Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand: Sierra Club joins extremists

SHADES OF THE National Rifle Association and the Montana Militia! The Sierra Club, dedicated to protecting the environment, couldn't stand the positive publicity prosperity it was enjoying, so the members voted 2 to 1 in favor of opposing all commercial logging on federal lands. This act of stupidity can only be compared to the NRA supporting ownership of personal rocket-propelled grenades and the militia riding to the rescue of the surrounded Freemen near Jordan, Mont.

The Republican-dominated Congress has gone to extremes in efforts to weaken environmental laws that protect our land, air, water and living species. These assaults have resulted in a political backlash that can be felt from the grass roots to the halls of Congress. This extremism must be a virus which has now invaded the bloodstreams of some Sierra Club members.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., visiting the Atlanta zoo on Earth Day, couldn't even be accepted by Americans as a demonstration that he and his troops will protect our environment. The Sierra Club quickly pointed out that the 81-member "Task Force on the Environment" put together by Gingrich in March was so composed that half its members were totally anti-environment. Half the Gingrich appointees voted against the environment every time in 1995, and 80 percent voted against the environment more than half the time.

Closer to home, congressional headcase Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, came out with the suggestion that Nevada's only national park, Great Basin National Park, be shut down. Public pressure and members of Congress with a bit more common sense soon made him backpedal from this dangerous political precipice. This didn't keep him from continuing, along with other Utah congressional Republicans, the fight to kill vital wilderness legislation that would give adequate protection for the beautiful Kaiparowits Plateau, Moquith Mountain, Fish and Owl Creek canyons and the historically significant Anasazi cliff dwellings.

With leading Republicans pushing bills that threaten the beautiful forests and wildlife of Alaska to the laws that will make it easier to destroy Western grazing lands, the public soon became alarmed. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., a strong defender of the environment, wasn't about to miss the opportunity to gig the opposition when pointing out the extremists in a Los Angeles Times commentary:

"But thanks to anti-environmentalists in the Republican Party who are resisting any efforts at moderation, the public should have no trouble discerning which GOP environmental image to believe. Influential legislators like Resources Committee Chairman Don Young of Alaska, who calls environmentalists 'a self-centered bunch, a waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual bunch of idiots (pursuing) a socialist agenda,' have waited decades to loosen laws on mining, water, air quality, timber and industrial pollution.

"Indeed, some Republicans are becoming even more brazen in their confrontational approach to the environment. Consider these recent examples:

"Rep. Richard Pombo, a Northern California cattle rancher who is leading the assault on the Endangered Species Act, dismissed findings by Republican pollsters and asserted that the public supports conservatives' efforts to weaken laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act.

"Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon recommended that a fellow New York legislator who favored tougher penalties against General Electric for massive pollution 'ought to be horsewhipped and run out of the state.'

"And Rep. Tom Coburn, a physician from Oklahoma, argues that the water pollutant cryptosporidium, which caused 104 deaths and poisoned 400,000 people in Wisconsin in 1993, can 'be very helpful because it helps us identify those people who, in fact, are immuno-compromised.' Yes, one observer noted, and bullets can help identify hemophiliacs."

Yes, the politicians attempting to roll back the laws protecting the environment were being nailed to the trees they were selling to lumber companies for but a pittance of what they are worth. The National Forest Protection Campaign told us: "In the summer of 1994, the Forest Service began preparing a timber sale on the Okanogan National Forest, a sale they estimated to be worth $7.9 million. When the bids were examined, the highest price offered was $28,875, or 96 percent less than expected. And the bid came not from the timber industry, but from the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, a local conservation group. Even though the group bid the highest price for the sale, their bid was rejected because they did not intend to cut down the trees! the Forest Service has already spent $300,000 to prepare the logging contract. Now it will spend additional money to administer the contract to the lowest bidder! "

Now, along comes the Sierra Club going to the other extreme by demanding that all logging cease on federal land. This puts many of us in a position of looking at the Sierra Club and its opponents and declaring a pox on both their houses. Although the Sierra Club claims 500,000 members, the vote in favor of closing federal forests to logging was 39,147 to 20,287 mail-in ballots. About a tenth of the membership cast their ballots in favor of this extreme position.

Controlled logging in our large national forests is both environmentally and economically sound policy. Forest Service chief Jack Ward tells us: "(T)here is a need, I think, if you're an ecologist to look at what forest health means. It is a tool that we would use in manipulation of vegetation for a number of other reasons besides production of timber: forest health, wildlife habitat, fire prevention. Also, there are a considerable number of people in the U.S., particularly in isolated, rural communities, that are somewhat dependent on the timber produced by the Forest Service for their livelihood."

Although I have better-than-average environmental credentials and have ripped the anti-environment actions of our new Congress, the Sierra Club's announced extreme action can't be defended. The no-logging policy of the Sierra Club makes the negative evaluation of environmentalists by Alaska's Rep. Don Young almost believable.

The Sierra Club members who didn't vote had better wake up before their extremist brethren take them and all their good environmental work down the tubes. Americans have little use and less respect for extremists, no matter what flag they claim to be flying.

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