🚀 go-pugleaf

-------------- Enclosure number 1 ----------------

TO:       All Forest Activists
FROM:     Jim Jontz & Steve Holmer
DATE:     September 11, 1996

SUBJECT:  Effort to Halt the Rider at Critical Junction


     The next three weeks could determine whether literally
hundreds of disastrous timber sales move forward under the
Rescissions Act Logging Rider -- or whether they are stopped and
thousands of acres of forests saved.

     September is our last chance to Repeal the Rider.  Congress
is planning to go home September 27th; they will not be in session
again until after the Rider expires.

     Our big opportunity is that some legislation must be passed
between now and then to fund the government (including the
Forest Service) after October 1.

     The White House has said that they want the Rider repealed
in the Interior spending bill that funds the Forest Service.  As
recently as yesterday, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman wrote in
the Washington Post that the Administration supports Rider repeal.

     Yet we are facing a vote on the Interior Appropriations bill in
the Senate probably next week, and we still do not have a Senator
committed to offering an amendment to end funding for the Rider.

     For months, the problem has been the preoccupation of the
Democratic Senators with Sen. Craig's "forest health" bill.  That
legislation now appears dead for the 104th Congress.  

     However, we are hearing from our friends in the Senate
(Sens. Bradley, Wyden, Boxer, and others) that they are still not
ready to move forward.

     If you are a constituent of Senator Wyden or Boxer, this is the
critical moment for them to hear from you about the importance of their
exercising leadership to offer an amendment.  If you can relay specific
information about "forests at risk" from the Rider in your locale, so much
the better.  Please send detailed information if you have it, so they can
understand clearly why Rider repeal is necessary.  

     It is not obvious, even though the White House position is in
favor of Rider repeal, that there is significant effort by the White
House to help find a sponsor.  If President Clinton wanted a
Democratic Senator to offer such an amendment, it would be
offered.   

     This is the time to ask the President to keep his commitment
to seek repeal of the Rider.  Please call the White House directly at
(202)456-1111, and contact any "Friends of Bill" that you know to
communicate the urgency of the situation and ask for the
President's help.    

     One other mechanism we are using to urge the White House
to take action is a sign-on letter offered by Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-
OR) for Members of the House of Representatives to ask for
cancellation of bad sales, and to encourage support for Rider repeal. 
Our objective is to secure 146 signatures, enough to indicate support
for override of a veto (should the President want to threaten one).

     Please call your Representative, if he or she voted with us on the
Furse amendment or if he/she should have, and ask for their signature on
the Furse letter to halt bad Rider sales and repeal the Rider.  The House
switchboard number is (202)224-3121. 

     There is no question that, on its merits, the Rider should be
repealed.  Recent editorials for rider repeal have appeared in such
diverse papers as the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post,
the Salina (KS) Journal, the Des Moines Register, the St. Paul (MN)
Pioneer Press, the Madison (WI) Capitol Times, the Kansas City Star, the
St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Portland (ME) Press Herald.  In
California alone, editorials have been printed in the Orange Co.
Register, the Ventura Co. Star, the Pasadena Star News, the San Jose
Mercury News, the Escondido North Country Times, and the San Francisco
Chronicle. 

     The only issue is political will.  Will the Administration and
our friends in the Senate "step to the plate" to try to repeal the
Rider, or will they just watch as the worst environmental law from
the 104th Congress causes irreparable damage?

     In the words of Jessica Mathews in her column in the
Washington Post Tuesday, voters should know before Election Day
"whether elected officials' professed concern for the environment is
matched by action when it counts."

     If we don't speak up now and insist that these remaining
days of the 104th Congress be utilized to repeal the Rider, our
opportunity will be gone forever -- as will some of the "last and
best" of our nation's Great Forests.