Index - June 2007

Beware a Wounded Beast
Bush on Global Warming—an Aspirational Moment?
Can Cool Cities Save Our Heating Planet?
Discovery Center - Additional Information
Discovery Center Site Visits at Whittier Narrows Scheduled June 22 and June 30
Duarte Grant
Eagle Mountain Land-Swap Ruling
Global Warming Bill is Bad
Griffith Park and Dante's View
Grizzly Delisting Suit
Inyo National Forest Turns 100
LNG Terminal Vetoed
Merced River Litigation
Mindlesser and Mindlesser
PCL Insider: News from the Capitol
Questions That Haunt Me
Rachel Carson
Salton Sea Coalition Urges Immediate Action to Save Salton Sea
Schwarzenegger Maybe Doesn't Get it after All
Sequoias Seminar
Shell-Aera and Diamond Bar Get an Earfull
Sierra Club Officers Chosen
Staff Departures
There Will Be No Booing
Trade Agreements Free or Fair?
Water Quality Conference
Web Pages
What Do Voters Want
Whittier Narrows Discovery Center Decision Delay
Wild and Wooly Week for a Changing Climate
Yay, L A Times
Zero Waste Committee

Environmental Resolutions Proposed (Sepulveda Safe Passage)
Environmental Resolutions Passed (May 20, 2007)

Useful Information
Chapter Conservation Committees Calendar
Chapter Conservation Management Committee
Chapter Conservation Grants Committee
Chapter Conservation Committee Preliminary Agenda
Orange County Conservation Committee Preliminary Agenda

Who's Afraid of Rachel Carson?
by Carl Pope
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Washington DC—Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is afraid of Rachel Carson. For the centennial of Silent Spring author Carson's birth on May 27, members of Congress from her home states of Maryland and Pennsylvania introduced a resolution honoring her birth and another to name a post office in Pennsylvania after her. Coburn promptly put a "hold" on the bills to block them from being enacted. Why? "Dr. Coburn believes the tremendous harm Carson’s junk science claims about DDT did to the developing world overshadow her other contributions.... Millions of people in the developing world, particularly children under five, died because governments bought into Carson’s junk science claims about DDT. To put it in language the Left understands, her 'intelligence' was wrong and it had deadly consequences."

Coburn is a physician, but one who reads medical data very selectively. My one encounter with him occurred during the battle over setting new health standards regarding smog and soot levels. He was on the opposite side of a League of Women Voters debate on the issue. One of my co-panelists was a women whose son had asthma. On smoggy days, she regularly got calls from her child's school and had to take him to the emergency room. So when Coburn leaned over and said, "Will you come into my office and let me show you the scientific studies proving that smog has nothing to do with your son's asthma?" she was utterly unintimidated, and fired back, "I don't have time to come into your office because I may need to take my son to the hospital." Even the Wall Street Journal, in a recent attack on the DDT ban, pointed out that Carson had called for careful use of DDT in fighting malaria—not a ban. But the Journal did not go on to mention that DDT has never been banned for fighting malaria, and that Carson's advice, if followed from the start, might have avoided the build-up of resistant strains of insects and the toxic overloading of the feed chain that led to its loss of effectiveness. It was overuse of DDT that brought back malaria, not environmentalists, and certainly not Carson.

But Coburn is not alone. When the bill to name the post office went through the House in April, more than 50 Representatives voted "No," an almost unprecedented number for such legislation. Indeed, there is a cottage industry on the reactionary right to blame Carson for almost all of the world's ills.

Why is her memory still so charged? Perhaps because she was one of the first to use modern science to reveal the risks of over-use and over-reliance on technology. Science—when she wrote her book—was seen as a Promethean tool to conquer nature. She deployed science as a moral parable to warn us that we needed to walk more humbly in the world. Indeed, in this week's New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert makes a striking comparison between the kind of mindless reliance on pesticides like MIREX, which Carson exposed, and the current disdain for science shown by the Bush administration.

So it's remarkable, but this quiet woman, decades after she dies, still stands as a focal point in the debate over whether or not we should take seriously the warning signs that science sends us and the debate over whether our efforts to control nature in the pursuit of short-term benefits can backfire and hurt us badly instead. (Full disclosure: The Sierra Club receives some of the royalties that flow to Carson's estate from ongoing sales of Silent Spring, so her opponents may now argue that the Club's views on her legacy are tainted.)

Staff Departures
by Mike Sappingfield
Friday, June 1, 2007

This is the week of staff departures. As you know, earlier this week, George Denny announced his retirement effective August 1. Well, it must be contagious; on Wednesday, Robin Streichler submitted her resignation due to family reasons and an unexpected opportunity and, last, hopefully, Nancy Weiner advised us that she has accepted a writing position with a television show and will also be leaving.

Beware a Wounded Beast
by Carl Pope
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Washington DC—Big Carbon is in big trouble, but it's going to do as much damage as it can in its struggle to keep its control over our energy economy.

Evidently it can still whip-saw the Bush administration. Whatever the president may have said about domestic energy consumption in his State of the Union and in other recent remarks, his administration is still desperately trying to prevent effective international action that would move us towards a post-carbon world. A leaked copy of the administration's memo to the G-8 Summit process attacks the entire endeavor by Europe to move beyond Kyoto, saying:

What can Bush agree to? Not much it seems. While the administration is willing to utter bromides about the use of technology to make our economy more energy-efficient, it struck out this language in the draft:

So even a 1.5% annual reduction in energy use through efficiency is more than the administration can commit to—a rate of improvement we would not accept anywhere else in our economy.

Here at home, the Bush administration has claimed that the US can't deal with global warming because the developing world won't curb its emissions. But in the G8 memo the administration actually opposes language suggesting effective action by the developing world and suggests instead that they should merely slow the rate at which their emissions increase.

Even the phrase "nuclear safety first" gets nuked, as does this seemingly innocuous language:

Back in Washington, the coal lobby is putting on a multi-front, full-court press to drain the federal treasury with a massive bail-out, as "a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicans is pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels." If you thought Uncle Sam was being too generous to farmers by wholeheartedly supporting the development of ethanol from corn, which could arguably reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 20-30%, you might be stunned to learn that Big Coal wants vastly greater sums for coal-to-liquids, which would double the greenhouse gas emissions from every mile we drive. According to the Times, (which today had the good sense to editorialize against the coal-to-liquid madness):

Meanwhile, the auto industry is, once again, gearing up its public relations machine to ensure that Congress doesn't interfere with its God-given right to commit suicide by refusing to make the cars, trucks and SUVs that Americans want and need. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is teeing up a series of radio and print ads in 10 states—Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—urging Congress to do something, anything, except the right thing, which is to guarantee the American people the right to buy cars, trucks and SUVs that use the latest technology to get as far as they can on a gallon of gas.

So as America moves forward, we need to keep our eyes open, because a dying monster can do a lot of harm with its thrashing tail.

