May, 16 2011, 02:15pm EDT
Nearly 300,000 Americans Call On Obama to Protect Wildlife, Water in National Forests
As public comment closes, Obama administration's proposed forest plan draws calls for change
WASHINGTON
Hundreds of scientists, 67 members of Congress, more than a dozen national conservation organizations and nearly 300,000 citizens are calling on the Obama administration today to strengthen protections for wildlife and water in its proposed forest policy.
The following is a statement from Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president for Defenders of Wildlife:
"The outpouring of public support for wildlife and water shows just how important national forests are to all Americans. While we're encouraged by some of the forward-looking features of the proposal, such as making restoration of rivers and streams a priority and managing forests so that they're more resilient to threats such as climate change, there's widespread concern that the rule lacks clear, necessary standards to ensure it will be fully implemented to achieve these goals on the ground.
"In my experience, land managers welcome clear rules because that clarity makes tough but proper decisions easier to defend against unwarranted political pressure. Without such clarity, this planning rule could lead to a confusing and contradictory implementation decisions from forest to forest, undermining the effectiveness of the rule in protecting America's wildlife and water.
"These forest rules represent one of President Obama's most important conservation legacies. We urge him and his administration to keep working to get this right."
Background:
Background:
Today marks the end of the 90-day comment period for the public to respond to the Obama administration's forest-planning rule, which guides how the U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of forest and grasslands under the National Forest Management Act.
Experts view the forest-planning rule as one of the most important conservation policies the Obama administration will undertake. However, the CEO's of 13 national conservation and environmental organizations say that the draft rule is far from complete.
A major problem is that the rule leaves implementation of the rule to the discretion of individual forest managers, without adequate direction for drawing the line to prevent harmful activities. At the same time, it eliminates longstanding requirements that managers report back on how activities like logging are affecting wildlife and forest health. Without these safeguards, the rule will be weaker at maintaining viable wildlife populations than the 1982 rule it would replace.
"They [the regulations] must provide clear standards and strong safeguards for managing our national forests: provisions that guide line officers away from the mistakes of the past and make public input and participation fully meaningful," the CEOs said in a letter to Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack.
Sixty-seven members of Congress echoed similar concerns in a separate letter: "The proposal suffers from weaknesses which collectively eliminate longstanding and vital protections intended to ensure that all native wildlife species remain viable on our national forests. First, the proposal does not require that species be monitored to demonstrate that forest management activities are actually maintaining fish and wildlife populations. Second, the wildlife standard suffers from excessive discretion; forest managers could selectively determine which species deserve protecting on our national forests. Moreover, the agency can arbitrarily absolve itself of the responsibility to protect these species because the criteria to do so are ambiguous."
Identifying the forest-planning rulemaking as a top priority, the groups are urging the Obama administration to issue a final policy that:
* Sets up no-development buffer zones around water resources. Protect water resources with mandatory, minimum buffer zones of at least 100 feet along streams and other water bodies -- limiting harmful activities.
* Maintains viable wildlife populations. Require the Forest Service to maintain viable, self-sustaining populations of all fish, wildlife and other species, well distributed across their existing ranges on national forest lands.
* Conforms to the best available science. Require decision-making to conform to the best available science rather than to simply take it into account. President Obama has pledged to uphold science in public policy. The Obama administration should live up to that commitment in this rulemaking.
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Links:
Read the letter from the CEOs of 13 conservation organizations.
Read the letter from 67 members of Congress.
Defenders of Wildlife is the premier U.S.-based national conservation organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of imperiled species and their habitats in North America.
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Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
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Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
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The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
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"Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21," the rights group said. "Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on October 16."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
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"The youngest casualty was Aline, a 5-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pickup truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike," Amnesty said.
Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
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The October 21 strike destroyed a building housing 13 members of the Othman family, killing two women and four children and wounding seven others.
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Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
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Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
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