At a loss about what to do when George W. Bush takes the oath of office for a second-term this Thursday? We’ve got an idea what you can say on Inauguration Day.

Remind Bush that no one voted for dirty air, dirty water, or BIG Oil. The election is over, but the fight for OUR FUTURE goes on – the fight for our right to clean air & water, our last wild lands, wildlife, and a more energy independent country.

Take Two Steps For Our Future


1. Make your inaugural gift to LCV. As Bush takes his oath and we’ll take ours–pledge to fight for our right to a healthy, safe and clean environment. Make a pledge for our future. Donate Now! http://www.lcv.org/contribute/contribute.c...1805&MX=577&H=1

2. Download “I didn’t Vote for Dirty air, dirty water, or BIG Oil” flyer. Tape it in your home or car window, office, doghouse, or where ever you’d like. Remind President Bush that the environment matters! Click here for your flyer. http://www.lcv.org/Files/getFile.cfm?id=3598&MX=577&H=1

Don’t let President Bush and Congress plunder our natural resources and endanger our public health. We know that things are going to be tough, but we’re tougher because of YOU, 20,000 on-the-ground volunteers, a quarter of a million supporters, and 31 active state LCV’s organizations across the country.

Please make your inaugural pledge NOW! You will have a tremendous impact in the battles we face from the Bush Administration and anti-environmentalists in Congress.

Then, download the flyer. No one gave George W. Bush a ‘mandate” to destroy our environment and let’s remind him we have a right to a clean, healthy, and safe environment!

Thank you. And, Happy New Year,
Amy Kurtz
LCV Campaigns Director

P.S. President Bush and his allies in Congress and Industry are already at work to weaken our environmental protections. We can’t let them roll back more than 30 years of progress. Take your own pledge to stand up for a clean, safe, and healthy world by giving a gift to future generations.

Two ways to help! As soon as possible. The following is from the National Resources Defense Council.

The Clean Water Act requires that raw sewage be treated to remove dangerous
viruses, parasites and other pollutants before it is discharged into streams,
lakes and drinking water sources. But now the Environmental Protection Agency
is poised to finalize a new policy that would allow sewage to be routinely
discharged into our waters without effective treatment whenever it rains. The
policy would increase the amount of bacteria, viruses and parasites discharged
into recreational waters and drinking water supplies, where they would make
more people sick (more than half of all waterborne disease outbreaks in the
U.S. in the past 50 years were preceded by heavy rainfall). The policy also
would increase beach closures, shellfish contamination and fish kills.

Three members of the House of Representatives, Reps. Shaw (R-FL), Stupak (D-MI)
and Pallone (D-NJ), are urging their colleagues to sign on to a letter that
calls on the EPA to abandon its policy to expand sewage dumping into the
nation's waters. The final letter will be sent to EPA Administrator Leavitt
next month (the EPA is expected to announce its decision at the end of
February).

As we reported in our last edition, the Bush administration has issued
deplorable new management rules for national forests. The rules apply across
millions of acres of our public lands, including old growth forests, roadless
areas and sensitive wildlife habitat. Among other things, the new rules
eliminate fundamental wildlife protections and the requirement to ensure the
scientific integrity of management plans. The rules will result in fewer
chances for the public to fight logging and drilling, fewer wildlands and more
species becoming threatened or endangered.

Now the administration is going even further, proposing to exempt forest
management plans -- the blueprints for how each national forest is run -- from
public environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, the
law that empowers concerned citizens with environmental documentation and
comment rights. The proposed exemption would greatly reduce information
available to the public, scientists and other agencies, and would make it much
more difficult for the public to weigh in on or provide comments, concerns,
objections or alternatives to Forest Service proposals. It also would make it
easier for Forest Service officials to ignore the impacts of logging and other
development on an area's wildlife, watersheds, recreational uses and cultural
resources. With well over 100 national forests due for revised management plans
by the end of this decade, the effects of such an exemption could stretch
across millions of acres of public forestlands.

The Forest Service is accepting public comments on its proposed exemption
through March 7th.


Go to the following link for information about what you can do.
http://www.nrdc.org/action/.