There Will Be No Booing
by Carl Pope
Thursday, May 31, 2007

San Diego CA—Bill Haller is a Sierra Club air quality volunteer who appeared at a California Air Resources Board (ARB) hearing on requiring heavy duty construction equipment to meet modern air pollution standards. This is a particularly vital issue for the environmental justice community because heavy construction is much more likely to take place in the commercial and industrial zones near low income neighborhoods than it is in, say, upper middle class suburbs.

The hearing got very ugly—so ugly that the Chair had to warn the audience that "there will be no more booing." California likes to think that these ugly battles over the idea of environmental progress are over, but there are some still some folks stuck in the past.

Without further comment, here's a summary of Bill's report:

"I didn't get a headcount, but it seemed to me there were more than 300 construction industry folks to about a dozen enviros in attendance.

"Testimony relating how expensive this transition to cleaner technology was going to be for the small business owners .... was soon overshadowed when some of the construction companies started booing an African-American college prep teacher and her comments on enviro justice."

When her four African-American college prep students from West Oakland spoke, the room became decidedly restless.

"Soon after, another EJ activist, Margaret, from West Oakland got up and picked a fight with the entire room over the prejudice and disrespect exhibited, telling them to meet her outside. The crowd calmed down quickly, as it appeared that Margaret could whip them all pretty handily ....

"The industry became its own worst enemy when they let their lawyer speak about 'the numbers' and how the industry's numbers are so completely different from the ARB staff's numbers. When asked if he would share the model with the ARB staff, he said no, then yes, then blamed the staff for not sharing their numbers, then told the board that he couldn't guarantee that the industry could share the numbers because he wasn't authorized.

"Upon completion of my public comment, an ARB board member had to announce 'There will be no more booing,' because as I left the podium, one pissed off construction guy grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go and another guy cussed a blue streak at me while the rest of the crowd expressed their extreme pleasure....

"The before-lunch-topper was when the organizer/lobbyist of the 'Coalition to Build a Cleaner California' got up and announced that there would be a free lunch downstairs and that the environmentalists were invited because they 'would like to have some environmentalists for lunch....' Nice."

"An educational day."

The issue was supposed to be decided at the San Diego meeting, but under pressure the ARB decided to delay the vote until its July 26-27 meeting in Sacramento.

New Sierra Club Officers Elected

At its May meeting, the Sierra Club's Board of Directors elected Robbie Cox to be the Club's new president. A communications professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Robbie also served as president from 1994 to 1996 and 2000 to 2001.

Other newly elected officers are Robin Mann of Pennsylvania (vice president), Sanjay Ranchod of California (secretary), and Alison Chin of California (fifth officer). Joni Bosh of Arizona was re-elected as treasurer.

Seminar in the Sequoias

Most of you know of the efforts of the Angeles Chapter's Forest Committee to preserve and protect our local national forests, the Angeles, San Bernardino, Cleveland. We also have a long interest in parts of the Sierra, particularly the giant sequoias that recall the name by which the Forest Committee used to be known—the Ancient Forest Task Force.

Each year, the Chapter's Forest Committee co-sponsors with the Pasadena Group a Sequoia Seminar, a weekend outing that helps us understand how the giant sequoias are faring while enjoying the beauties of the Sierras.

Join us for this year's Sequoia Seminar to be held Friday to Sunday, July 20-22, at Quaking Aspen Campground in Giant Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierras about 80 miles northeast of Bakersfield, and 40 miles east of Porterville. The seminar starts Friday evening and continues Saturday with a drive and walking tour led by Joe Fontaine, a former national Sierra Club president and long-time defender of the giant sequoias. He will describe past management
of the groves, and current efforts to protect them. Saturday afternoon features a hike to Needles Lookout for a scenic view, and Saturday evening a potluck supper, with happy hour provided by leaders. Sunday morning includes a hike through a giant sequoia grove. The seminar ends early Sunday afternoon.

Participants should take camping gear, including sleeping bag and tent unless they plan to sleep in a vehicle, food and warm clothes for chilly evenings at 7,000-foot elevation. To register for this memorable weekend, send a 4x9 self-addressed stamped envelope, phone numbers, Sierra Club number, check (made out to Sierra Club-Pasadena Group) for $35 ($38.50 for non-Sierra Club members), and rideshare information to Leader/Reservationist Bonnie Strand, 1210 North Kenilworth Ave, Glendale CA 91202-2216. Assistant leader, Bill Joyce.

Bad Global Warming Bill

(06-05) 04:00 PDT Washington—House Democrats, in their first draft of new energy legislation, would wipe out California's landmark global warming law —despite their California speaker's promises that her party would use the state as a model to combat climate change.

The legislation would pre-empt California and 11 other states from implementing laws requiring automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across their fleets. The bill would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from granting the states waivers to put their climate change rules into effect.

California officials, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's top environmental aides, blasted the legislative proposal.

However, the pre-emption plan might never see the light of day—if, as expected, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and lawmakers from other affected states use their clout to quash the idea before it gets out of committee. Pelosi was unavailable for comment Monday, but her staff termed the measure a draft that needed much more work.

The proposal was written by Rep Rick Boucher, a Democrat who represents a coal-producing district in southwest Virginia and chairs the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee charged with crafting climate change legislation. The full committee's chairman, Rep John Dingell, D-Mich, a longtime ally of the auto industry, also played a key role in putting together the new legislation.

Yay, L A Times

With the impending demise of print journalism, a lot of people are turning to the web sites of the NYTimes, WashPost, SFGate, and so forth. Among the troubles: there needs to be some incentive or promise to a journalist to spend months or even years working on a story so that when she or he finally gets the facts together and writes the story, it will be published and there will be a few bucks coming in. The big papers exist on advertising, so if their websites attract a lot of viewers they make money and keep going.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of important information that never gets reported in story form, or any form. Blogging can do only so much. Bloggers seem mostly to pick up on other bloggers. Who is going to city hall and prowling through the records? Who is out interviewing people, following leads? Obviously, it's not going to be Fox News.

Conservation Groups Sue over Grizzly Delisting
by Eve Byron

Tuesday, June 5, 2007—Seven conservation groups are seeking to reverse April’s delisting of grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park, saying the action was premature. In a lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court in Idaho, the groups claim grizzly bears still face threats to their continued existence, including an isolated population and climate changes that are killing the bear’s main source of food.

“Scientific analyses have shown conclusively that the grizzly bear population in the greater Yellowstone area will not survive as an isolated population,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “Removing (Endangered Species Act) protection from grizzly bears in Yellowstone amounts to a death sentence for these
bears.”

But Chris Servheen, the US Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery project coordinator, said the population in Yellowstone is “robust and doing well,” growing at a rate of 4 to 7 percent each year for the past 10 years. While he had expected a lawsuit to be filed by the groups, who he termed “professional litigators,” he still was clearly frustrated by the action.

