1. 

   The "Border Bill" threatens to ignore environmental laws which protect important wildlife species like brown bears. (Photo: Steve Hillebrand for USFWS Headquarters/Flickr)

   Representative Bishop’s (R-UT) Border Bill (H.R. 2578) creates a 100-mile zone along U.S. Canadian and Mexican borders which will allow U.S. Border Patrol to regulate land while ignoring 16 essential conservation and environmental laws. If you live along the 100-mile buffer zone, call your local representative’s office and let them know what hiking, fishing, and hunting you could be missing out on  should the bill pass.
2. The House will also be looking at the Strategic Energy Production Act (H.R. 4480), a package of strategic drilling bills that jeopardizes access to public lands while undermining leasing reforms intended to safeguard air, water, fish, and wildlife in these drillable areas. The underlying message is drill, drill, drill, anyplace, anywhere, anytime. Additionally, the bill will expedite drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska without considering important wildlife areas for caribou and migratory birds.
3. On the Senate side, Senator Inhofe’s  (R-OK)  Congressional Review Act Resolution (S.J.Res. 37) would undo the EPA’s Mercury & Air Toxics Standards for power plants and would block the agency from reissuing similar safeguards. These standards and safeguards are designed with the public in mind for they protect the public from power plants’ mercury and toxic air pollution. (In case you missed it, here’s Sen. Inhofe’s attempt to misrepresent NWF’s statements on the rule, now that’s a headline that should be bogus)
4. 

   Farm Bill amendments are threatening the Clean Water Act's ability to protect America's important waterways. Alger County, Michigan (Photo: James Marvin Phelps/Flickr)

   The drama surrounding the Farm Bill continues in the Senate. Currently, the bill is bogged down with over 300 amendments, many of which wreak havoc on the environment. Attacks are most evident on the Clean Water Act.  Amendments (S.A 2165 and S.A. 2177) by Senator Barrasso (R-WY) and Senator Paul (R-KY) prohibit the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA from finalizing and implementing pending Clean Water Act guidance. The Rubio Amendment (S.A. 2261) by Senator Rubio (R-FL) would block EPA’s ability to hold the state of Florida to Clean Water Act numeric nutrient standards. Far from benefiting the American public, these amendments would further damage an already precious resource.

What can you do to oppose this week’s heavy-handed attacks on our environment? Look up your Senators and Representative’s numbers or e-mails. Urge a NO vote on all of these anti-environmental legislation (bills and amendments are listed here for reference). And remember, your voice counts! I’m off to give the offices of Senator’s Stabenow and Levin and Representative McCotter a call—you should get cracking too.

White Egret in the Waters of the Bay-Delta

 Harming Wildlife

The San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta) is the largest estuary on the west coast of North America. It’s a four-million acre watershed that supports over 700 plant, fish and wildlife species, including the endangered delta smelt, spring run Chinook salmon, winter run Chinook salmon, and steelhead. Over two-thirds of California’s salmon are passing through Bay-Delta waters and at least half of its Pacific Flyway migratory water birds are relying on the region’s wetlands for a home.

Ignoring the Endangered Species Act

An area so important for California water and wildlife should be protected, but H.R. 1837 robs California of its right to make those decisions. This terrible bill targets wildlife by eliminating the science-based safeguards for salmon and other endangered species required both under California law and by the Endangered Species Act. Instead, the legislation would follow measures from a short-term deal made in 1994 under a drastically different ecological and scientific environment. The impact of this goes beyond California. A multi-state effort is in place to recover multiple salmon species and the passage of this bill will erode any progress that has been made.

Threatening Jobs

H.R. 1837 doesn’t help fish and wildlife, or the people that depend on the Bay-Delta for their livelihoods. The Bay-Delta is the lifeblood of the salmon fishery in California. The closure of the salmon fishery in 2008 and 2009 resulted in thousands of lost jobs in California and Oregon and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost income each year. The economic well-being of commercial and recreational salmon fishermen, Bay-Delta farmers, fishing guides, tackle shops and communities across California and along the West Coast depends on the environmental protections that the National Wildlife Federation has long supported and that H.R. 1837 would kill.

Continue to support NWF and help us fight to preserve the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary and other wildlife and wild places for future generations.