As the LVC stated earlier this year, “The stakes for protecting the environment and public health have never been higher and the threats have never been greater. We must do more than ever to work with our allies in Congress — and mobilize the public — to fight the Trump administration and the extreme Congressional leadership who want to roll back our bedrock environmental laws and President Obama’s incredible progress.”
ACTION ALERT: New Threat to Marine Monuments
Natural Resources Defense Council / Special to Environmentalists Against War
The Trump Administration Has Launched
A Large-Scale Assault on our Oceans
The administration is threatening to roll back protections
for 11 marine monuments and sanctuaries.
Defend our monuments.
Please add your voice to help save our oceans.
(July 13, 2017) — When our fragile oceans and their wildlife are getting pummeled from all sides, with no way to defend themselves, we must speak for them.
The Trump administration wants to roll back protections for some of our planet’s most vulnerable ocean ecosystems… endangering whales, dolphins and countless other marine wildlife and threatening the livelihoods of coastal communities — all so fossil fuel companies and other industrial interests can move in and bolster their profits.
President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke’s proposed rollback of protections for over two dozen national monuments is bad enough. Now, Trump has ordered his Commerce Department to also put 11 marine sanctuaries and monuments on the chopping block.
That includes the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod, the PapahÄnaumokuÄkea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary off California and the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary off Michigan.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the agency under the Commerce Department that’s charged with protecting our oceans and their wildlife — is inviting public comments on this dangerous plan until July 26.
The comments will be considered by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who will then be making recommendations to President Trump on what action to take.We must move quickly to generate an overwhelming public outcry in defense of our nation’s special ocean places.
Send a message to the Trump administration now: Don’t destroy our special ocean places and force ocean wildlife and communities to pay the price. Please speak out now to let Trump and his administration know that we won’t stand by and watch our oceans be sacrificed for the sake of oil industry profits.
The consequences of rolling back protections for these areas would be devastating. It would open the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument to oil and gas drilling, commercial fishing, deep seabed mining and other commercial exploitation. And it would open 2,278,400 acres of California’s treasured National Marine Sanctuaries to offshore oil drilling.
It would also leave thousands of rare or endangered marine species — including sperm whales, dolphins, deep-water coral, sea turtles and sea birds — vulnerable once again to pollution, drilling and overfishing … destroy a critical “reservoir of resilience” against climate change … and jeopardize thriving coastal economies that depend on healthy oceans.
NRDC is working on every front to stop these reckless rollbacks — including preparing to go to court if necessary. But in the meantime, we need to raise our voices and defend these fundamental, irreplaceable pieces of America’s natural heritage and all our threatened ocean waters, while we still can.
ACTION: Our oceans and marine wildlife need you now: Please demand protection for our Marine National Monuments and National Marine Sanctuaries, before it’s too late.
Rhea Suh is the president of the NRDC
2.7 Million People Want
National Monuments to Remain Protected
The public overwhelmingly supports public lands and oceans
The Center for Biological Diversity
(July 13, 2017) — As the Trump administration’s “review” of 27 national monuments draws to a close, more than 2.7 million people have flooded the government comment website saying that they want national monuments to remain protected.
“Millions of Americans have urged the Trump administration not to sell off our beautiful national monuments,” said Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These are public lands, and the public wants them protected.”
A survey of dozens of organizations reveals that more than 2.7 million public comments have been submitted to the Interior Department in support of the 27 monuments at risk under review by Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke. The regulations.gov website displays each bundle of comments submitted from concerned groups as a single comment, significantly understating the number of comments received.
“It’s disturbing that Zinke has already shown he’s willing to ignore the pleas of the public, while bowing to Trump’s political supporters like Senator Orrin Hatch,” Spivak said. “Zinke’s interim recommendation on Bears Ears National Monument called for slashing protections, a slap in the face to the tribes and public who have worked so hard to protect it.”
President Trump launched an attack on national monuments in April, targeting more than one billion acres of natural and cultural wonders from coast to coast that have been protected by presidents of both political parties. In June, Zinke recommended significant reductions to Bears Ears, which oil and gas companies are eyeing for drilling and fracking operations.
Zinke’s final recommendations on the monuments under review are due Aug. 24.
“The oil industry can already drill on 90 percent of the land managed by the BLM — how much more do they want?” Spivak said. “It’s time for Zinke to stop pretending he’s a Teddy Roosevelt kind of a guy. President Roosevelt would be ashamed of him.”
Background
Signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the Antiquities Act has been used by 16 out of 19 presidents — eight Republicans and eight Democrats — to protect America’s most iconic natural, cultural and historic places by designating them as national monuments.
The public overwhelmingly supports public lands and oceans. A 2014 Hart Research poll showed that 90 percent of voters supported presidential proposals to protect some public lands and waters as parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness. In the 2017 Conservation in the West poll, 80 percent supported keeping monument protections in place.
Many studies have shown that communities located near monuments and other protected public lands have stronger economies.
Studies also show that the outdoor and recreational opportunities in these monuments increase local residents’ quality of life, making areas near them more attractive to new residents, entrepreneurs, small businesses and investors.
Outdoor recreation alone drives an $887 billion economy and supports 7.6 million jobs. A recent Headwaters Economics report reflects these trends with updated data from 17 areas across the West.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