“I’m disappointed. This lawsuit will clearly take all my time away from the bears in Cabinet/Yaak, the Selkirk, the Cascades and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem that remain listed,” Servheen said. “Delisting was a biological decision. I’ve been the recovery coordinator for 26 years, I’ve been the recovery coordinator for 26 years, and it’s taken this long because we’ve been very meticulous about it.”

Four other distinct grizzly bear populations exist outside of Yellowstone, mainly along the US-Canadian border. Those include about 500 in the Glacier Park/Bob Marshall Wilderness area; 30 to 40 in the Cabinet/Yaak area; 30 to 40 in northern Idaho and northeast Washington; and about five in the North Cascades. Those remain protected as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The conservation organizations that filed the lawsuit say the various grizzly groups are too small and too isolated for long-term viability, which they believe will require 2,000 to 3,000 bears in linked populations. “True grizzly bear recovery means reconnecting our current grizzly bear populations and not killing bears that are reclaiming public lands that could link bear populations,” said Jon Marvel of the Western Watersheds Project.

“They were listed as one population—those in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem—and we believe they need to be connected before they can be delisted,” Garrity added.

But Servheen counters that geneticists studying the Yellowstone bears say there isn’t any problem with diversity. He acknowledges problems with some of the smaller populations, and notes that the long-term plan calls for an intensive effort to improve and enhance travel corridors.

Other groups involved in the litigation include the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Great Bear Foundation and the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance. They’re being represented by EarthJustice and Advocates for the West.

The groups aren’t seeking an injunction at this point to halt the delisting, but will do so if an “imminent threat to their mortality” is posed—like instituting a hunting season, Garrity said.

Servheen notes that even with delisting, Yellowstone grizzly bear populations will continue to be closely watched. Those duties will be handled inside Yellowstone Park by the National Park Service. Outside the park’s boundaries, management activities will be taken over by state officials.

Schwarzenegger Maybe Doesn't Get it after All
by Michael O'Hare
May 24, 2007

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been parading all spring in very green finery, comprising a bunch of legislation and executive orders directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California. This is quite interesting political behavior because of his Republican base, a bunch that, with exceptions, is generally allergic to the idea of saving the planet at the intolerable cost of actually giving up anything. It's also interesting because California will obviously get only a tiny share of the benefits of arresting global warming; anything we do is instantly diluted across the whole world, so from a standard economic/psychological perspective, it's in our interest to follow Bush's guidance, and do as little as possible whether anyone else steps up or not. We're faced with the dilemma of a bunch of prisoners of a small blue planet.

A lot of California activity is concerned with getting some carbon out of vehicle fuels, the part I'm involved in with a group of researchers doing the policy analysis for a so-called Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Of course reducing GHG emissions from fuel is only useful if fuel use doesn't increase; indeed, if we don't (along with everything else) drive less and do it in less thirsty vehicles, we will not get on top of global warming.

People have to have some other ways to get around than big thirsty individual cars, like bicycles, feet...and buses and trams. Accordingly it was a major wardrobe malfunction of those green garments when the governor's budget came out with a $1.3 billion cut in transit funding. This is a really inexcusable mistake, especially in California, indeed one could fairly say he's on stage with his environmental pants down.

I happened to return to Berkeley from San Francisco last night on the BART at 5:30, high rush hour, and there were some seats empty for much of the trip and lots of standing room for all of it: a New Yorker would think he had died and gone to heaven. This means BART is way overpriced, far above marginal cost, even at the busiest time, and one of the most important ways to attack global warming would be to get people into those empty spaces. Transit always has to
be heavily subsidized, not because it's a communist plot but because it's a declining-marginal-cost service that can never pay for itself and be efficient at the same time.

Schwarzenegger has a real problem in California with his own party. This legislative minority is large enough to block any tax increase, and has taken a pledge in some cave with skulls and candles to a stupid, ignorant, and purely ideological orthodoxy that the correct fraction of California's GSP to be used by government is *less*. But the Governator is well situated to tell his own people, and the people of California, the truth, and now would be good time to start doing it.

He has, I wish to note, restrained himself so far from jumping on the deeply anti-planet bandwagon of deploring high gasoline prices that seems to have swept up almost every national politician. Has there ever been a product that everyone agrees we need to use less of, that reasonable people want sold at lower rather than higher prices? Let's do this slowly, for the candidates and their spin people: Gas . Prices . Are . Much . Too . Low.

Transit . Prices . Are . Much . Too . High. (Arnold, this one is for you, too.)

Bush on Global Warming—an Aspirational Moment?
by Carl Pope
Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Washington DC—Last week I watched, perplexed, as the administration did an exotic new three step dance on global warming. First, they sent our allies in Iraq, Britain and Germany, a blistering critique of the global warming proposal the Europeans had drafted for the G8 industrial nation summit. The administration red-lined virtually everything substantive in the draft, saying it had "overarching and fundamental concerns" with the document before concluding, in most undiplomatic language: "The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple 'red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to."

Nothing new here. But then, on Thursday, the White House breathlessly emailed me with an opportunity to "listen in" on Jim Connaughton of the White House Council on Environmental Quality give a briefing on "the G8, economic growth, energy security and climate change," but warned that my invitation was "non-transferable" and that only I, personally, would be allowed to use the access code number I had helpfully been provided. (Big Brother really is watching if they can tell that someone else is using my cell phone.)

Just before this briefing the president himself spoke and declared that, while he still isn't willing to join the Europeans in talking about a successor to the Kyoto Accords when they gather in Bali, he is now in favor of a separate set of new talks in which the 15 nations responsible for most of the global warming pollution would hold a series of "aspirational talks." These talks would have as their goal a set of essentially voluntary emissions goals for each nation; nations would have
the flexibility (as they do under Kyoto) as to how they met those goals, but would also have the option not to achieve them at all if they so chose. It's hard to see how this differs from not having an agreement at all, and Connaughton got a very skeptical reception from the press. For the funniest version of this, check the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who says "aspirational goals" are akin to 'having the body you want without diet or exercise...or getting rich without working." Careful, Dana, Bush essentially did the latter.)

We won't have to worry, however, that Bush himself will weasel out of any global warming targets he might or might not agree to, since the voluntary pledges won't be made until the end of his term anyway.

Europe responded largely cynically—unsurprising, given Bush's comments earlier in the week—but some Europeans went out of their way to make clear that they saw some promise in what administration sources described as a "bottom-up" approach in which each country would initially offer its own commitments. They emphasized, however, that this initial stage must then flow into the UN negotiating process which will lead to a Kyoto successor.

Connaughton had an even tougher time than he might have because earlier in the morning NASA Administrator Michael Griffin had executed the third complicated maneuver in the dance, announcing that he saw no reason for anyone to do anything about global warming. Griffin, who is a scientist, was quite candid that global warming is real and that man is changing the climate.

