🚀 go-pugleaf

-------------- Enclosure number 1 ----------------
To:       All Activists
From:     Steve Holmer and Jim Jontz
Date:          September 26, 1996

Subject:  DECISION TODAY ABOUT RIDER REPEAL?


Today completes the 14th month of "Logging Without Laws."  But with an
intense effort this next 24 hours, the Rescissions Act Logging Rider can be
history in the very near future.

White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta continued negotiations on the
Omnibus Appropriations bill yesterday on Capitol Hill with GOP and
Democratic Congressional leaders and said he is "confident" that a deal will be
reached on the bill "by the weekend or early next week," the Washington Post
reports.

What this means is that the White House will have to make some decisions
soon about which of dozens of items they are seeking in the Omnibus bill --
including Rider Repeal -- they will stick with, and which they will abandon.   

These decisions will have little to do with which items are the best ideas
because in the eyes of the White House, they are all good ideas.  The decision
will be based, instead, on where they see the biggest public interest.  

That means, quite simply, that we need to "raise the roof" at the White House
with an enormous outpouring of public support for Rider Repeal and "An End
to Lawless Logging."  There has never been a time that calls to the White
House to SAVE WHAT IS LEFT of our old growth forests are more
important.      

     The White House Public Opinion Line is (202)456-1111.  Call from
9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, twice today and twice tomorrow.

     The Chief of Staff (Leon Panetta's) Comment Line is (202)456-6797. 
The voicemail box gets full at times, but keep trying or call the regular
comment line.

     The White House fax (at the Chief of Staff's office) is (202)456-
2883.
  
Use this fax line to send not only letters on your group or personal stationery,
but also favorable editorials, materials you have prepared on Rider sales, etc.

We would also encourage you to call your Congressional delegation  (202)224-
3121) and ask them to call Leon Panetta to urge him to "Repeal the Rider."

Just yesterday, editorials appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the
Concord NH Monitor calling for Rider Repeal.  Other recent editorials have
appeared in the Buffalo News, the Vancouver (WA) Columbian, the Seattle
Times, the Nashua (NH) Telegraph, the Madison (WI) Capital Times, the
Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Orange
County (CA) Register, the Salina (KS) Journal, the Kansas City Star, the St.
Louis Post Dispatch, the Des Moines Register, the St. Paul (MN) Pioneer
Press, the Pasadena Star-News, the Portland (ME) Press Herald, and other
papers.  

We are not alone!  Let your voice be heard -- NOW, while it can make a
difference in stopping the clearcutting of some of our most magnificent
forests.