Bluestem action alert

March 2004

Note: This email does not replace the phone tree. If you are in a position on the phone tree to receive a call, you should still receive it. If you are in a position to make calls, you should still make calls to people below you. Not everyone on the phone tree is on email. Please let Carol Squires know if you do not get a call or cannot make your calls. Carol_a_squires@rush.edu

Please call both Senators Durbin and Fitzgerald and ask them to filibuster against the new energy bill, S. 2095.

We are asking our senators to filibuster the bill because it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster. We believe the energy bill has enough votes to pass, and can only be stopped with a filibuster. The last energy bill was filibustered by Durbin but not by Fitzgerald.

The phone number for Senator Fitzgerald’s Chicago Office is 312-886-3506. Senator Durbin’s Chicago Office is 312-353-4952. You can also make a toll free call to each senator in Washington D.C. at 1-800-839- 5276. Ask for them by name.

Be use to leave your name and address when you call so that they will know that you are a constituent.

Or you may email them at dick@durbin.senate.gov and http://fitzgerald.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact

The new energy bill, S. 2095, introduced in the Senate in February 2004 by Senator Domenici (R-NM) is largely identical to the first energy bill, and in many ways is even worse. Once again, Democrats have been shut out of the drafting process.

The bill is filled with provisions which threaten our land, air and water while it exempts polluters from current environmental laws. It promotes accelerated and irresponsible oil and gas development on public lands while giving away billions of tax payer dollars in tax breaks and royalties. The bill would reduce neither energy consumption nor reliance on foreign oil and contains nothing to address global warming or promote conservation of resources. Although the liability waiver for manufacturers of the cancer causing gasoline additive MTBE was removed from this version of the bill, it is expected that an MTBE liability waiver will be added back during the conference process.

The bill removes one of the few environmental provisions from the old energy bill, which required energy companies to move toward the use of renewable energy, such as wind farms and biomass. Both of our senators have voted repeatedly for increased use of renewable energy in the past because renewable energy is good for Illinois farmers. The absence of such a requirement is a key objection to this bill.

Details of some of the more than 60 anti-environmental provisions in the bill follow.

►The bill provides huge new incentives for burning coal, oil and gas, which will increase air pollution and global warming.

►It allows the Secretary of the Interior to designate utility and pipeline corridors across public lands without seeking public input.

►It allows transmission lines to be sited through protected areas such as national monuments and national conservation areas by allowing the Secretary of Energy to override objections of federal agencies to siting decisions.

►It establishes an ‘Office of Federal Project Coordination’ within the White House to expedite permitting and completion of energy projects on federal lands.

►It authorizes $50 million a year for 11 years for timber companies to log trees in our national forests, including old growth forests, and to burn them for energy.

►It creates incentives for expanded offshore oil and gas drilling. It rewards costal states allowing more offshore drilling closer to their shorelines while denying revenues to coastal states utilizing moratorium protections.

►It gives away taxpayer owned oil and gas to the petroleum industry in fragile Alaskan waters by suspending royalty payments to the government.

►It fails to take any steps requiring improved fuel economy of cars, trucks and SUVs.

►It fails to include a provision requiring the development and implementation of a previously passed resolution to reduce oil consumption by at least one million barrels a day by 2013.

►It makes the previously mandatory spending for costal impact assistance for Gulf Cost states subject to appropriations.

For more information, go to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) website at HYPERLINK "http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/fs2095.asp" www.nrdc.org/air/energy/fs2095.asp. ( The entire bill is available at http://energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill2004/full_text.pdf)