To assume that is a problem is to assume that the state of the Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure it doesn't change.... I guess I would ask which human beings—where and when—are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we might have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Griffin apparently doesn't think it is arrogant of this generation of fossil fuel users to decide that the climate human societies have evolved and developed to cope with is going to be changed in unpredictable and destabilizing ways. This is truly one of the most astonishing explanations yet for inaction—one can be reasonably certain that the people in Bangladesh, for example, would be perplexed that Griffin thinks we have no basis for deciding that it will be bad if climate change deals their nation death from both land and sea. (China is threatening to dry up the Brahmaputra River to cope with drier climate and sea level rise on the Bay of Bengal wipes out more and more of the country and its more than 150 million people.)

This three-part script may seem chaotic and disorganized, but behind it all there appears to be a very familiar plot line. To understand, it's helpful to look at what Rex Tillerson, the head of ExxonMobil, said the same week at his annual meeting:

“There's much we know and can agree on around the climate change issue, and there's much that we just don't believe we do know…and we want to have a debate about the things we know and understand, the things we know about that we don’t understand very well, and the things we don’t even know about around this very complex issue of climate science. So that will continue to be our position.”

Compare that well-honed model of evasion to what Connaughton said, directly, when the press asked him when, under Bush's plan the world's emissions of global warming pollution would begin to decline. "That's the hard conversation we have to have." And the administration's own "aspirational goals"? "We are in a very active discussion about this now."

So really, there is no substantive disagreement between ExxonMobil and Bush. So why the hoopla? We know there are forces inside the administration that want action. Treasury Secretary Paulson is on record to that effect, and sources inside EPA tell me that Administrator Johnson, the only federal official who actually faces a Supreme Court mandamus order commanding him to regulate CO2, agrees. And the looming G8 movement gave them a deadline around which to organize.

But once again, as when Christy Todd Whitman, back in 2001, promised the Europeans the US would act, the good guys lost. Dick Cheney didn't surface this week to shoot down the idea of joining the rest of the world, and Paulson didn't get publicly humiliated as Whitman did—but the White House script remains the same: Don't act, run out the clock, and après Bush, le Deluge.

Zero Waste Committee

May 6, 2007—The Sierra Club has created the Zero Waste Committee with the purpose to educate our members and the public to move beyond recycling programs as the answer to solid waste problems. The Committee has been working on updating the Municipal Solid Waste Policy and the Guidelines the Club uses to set local policy and actions. The new Zero Waste and Extended Producer Responsibility Policy will be sent to the Board of Directors this summer for discussion and adoption. New guidelines for the management of different parts of the waste stream are also being updated with consideration of the principles of extended producer responsibility & zero waste and how the implementation of these concepts can greatly decrease the amount of greenhouse gases created by our existing product cycles.

Our 2007-2008 Campaigns include:

Zero Waste and Extended Producer Responsibility Education Campaign—We will be designing tools that chapters can use to educate their members, the public and local elected officials to look beyond recycling and get manufacturers, retailers, the public and government agencies to rethink how wastes move through society and how to get each participant to modify the systems we have in place with the goal of reaching zero waste or darn close and making landfills and mass-burn incinerators obsolete.

Advocating Community Responsibility for Organics—Using the Pollution Prevention Hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle) we believe that the best way to handle our organic waste stream is to have each community manage these materials locally. We will be advocating that organics be removed from landfills and from waste-to-energy facilities. Instead organics should be collected separately from other discarded materials and processed in controlled conditions to produce compost. This campaign will also be working on educating chapters about the trend to turn dry landfills into biodigesters to create more methane gases that then can be used as alternative energy. A new guidance on landfills and the potential to capture methane is in the process of being approved and will provide valuable information to help local chapters working on landfill siting and expansion issues.

Advocate for Local Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Actions—This campaign will identify certain products that are prime candidates for EPR actions at the local level. The products include electronic wastes, household hazardous waste and other products that cost local governments a lot of money to process. The intent is to put the responsibility for the management of these products when they reach their end-of-life back on the manufacturers or product brand owners who created the products rather than the residents who through local government contacts cover the costs at the point of disposal.

All Campaign materials will soon be available on the National Sierra Club website, http://www.sierraclub.org/zerowaste>www.sierraclub.org/zerowaste.

Web Pages

www.rtumble.com
rough and tumble—environmental news in Sacramento

www.sierraclub.com
Sierra Club California Lobbying Office

www.desertreport.org
Desert Report Web Page

Water Quality Conference

The Angeles Chapter will sponsor a conference on water quality that will be held in the Eaton Canyon Nature Center on Saturday, July 14. Contact Jennifer Robinson (jennifer.robinson@angeles.sierraclub.org) for information.

Groups Want Judge to Enforce
Eagle Mountain Land-Swap Ruling
by Jennifer Bowles
The Press-Enterprise, Thursday, May 3, 2007

Inland environmental groups asked a federal judge to enforce his 2005 ruling that struck down a land swap and effectively quashed an effort to turn an old iron-ore mine into one of the nation's largest landfills near Joshua Tree National Park.

The groups contend that those involved in the land swap—Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures and the US Bureau of Land Management—have done little to put the land back into public hands. In addition, they said, Kaiser has leased its adjacent lands to a company that allows the military to conduct exercises with live munitions and helicopters in a fragile desert environment.

What Do Voters Want?
by Carl Pope
Monday, May 14, 2007

San Francisco CA—A new poll shows, unsurprisingly, that Americans think global warming is a big problem, want their government to act to solve it, and think that ideas like more efficient cars and trucks, renewable energy and efficiency will be good for today's economy and tomorrow's climate. But if you look at how cautious politicians in Washington are being about global warming, they don't seem to believe the polls. This may be because these poll numbers reflect a very dramatic change in public sentiment. It turns out, however, that the voters candidates really care about—the swing independents— are even fiercer about a new energy future than partisans of either the Democratic or Republican persuasion.

Take the issue of clean electricity. Republicans (60%) and Democrats (64%) both favor a 25% renewables mandate (10% more than the Congress is even debating). But Independents are off the charts at 71%. This is true even though Independents, on the issue of whether we have a little time left to act on global warming, are slightly less concerned than Democrats, if more than Republicans.

Even if you focus on demographic segments often cited as a reason for politicians to vote against energy innovation, the numbers in favor of progress are staggering. Another recent poll, this one of pickup truck drivers, for example, found that, "Eighty-three percent ... favor requiring the auto industry to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, SUVs, and their own vehicles, with 70 percent 'strongly' favoring such an increase. Just 9 percent of pickup owners oppose an increase."

This makes sense. After all, if Hollywood actors can buy fuel-efficient hybrids, which are clearly not a matter of economic need for them, why don't we give plumbers and ranchers who use their Ford 250's to make a living the same option?

So what's happening here? My guess is that Independents are even fonder of the solutions to global warming than partisan voters, because they are the most suspicious that politicians of both parties are just listening to their campaign contributors and not to the pickup drivers who are often cited as a reason for inaction.

The closer the voters get to the politicians, the less crippling this problem gets. So cities and states keep accelerating their progress, even while Congress and the White House dither. The latest interesting developments are from Colorado, which doubled its renewable energy goals, and Iowa, which passed the Governor's $100 million clean energy program.

But Washington is still paralyzed by the fact that more than two-thirds of the Republican House members claim they don't even believe in global warming, while the White House takes pride in the fact that we are cooking the planet slightly less rapidly than we were five years ago.

Additional Info on Discovery Center
by Jeff Yann

Task Force Members,
Several of you asked for additional information regarding concerns being raised regarding the Discovery Center. Having just arrived home from a red-eye flight from Kauai, I was unable to respond until now, but will do so, and, of course, be able to have a more complete discussion at tomorrow's TF meeting. The basic concern, as I understand it, stems from the fact that the Nature Center is a small, quaint place with tremendous charm that many wish to keep exactly as it is. The Discovery Center will be a much larger facility with the potential to attract a much larger audience and provide a strong message in favor of wise water use, river restoration and the value of preserving habitat in the context of the entire San Gabriel River watershed and the features that make it unique. Most of the opponents to whom I have talked simply resent the size and the association with RMC and the water districts. It should be noted that the project started with Upper District as a water education center and, through encouragement by the Sierra Club and Dave Jallo, who was then Superintendent at WNNC, broadened their scope to treat a full watershed-based message, much of which will focus on the rare combination that placed a wetland in close proximity to a major wildlife corridor that functions as part pf the Pacific Flyway. This combination creates a delightful mix of birds at WNNC, although much of the former wetland has been drained by ground water pumping in the deep upstream basin.

I personally believe that, without greater public understanding of the value of preserving important open space and habitat in the urban basin, that the river restoration we have promoted for so many years will fail. Further, without a solid understanding of the constraints imposed by other users of the River, particularly water and flood management interests, the effort will also fail. In my opinion, this important message requires reaching a large audience. Most who go to WNNC are regulars. The contrast was very vivid for me when I went on a hike at Eaton Canyon during the lunch break of the Chaper Retreat in January. There must have been 100 people out walking the trails in that single 2-hour period, more than I have seen in all the hikes I have taken at WNNC over the years.

While many of the concerns point to habitat impacts of the project, the developed facilities are being placed either in artificially landscaped areas or very weedy remnants of when the area was severely degraded by agricultural use. RMC is strongly committed to using the draw of the Discovery Center to promote greater habitat restoration throughout the nature center area. I believe the project has been carefully laid out to be protective of the existing natural areas.

The project has been carefully laid out by public input involving many who now are part of the opposition. Thomas Hacker Architects, following a year of stakeholder meetings to provide general guidance to the architects, followed standard protocols to program the facility and lay out its features. This was an exhaustive process, taking well over a year. The project has been defined through this process and is currently undergoing CEQA/NEPA review. The only real issue for the Sierra Club is whether or not it wishes to remain a supporter and member of the stakeholder group, an obligation of which is to support the implementation and operation of the Discovery Center. I believe the influence of those of us who have been integrally involved with the project (Sam Pedroza, Jo Sarachman, Johanna Zetterberg, Nate Springer and I) has been instrumental in shaping where the project has gone, particularly in supporting both the goal to be LEED Platinum, as well as to make those features an integral part of the message.

• Become knowledgeable about the opportunities and constraints offered by this site -- habitat, environmental education, recreation, geography, and existing structures for flood control and water conservation;
• Gain a fuller understanding of the Discovery Center proposal, its proponents, and the problems it addresses;
• Add your special knowledge to improve our comments on the pending Environmental Assessment of the Project.

Griffith Park & Dante's View
by Tom Politeo

Dante's View is a small landscaped area on the side of Mt Hollywood, picnic benches, shade trees and such. It is a relatively tiny area compared even to that section of the park, let alone the park as a whole. Nature will not restore that, and I don't think it is that inappropriate to continue the small-scale tradition in that area. It is one of a number of such landscaped areas, as the area around the merry-go-round and nearby picnic sites.

As to the bulk of the park, nature will do its job just fine without our help, better in fact without it—fire being part of the chaparral life cycle. I'll be very interested to see what comes next spring, and what sort of palnts fire-germinated seeds may bring. Even some mud slides from winter rains will be part of the natural cycle in those hills now. I hope we don't find a government agency scattering invasive grass seeds. That tends to be my biggest concern after a fire.

A Wild and Wooly Week for a Changing Climate
by Carl Pope
Monday, May 7, 2007

Washington DC—It was a frenetic week for the politics of global warming, showing that while public sentiment has gelled on the subject, Big Carbon is fighting back hard, and getting a hearing in this city.

The first surprise was an effort by the coal industry to obtain a massive federal commitment for "coal to liquids"—the proposal to make gasoline out of coal, which is, bar none, the single most carbon polluting way of getting around in a car or truck. The Senate Energy Committee was debating a bill—one filled with problems to expand biofuels. The Chairman, Senator Bingaman, and the ranking Republican, Senator Domenici, had agreed not to offer in committee amendments either to add renewable electricity standards, which Bingaman favors, or coal to liquids, which Domenici supports. But Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky offered the coal to liquids idea anyway. It was narrowly defeated, on a straight party line vote, 12-11. But the idea will surface again when the bill gets to the Senate floor, and a number of Senate Democrats have indicated they will support it. So, in the face of all the new evidence and public support to reduce our carbon emissions, there is a real risk that the Congress will start subsidizing the single worst technology ever devised from the standpoint of global warming.

Bingaman's biofuels provisions were slightly improved, by requiring new biofuels plants to achieve at least a 20% reduction in carbon emissions when compared with gasoline. But California Senator Barbara Boxer has now introduced a much better biofuels bill, one the Sierra Club supports, and the Senate will face the task of blending the two approaches, hopefully in a way that ensures that our future biofuels program is both environmentally sustainable and genuinely saves carbon.

By mid-week the news was of progress at the state level, as both Washington and Hawaii moved forward on their proposals to cap their state's carbon dioxide emissions. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed her state's bill Thursday, and on the same day the Hawaii legislature acted, passing a bill that is now the toughest in the nation.

The same day, two of the three leading Democratic presidential candidates—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—joined John Edwards in embracing an 80% CO2 pollution reduction goal by 2050. Clinton and Obama took their position by agreeing to cosponsor the Boxer-Sanders global warming bill in the Senate.

Bill Richardson has adopted a similar goal, as has Dennis Kucinich, so on the Democratic side, there is no longer a meaningful difference among the candidates on the core question—do we do what the science demands? The question now is: How do we get there? On the Republican side only John McCain has made a meaningful commitment, and his is considerably less strong than that made by the leading Dems.

At the end of the week a number of Senators on the Senate Commerce Committee came up with a compromise proposal on fuel efficiency standards for vehicles that they hope will avoid the threat of an auto industry-backed filibuster. The bill has a pretty good goal—35 miles per gallon —but some very significant loopholes that could prevent us from actually getting there. The unknown question is whether the auto companies are finally serious about finding a way to compete in a world in which fuel economy and low carbon emissions are essential. This bill could either be a signal that we are finally going to make some progress, or a cul-de-sac that leaves us vulnerable both to the Persian Gulf oil producers and to global warming.

On Friday the international climate scientific community issued a report in Bangkok, Thailand, saying that the world had the economic capacity to whip the problem, at an acceptable cost, but the immediate response from the US was to say that any cost was unacceptable.

And that's just one week's events. Things are moving, but still moving in all directions at once.

Mindlesser and Mindlesser
by Carl Pope
Thursday, May 10, 2007

Washington, DC—I know. It's not a word. But it's definitely a concept.

Perhaps the greatest myth about the Bush administration is that Karl Rove "takes care of the base." He does serve his paymasters—those who fund the party—but as for the Republican base, Rove consistently shows a perverted preference for betraying them. I've blogged about a number of examples of this betrayal: selectively defunding rural schools in counties where Bush was popular; deliberately exposing rural Republican voters to higher levels of toxic air pollutants; not to mention the unconscionable abandonment of even basic humanity in the treatment of the military community which has so heavily supported Bush and paid for his mistakes with their lives.

But the latest caper is perhaps the most politically mindless Bush policy initiative yet. The issue is the federal role in siting utility high-voltage corridors. Back in 2001 EPRI, the research arm of the public utilities, asked Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force to reform federal regulations which are hampering modernization of the electrical grid. Enron, terrified that it couldn't make money gaming a really modern, nimble smart grid, opposed the proposal and suggested instead that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) simply override state and local authorities and site new transmission corridors for new power lines. EPRI strongly opposed Enron, saying such a step would create a civil war between the feds and the states, and hamper grid modernization. (Exactly, we now understand, what Enron intended.) Cheney sided with Enron, and in 2005 Congress gave DOE and FERC the power to identify "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors," and, within those corridors, to use federal eminent domain powers to seize private property and override state and local land use and regulatory standards to locate new power lines.

This was bad enough. But DOE has now issued the regulations—and instead of actually going through the exercise of figuring out which corridors are needed and identifying them, the Department proposes that the federal government have powers of eminent domain for private purposes in entire regions and states of the country.

According to DOE, "The proposed Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor includes counties in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and all of New Jersey, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. The proposed Southwest Area National Corridor includes counties in California, Arizona, and Nevada."

It's true, the three entire states over which the federal government would now become the land-use czar voted for John Kerry. But Arizona, Nevada and most of the counties in Southern California included in the Southwest corridor were solidly for Bush, as were West Virgina and Virginia, and most of the listed counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. These kinds of transmission corridors can be lethal to the property values of rural landowners—most of whom voted for Bush. And unless the line actually crosses your property, these folks won't get any financial compensation for their losses. So it’s the Republican base that gets screwed here. And already protests are beginning.

And who benefits? Well, the reason for the Mid-Atlantic corridor is to give preferential acesss to New York City and to the companies which own a group of old, polluting and outmoded coal-fired power plants that would otherwise be retired. And the Southwest corridor is to benefit a group of companies who have chosen to build power plants in Mexico, safely beyond the reach of US environmental standards, but who want to sell their power into Southern California and Las Vegas, even though the states don't want to allow those companies to undercut their domestic power producers.

Now, back in 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled that eminent domain could be used by state and local governments for private purposes like shopping malls—and its ruling provoked a national firestorm. More than thirty state legislatures moved to ban the practice within their jurisdiction, even if allowed by the US Courts. A dozen others faced citizen ballot initiatives to protect private property from eminent domain takings for the benefit of other private purposes. The loudest voices against allowing such abuses of eminent domain?—conservatives and libertarians.

But in Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court was dealing with state and local use of eminent domain for local purposes—and narrowly defined geographical areas. The DOE rulemaking creates an unprecedented intrusion of the federal govenrment into state and local land use decisions—not for local benefit but for the benefit of a distant city or state, and designates a huge swath of the country as a national sacrifice zone for energy.

Imagine: Every landowner in a huge portion of the country is now at risk of having a distant and unelected federal bureaucracy allow an out-of-state utility company to seize his property and build a high-tension line—or perhaps worse, seize his neighbor's property and build a high-tension line right right next to his property with no compensation.

A bipartisan Congressional coalition is already moving to block this stunningly ill-advised proposal. I suspect they will succeed faster than they can imagine. If they don't, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman may have started a new civil war. What was Karl Rove thinking, anyway? Did he ever look at the map to see what he was approving?

Governor Vetoes Polluting LNG Terminal
by Owen Bailey
Friday, May 18, 2007

After more than three and a half years of dedicated effort, Great Coastal Places today celebrated a major and decisive victory for the coast and for all Californians. With a brief statement released today, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the BHP Billiton offshore Liquefied Natural Gas terminal, proposed off the coast of Malibu and Oxnard.

This final victory was anticipated after our campaign mobilized more than 3,000 people to a series of three hearings over eight days in April, 2007. For the crowning event on April 9th, 2007, we helped turn out more than 2,000 people to attend the critical State Lands Commission hearing.

Over the last three-plus years, Sierra Club members from throughout California have weighed in repeatedly against the massive pollution, threats to ocean animals and risks to coastal communities. We have arranged several activist trips to Sacramento, generated hundreds of published letters to the editor in statewide newspapers, thousands of hand-written notes and postcards to the governor and other decision makers and ultimately turned out the most people ever to attend a State Lands Commission hearing as well as the largest attendance at any environmental hearing in the state in over four decades.

Today's veto effectively ends BHP Billiton's hopes of building this project. Previous victories had made this all-but certain, but the Governor's veto was the final hurdle for Sierra Club and our coalition partners California Coastal Protection Network, Environmental Defense Center, CAUSE and all the other conservation, community and Latino organizations who joined our coalition. With his letter, the Governor sent a clear signal to the world's largest mining corporation that they should not have false hope in an all but insurmountable legal challenge.

This is a big day for the coast and a tremendous victory for Sierra Club's coastal advocates, many of whom worked tirelessly for years against improbable odds. With this win we demonstrate once again that the only thing to beat organized money, is organized people.

PCL Insider: News from the Capitol
Thursday, May 17, 2007

So there we were—strange bills, stranger bedfellows. Last week in a hearing of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, several environmental organizations, including yours truly, experienced the amazing power that a diverse and unified coalition can have when we join together to protect California's environment.

That day, the committee pondered the fate of SB 670 (Correa), which sought to limit the use of real estate transfer fees. Recently, these fees have helped to ensure the preservation of valuable wild land in the face of sprawling development.

Correa and his supporters were facing quite an uphill battle with their bill, which initially sought to outlaw the use of transfer fees altogether. Even after significant amendments that would have allowed the fee to continue with numerous new restrictions, the bill's proponents still faced a unique and frankly surprising coalition opposed to his measure, including environmental organizations like PCL and the California Building Industry Association. What?!? The BIA? The "Builders?" Has global warming changed weather patterns in Hades?

Yes, the folks listed in the "oppose" column for most of our bills, also want to ensure this important tool can continue to be used to fund environmental mitigation for development projects.

It didn't take long to see that we were by no means alone. Not a single committee member spoke in favor of SB 670. The Democrats, like the environmentalists, thought the measure was far too constricting. The Republicans opposed the fee entirely and would have much preferred the bill in its original form. To add insult to injury (and a bit of levity to the proceedings), one senator even commented that the supporters of the bill had been "pantsed!" In an almost unheard of outcome, SB 670 died in committee for lack of a motion.

The high drama (and high jinks), however, does not end there. Earlier this session, Republican Assemblymember Guy Houston introduced AB 1574, which also seeks to sets boundaries on the use of real estate transfer fees. The BIA is sponsoring AB 1574, which unlike Correa's bill, would simply prohibit the transfer fees from being abused for financial gain, the chief complaint of those supporting SB 670. PCL and several other organizations are supporting AB 1574 in its current form and will continue to follow the situation closely.

Woody Allen once said eighty percent of success is just showing up. Perhaps the other twenty percent is who sits down next to you to testify.

Shell-Aera and Diamond Bar Get an Earfull
by Claire Schlotterbeck
Saturday, May 19, 2007

If you missed the Notice of Preparation meeting held by the City of Diamond Bar on Wednesday May 16—boy, did you miss out!

Who knew there would be so much opposition in Diamond Bar? Only now are the residents learning about the decisions their City Council has been quietly making for nearly a year. Those decisions have set a path to relocate the County-owned golf course from Grand and Golden Springs to Rowland Heights. The new golf facility would be adjacent to, and facilitated by, the development of Shell's 3,600 houses along the 57 freeway.

EDAW, the consultant firm hired by the City of Diamond Bar to prepare the Environmental Impact Report for the 3,600 unit Shell-Aera project, ran the Notice of Preparation meeting. Participants saw essentially the same plan for 3,600 housing units (and 40,000 more vehicle trips a day) that Shell-Aera has been touting for four years.

Two Diamond Bar Council members and representatives from Shell-Aera attended the meeting as well as several hundred residents from all over the region. When one audience member asked those who opposed the project to please stand, nearly the entire audience rose to their feet. It was a very visual thumbs down!

As the formal presentation concluded, the audience was told only a few questions would be allowed and all further comments were to be directed to the court reporters who would type them out on a one on one basis. The crowd responded with a spontaneous and very loud "NO" insisting that a "Public meeting should have public comments." Organizers relented and fielded more questions from the aggravated crowd.

When an audience member asked questions about the pre-annexation and pre-development agreement between the City of Diamond Bar and Shell-Aera the public Q&A session was shut down. (As you may recall this agreement was approved just days before Christmas and strongly favors Shell-Aera interests. For example, the City agreed to freeze developer fees for 25 years. )

Many attendees thanked Hills For Everyone for mailing out the meeting notification postcard. It was certainly frustrating to Diamond Bar residents that their own City chose not to robustly inform them of this important meeting.

In addition, newcomers who had just registered for more information saw the swarm of people gathering to learn more about our efforts. They jumped in, like professionals, grabbed our petitions and sign up sheets and walked around the halls asking for people to sign up and receive information from Hills For Everyone. It was quite a sight!

Are These Trade Agreements Free or Fair?
by Carl Pope
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Washington, DC—Late last week Washington was buzzing about a trade "deal" between the Congressional Democratic leadership and the White House. The deal is based on a "concept paper" and has been commonly described as an agreement to include labor and environmental rights in future trade agreements. The business community has been singing the praises of this document while environmentalists and labor groups have been expressing reactions ranging from the skeptical to the downright hostile. Democrats from high tech exporting states are singing its praises; those from manufacturing states are dubious.

It appears, although I'm far from certain, that the agreement most directly impacts the pending trade agreements with Peru and Panama; the concern is that it may also be extended to much more controversial deals with South Korea and Colombia. On the positive side, the deal apparently does eliminate the loophole in earlier agreements by which international treaties on the environment could be violated with impunity by both parties. It also includes new language aimed at stopping the illegal logging especially of mahogany from Peru, and gives the environmental provision the same level of enforcement as the other parts of the agreement (although not the same as the extreme rights granted to corporations to directly attack environmental and public health measures.)

But fundamentally what the brewing controversy shows is just how far trade agreements had migrated from any reasonable balance. These deals have not been about free trade for some time, but about trade managed for the benefit of multinationals. As a result, trade has, its strongest advocates now concede, been bad for the American economy since 1995. Yesterday's New York Times hailed the good news of a shrinking trade deficit, but in a stunning "by the by" the Times also said that, as a result, the narrowed gap "would allow trade to contribute to economic growth in the United States for the first time in more than a decade." That's right—the traded economists the Times quoted stated quite calmly that since 1995 trade has, overall, slowed down US economic growth. Why? Because the deals we have been negotiating have been so heavily stacked in favor of corporations that want to produce overseas and import into the US.

What do I mean by saying these agreements are unbalanced? Well, if a signatory to a typical trade agreement violates the patent protection rights of a US drug manufacturer to provide cheaper life saving medicines for its population, the drug company can bring a legal action against it. But if the same country brings down drug prices for import into the US by using forced labor, a union can't do anything about it. If Peru revokes a logging concession granted to US timber companies, regardless of the fairness of the original agreement, the timber company can sue for damages. But if the same US timber company illegally logs Peruvian mahogany and imports it into the US, a sustainable US hardwood competitor can't file for damages—even under the proposed, "environmentally more friendly" terms being talked about.

Certain laws—those which protect businesses—are given a special priority, and companies can use trade agreements to sue governments for cash compensation if a pesky environmental or public health measure stand in the way of their profits. Neither unions nor environmental groups have the rights given to businesses to make sure that worker’s rights and the environment are protected; for this they would have to depend on the US government which, under its present leadership, is hardly a reliable cop on the beat.

The agreements reached on Peru and Panama do seem to represent progress, and we applaud the Democratic leadership for their work. But we are starting from such a bad baseline—trade deals which are neither free nor fair -- that we have a long way to go, much further than Washington has agreed to this week.

Inyo National Forest Turns 100
by Wynne Benti
Thursday, May 24, 2007

In 1907, lobbied by the City of Los Angeles, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside 220,000 acres of land bordering either side of the Owens River as national forest. This secured LA's water rights and ultimately the construction of the LA Aqueduct. The forest boundaries protect the water quality and watershed by almost completely eliminating development (1.5% of Inyo County's land is privately held).

Salton Sea Coalition Urges Immediate Action
to Save Salton Sea
by Jim Metropulos
Friday, May 25, 2007

SACRAMENTO—Members of the Salton Sea Coalition commended the California Resources Agency for submitting a preferred alternative for restoration of the Salton Sea to the California Legislature today, and urged that legislators take immediate action to implement consensus elements of the plan.

"The Secretary had the unenviable task of trying to develop a consensus plan to protect the enormously important but complex Salton Sea. We commend him for the tremendous amount of time he devoted to this effort, and for moving the restoration project to the next phase," said Michael Cohen, Senior Associate at the Oakland-based Pacific Institute and member of the Resources Agency's Salton Sea Advisory Committee.

"The Secretary's plan includes the major elements required by state law to protect fish and wildlife habitat and manage air quality to protect human health and agriculture," said Kim Delfino, Advisory Committee member and director of the Defenders of Wildlife California office. "We urge the legislature to act quickly on these consensus elements."

"The law requires the Preferred Alternative to restore the maximum feasible wildlife habitat, maintain water quality and prevent harm to air quality, which can be done for about $2 billion," said Julia Levin, policy director for Audubon California and Salton Sea Advisory Committee member. "The Legislature should ensure that those parts of the plan proceed first and receive sufficient funding and water before committing an additional $6-7 billion for the recreational lake that are also included in the Secretary's Preferred Alternative," she added.

"Now it's up to the legislature to make good on the Secretary's efforts and not abandon the Sea, or the hopes and hard work of the many people who have devoted so much time to designing a plan that meets that State's obligations to protect public health and wildlife," said Jim Metropulos, Legislative Representative of Sierra Club California.

"Early Start Habitat and air quality monitoring jump out of the proposal as straightforward, consensus elements, and should be implemented as soon as possible," said Cohen. "Authorizing and funding these would offer a quick initial success for California, and would get the ball rolling on the bigger, more challenging elements of the plan."

"Failing to restore the Salton Sea is simply not an option," said Delfino. "The Sea is just too important to the people, agriculture, economy, and wildlife of the region for us not to save it."

The Salton Sea Coalition is comprised of 13 organizations of varied interests and backgrounds that have joined together to support and advocate for the protection and revitalization of the Salton Sea, an important part of California's natural, cultural and agricultural heritage. The Coalition's conservation, recreation and environmental justice groups represent more than 1.3 million Californians.

Club Working With NRDC Re Merced River Litigation
by Dan Sullivan
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

In one of the informal and ad hoc ways in which the Club can sometimes operate, for the past month a small group of Club volunteers and staff have been having a series of discussions with Johanna Wald (Senior Attorney at NRDC) about the Merced River litigation and whether the Club and NRDC might work together to help the parties find a solution to the issues in dispute. The Club participants have included Bruce Hamilton, Aaron Isherwood (Environmental Law Program), George Whitmore, Bridget Kerr, Cal French, Alan Carlton, and me. Bruce was initially the facilitator/coordinator of the discussions. After his recent unexpected appointment as Acting Executive Director of the Sierra Club Foundation, I have done my best to fill the facilitator/coordinator role. We came up with the following public statement that captures the essence of what we are doing—

Neither the Club nor NRDC is a party to the Merced River litigation, and neither the Club nor NRDC will file an amicus brief in the current appeal from the District Court decision. It is not yet clear what role (if any) the plaintiffs and the Park Service might want the Club and NRDC to play in finding a solution outside of court. Nevertheless, we have received enough positive (but very wary) feedback from the parties and their attorneys to make us feel that it is worthwhile for us to continue these occasional discussions for at least the next month or two.

Can Cool Cities Save Our Heating Planet?
by Carl Pope
Thursday, May 24, 2007

Cool Cities—across America and the globe—are rapidly becoming our first line of defense in the fight against global warming. Cities are responsible for 75 percent of the world's global-warming pollution—and in the absence of leadership from Washington, DC, the mayors of those cities— with the help of the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program—are stepping up, determined to be part of the solution.

Just this week: Leaders from the world’s largest cities—from Berlin to Beijing—wrapped up the second Large Cities Climate Summit in New York, where they met to share strategies on fighting global warming.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled "GREEN LA, An Action Plan to Lead the Nation in Fighting Global Warming," which calls for reducing LA's carbon footprint to 35 percent below 1990 levels—and set up a friendly competition with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose ambitious plan includes 127 proposals that will help the Big Apple cut its greenhouse gases 30 percent by 2030.

And Tulsa, Oklahoma, became the 500th city to sign on to the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement—a commitment to lower their city's gas emissions to Kyoto Protocol levels or lower. Now there are cities signed onto the Mayors' Agreement in all 50 states, representing more than 64 million people.

To help these cities meet the goals and timetable of the Mayors' Agreement, more than 150 local Sierra Club Cool Cities campaigns around the country are working with municipal governments to implement smart energy solutions such as installing energy efficient lighting, retrofitting city buildings, greening up municipal fleets with cleaner vehicles, and shifting to renewable energy power.

Find out now whether your city is Cool and learn more about the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program.

Questions That Haunt Me

Can you cry under water?

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Why do you have to "put your two cents in".. but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?

Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

What disease did cured ham actually have?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.

Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane ?

If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

If Wile E Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?-

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your ASS ?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Environmental Resolutions Passed (May 20, 2007)

Resolution Supporting Wilshire Center Earth Day Event

Resolution Supporting Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles

The Sierra Club Angeles Chapter will support the development of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) in the following ways:

Resolution Supporting Study of Green Corridor Transitway

Support for the Subway to the Sea Coalition

Proposed Resolution for June 20 Meeting

A Sepulveda Safe Passage (Endangered Species and Wildlife Committee, Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club)

Background: The Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS/EIR) for the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Widening Project was distributed in early May, 2007, for a public commentary period ending July 11, 2007. The primary purpose of the proposed project is to reduce existing and forecast traffic congestion on I-405 between I-10 and US 101. Adding one northbound lane to the existing freeway would necessitate a widening of the Skirball Center Overpass, providing an opportunity to include a proposed a minimum 10 foot wide "travel path" on the South side of the Bridge, which will (as currently noted) function as a wildlife conduit (nighttime hours) as well as a pedestrian sidewalk during the day. The South side would have a continuous 5-foot high solid wall blocking wildlife views of the traffic below, and the North side would have a continuous 3-foot wall separating the travel path from the roadway.

However, no plan exists to allow for the safe passage of wildlife over or under Sepulveda Boulevard and into the western sidse of the Santa Monica Mountains open-space areas. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over the Sepulveda Boulevard traffic corridor, has indicated a reluctance to address the issue, citing the cost of building such an extension and pleading lack of funds.

PRO: