BOD Votes to Eliminate RCCs
By Dan Sullivan

I had the misfortune of witnessing the Board discussion of the RCC future last Friday. Below are my notes from the discussion. I was not privy to any of the pre-meeting dialogue about this issue, so I only saw what went on in the public session. Prior to the meeting I had no idea that there would be a serious move to eliminate the RCCs, or that Chuck would lead it, or that Carl Pope would strongly advocate for the elimination of the "regional lens" as part of the Club's conservation program.

Both Jim Dodson and I have been involved with the California Nevada RCC in various capacities for about 30 years. It was stunning for me to hear Chuck dismiss the entire existing RCC structure as "not working."

BOD Budget discussion of RCC funding 11/19/04

[Note: These notes are limited to comments that relate to the specific issue of funding for the RCCs. This is *not* a complete summary of the Board's budget discussion.]

Preliminary context—The Conservation Governance Committee (CGC) budget proposal to the Finance Committee (Fin Comm) included $215K for regional conservation work, including $100 in chapter voucher funding. The Fin Comm proposal to the Board of Directors (BOD) reduced the funding line for the CGC by $235K, without expressly stating how the CGC should allocate the $235K reduction. In the initial discussion of the budget, several Board members said that they wanted the CGC budget to take less of a hit.

During the initial discussion, Chuck McGrady raised the question whether the Board wants the RCCs to be at the top of the CGC's cut list.

Carl Pope commented that "we have created more program aspiration than we can fund—we need to shrink our program aspiration to match our funding. We need to make choices about program reductions."

The Board took a break after about a half-hour of initial discussion. After the break, Chuck proposed a five-part resolution to amend the Fin Comm's budget proposal. Part one was to "add back $160K in c4 funding for the Conservation Gov Comm, while eliminating the RCC structure but putting in place an appropriate amount of funding for regional projects."

According to my notes, Chuck proposed to add back "c4" funding, but I think he either mis-spoke or I misunderstood him. I think he intended to restore $160K in c3 funding. The remaining four points in his motion made budget adjustments in SC Books, SC Productions, and the Office of Development to offset the restoration in funding for the CGC.

After some initial discussion and clarification of the non-CGC parts of Chuck's resolution, Marcia Hanscom proposed a substitute motion to eliminate funding for SC Productions, saving $420K, and using that savings to restore the full $235 for the CGC, restore a second meeting of the Council of Club Leaders, fund a Galapagos program and a Glen Canyon campaign, and add another $60K for the national priority campaigns. Jennifer Ferenstein and Robbie Cox spoke in favor of maintaining the proposed funding for SC Productions. Marcia's substitute was rejected. (Hanscom, Watson, and Force in favor; Zuckerman and LaFollette abstaining; all others opposed; the Chair not voting.)

Roy Hengerson raised questions about the practicalities of eliminating the RCCs. He suggested that the CGC should have the authority/responsibility to make the budgetary allocations.

Bernie Zaleha noted that the CGC had originally proposed $215K for regional conservation work. Under Chuck's proposal, the net reduction would be $75K, so it would provide $140K for regional conservation work. [i.e., the Fin Comm proposed a reduction of $235K; Chuck would restore $160K, so the net reduction would be $75K from the CGC proposal.] Bernie said that if the RCCs are eliminated but the RCST is retained, this would allow chapters to come to the RCST for funding for specific projects. He expects that chapters that are currently doing good work would come together to request funding for continuing projects. He added that he has his own ideas about how the RCCs could be revived. (He did not describe his ideas any further at the BOD meeting. He did afterwards, in a Nov 22 message to the CCL-Discussion list.)

Lisa Renstrom said it was inappropriate to make structural decisions in the context of adopting a budget. She was also concerned that the elimination of the voucher program would redirect influence from chapters to the national CGC structure.

Jim Catlin offered an amendment to eliminate the clause about "while eliminating the RCC structure..."

"Carl Pope commented that the Club now plans its conservation work through three lenses -- chapter, regional, and national. When three different levels do planning, this leads to too much conservation program. We need to eliminate some governance level of the Club—we need to make choices and be disciplined.

Chuck said that the budget forces us to make structural changes based on our finances. The RCCs are not functioning well. The Club needs some regional structure, but this one is not working.

Moreover, the Board needs to give direction to the CGC on this issue.

Dave Karpf agreed that tough decisions need to be made during budget decisions.

Doug LaFollette supported Jim Catlin's proposal to allow the CGC to have discretion. He would prefer to wait and think through carefully about the structural change, and then act next year.

Jim Catlin said his amendment was not intended to end the discussion of fixing the RCCs. However, he sees significant problems in how the RCST can implement the proposed action.

Robbie Cox said the problem is not the amount of money, but whether the Board is making long-term changes and savings. We need to consider savings in volunteer travel and administrative costs vs savings in conservation program. We need to deliver on the conservation work that we bite off.

Ben Zuckerman observed that the Board was divided on this issue. However, no one has stated any alternative to the proposed cuts, so he sees no alternative to Chuck's proposal.

Carl Pope commented that both proposals (Chuck's and Jim Catlin's) have about $160K for regional conservation work. He has no doubt that the Club's four major priority campaigns and its chapters can come up with $160K worth of regional conservation projects. These projects will be more closely integrated with the Club's chapter and national priorities.

Carl apparently assumed that the full $160K restoration would be for regional conservation projects. As noted above, Bernie Zaleha used different math to conclude that there would be $140K for regional conservation projects.

Catlin's motion was supported only by Jim Benson and Lisa Renstrom. Marcia abstained; all others opposed; Fahn did not vote.

Hanscom said she would vote against Chuck's proposal, because she thought it did not provide enough funding for the CGC. In addition, she thinks that the governance of the conservation program needs to be back in the hands of the volunteer leadership.

Chuck's motion was approved by 11 in favor, 3 opposed (Catlin, Watson, Hanscom), Fahn not voting.

The overall budget was then adopted by 13 in favor, Hanscom opposed, Fahn not voting.

RCC Action and Proposal for the Future

In response to Vivian's comment that "RCCs ... have just been cut off at the knees," I'd like to share the following comments. It is important to remember that we did not eliminate regional conservation work within the Club. We are still going to do regional conservation work. I am going to ask the CGC to restructure our budget to provide the full $215,000 funding for regional work that was in the CGC's proposed budget, and ask that the $75,000 hit to the CGC's budget come either from INCA or somewhere in the Conservation department's budget. Given the shock of the elimination of the former RCC structure, I believe it is important to send a clear message that we will potentially spend just as much money on regional conservation work as if the old RCC structure was still in place. Chapters that value their regional work can still do it, presumably with the same folks (if they are still willing) that are now doing it. If chapters don't value the regional work a given RCC was planning, that may be a strong signal that that work lacked sufficient chapter support to go forward effectively. The new structure may allow more effective regional work by allowing Chapters to organize around regional issues without regard to RCC boundaries. For example, now the Cascade, Oregon and Northern Rockies Chapters can (and I believe will) come together around the Columbia and Snake Rivers Salmon issue; the Montana, Northern Rockies and Wyoming Chapters can come together around Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem; and the Toiyabe, Northern Rockies and Oregon Chapters can come together around the Owyhee Wildlands; three Northwest issues that I am particularly familiar with.

As I made clear at our Board meeting, my decision to go along with the motion to eliminate RCCs was not one I did enthusiastically. I have been a member of two RCCs (Southern California and Northwest) and had great admiration for the work that was accomplished on both. However, I made my vote knowing that I have listened to a 10-year drumbeat of opposition to the RCCs emanating from the Chapters through the CCL. Twenty years ago, when the RCCs had regular budgets and the Council (the predecessor to the CCL) never engaged in conservation issues, the RCCs were where the power was at the sub-board level. Indeed, it is where the chapters went in their quest for additive resources. Immediately upon restructuring in 1995, the CCL began weighing in on conservation issues and became successful in channeling and re-directing more Club resources to the Chapter level. The mega-chapters have always been powerful. EPEC, EVEC and now BEC have greatly strengthened a number of other Chapters. Chapters across the board are now much stronger and exert more influence within the Club than they did even 10 years ago. And, from what I've observed over the last 10 years, a significant group of these Chapters have resented the continuing existence of RCCs as impairing their growing influence. This is the internal political background against which we acted.

I indicated when the board voted that I would come back with a proposal to resurrect the RCCs in a new and streamlined fashion. Here's my idea. The chapter chair by default or one individual appointed by a Chapter ExCom from the chapters within the former boundaries of the RCCs shall comprise the RCC. The idea is for there to be an automatic default entity to facilitate regional coordination on regional conservation issues when the need arises, but without all the structure and overhead of the former structure. The new entities could meet regularly by conference call if they desire, but in areas where chapters see no need to act on regional issues through the particular structure of a RCC would be free to act in other ways.

These are my initial thoughts and suggestions. What are your thoughts?

Bernie Zaleha, Vice President for Conservation

Sierra Club California passed the following resolution. If other chapters agree, they could pass similar resolutions. Alan Carlton, SCCal Chair.

Sierra Club California (SCCal), is opposed to the Board’s elimination of the Regional Conservation Committees. The California Nevada Regional Conservation Committee has been an essential and effective entity conducting and coordinating regional work in California and Nevada. A California Conservation Committee, which has been one of the functions of the CNRCC, is necessary to the functioning of the Sierra Club in California, where there are 13 chapters. There has to be statewide meetings of representatives from all chapters to make California conservation policy and political endorsements.

SCCal is also aware that many of the other RCCs have done valuable regional conservation work.

SCCal will continue a California Conservation Committee without the RCC structure and will work with Nevada on regional issues.

SCCal recognizes that there is funding for regional work left in the budget and SCCal intends to apply for it. However, SCCal also understands that the funding is C3 only and that leaves SCCal short of the necessary C4 funding to conduct its meetings and do the necessary Sierra Club business.

SCCal asks the Board to reconsider its decision to eliminate the RCCs and to consult the elected representatives of the RCCs and the Council of Club Leaders before making significant changes to the structure of the regional conservation organization.

SCCal notes that the decision was made without adequate notice and in the context of a budget discussion, not a structural discussion, and that the decision actually only resulted in a budget reduction of some $50,000 to $60,000.

SCCal is concerned that the Sierra Club is moving in an unhealthy manner each time it reduces the levels of volunteer structure that provide for face to face contact and dialogue, especially in the instance of regional leadership where its contribution to discussion of the broader conservation mission of the Club has not been replicated by other structures.

On Receiving Harvard Med's Global Environment Citizen Award

By Bill Moyers

Wednesday December 1, 2004

I accept this award on behalf of all the people behind the camera whom you never see. And for all those scientists, advocates, activists, and just plain citizens whose stories we have covered in reporting on how environmental change affects our daily lives. We journalists are simply beachcombers on the shores of other people's knowledge, other people's experience, and other people's wisdom. We tell their stories.

The journalist who truly deserves this award is my friend, Bill McKibben. He enjoys the most conspicuous place in my own pantheon of journalistic heroes for his pioneer work in writing about the environment. His bestseller "The End of Nature" carried on where Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" left off.

Writing in Mother Jones recently, Bill described how the problems we journalists routinely cover—conventional, manageable programs like budget shortfalls and pollution—may be about to convert to chaotic, unpredictable, unmanageable situations. The most unmanageable of all, he writes, could be the accelerating deterioration of the environment, creating perils with huge momentum like the greenhouse effect that is causing the melt of the artic to release so much freshwater into the North Atlantic that even the Pentagon is growing alarmed that a weakening gulf stream could yield abrupt and overwhelming changes, the kind of changes that could radically alter civilizations.

That's one challenge we journalists face—how to tell such a story without coming across as Cassandras, without turning off the people we most want to understand what's happening, who must act on what they read and hear.

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge—to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the bible is literally true—one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

That's right—the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding). Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man. A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed—an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144—just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist, Glenn Scherer—The Road to Environmental Apocalypse. Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed —even hastened— as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election—231 legislators in total—more since the election—are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the senate floor: "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same god who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, America's Providential History. You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie...that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth...while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on November 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.

I can see in the look on your faces just how had it is for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market?" "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."

I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with the Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that—it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration that wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources.

That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections; and ease pollution standards for cars, sports utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.

That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.

That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting coal-fired power plans and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

That wants to open the artic wildlife refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend nine million dollars - $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council - to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.

I read all this in the news. I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the international policy network, which is supported by Exxon Mobile and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is 'a myth,' sea levels are not rising, scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are 'an embarrassment.'

I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer—pictures of my grandchildren: Henry, age 12; of Thomas, age 10; of Nancy, 7; Jassie, 3; Sara Jane, nine months. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know now what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?

What has happened to our moral imagination?

On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "'How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly."

I see it feelingly.

Clean Air: Something in the Air

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that ozone smog pollution causes a significant increase in the risk of death for those in the 95 largest communities, where up to 40% of Americans live. Even a relatively small increase in ozone (a main ingredient of smog) is directly linked to an increase in deaths from heart and lung ailments in major U.S. metropolitan areas. With this troubling new evidence, the Bush administration and Congress must make it a priority to save thousands of lives by enforcing and strengthening the Clean Air Act and by providing Americans with better transportation choices. Currents@sierraclub.org

Schwarzenegger Appointee Calls for Abolishing Gas Tax,
Tracking All Cars by Satellite Instead

This proposal would: