Grassroots environmental groups from across the country have issued a letter to the U.S. Senate demanding the removal of damaging public land give-away "riders" attached to the must-pass Defense Authorization Bill!
The "rider" package has far too many give-aways of public lands and resources to merit support for its very meager designations of Wilderness.
Yes, the North Fork Flathead River and Rocky Mountain Front deserve protection from oil, gas and minerals mining - but not at the expense of removing protection from Wilderness Study Areas in eastern Montana near Otter Creek and the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge to benefit the coal, oil and gas industries!
Nor should these bills be packaged in the dead of night with provisions to give 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest to Sealaska Corporation for logging, nor granting National Forest land in Arizona to a foreign-owned mining company, among other horrible provisions!
Please take a quick minute TODAY to phone Senator Harry Reid (202-224-3542) and the Senators from your state (find phone numbers here).
Simply tell them you oppose the inclusion of public land provisions in the Defense Bill and want them removed!
Take action today before the Senate acts tomorrow!
Swan View Coalition is among the 47 organizations that signed the letter to the Senate, which you can read here.
Click here to read Montana Environmental Information Center's assessment of the rider's impact to eastern Montana.
Click here to read the Missoulian article about the late-night horse-trading by which Montana Senators Tester and Walsh, along with Representative Daines, made even more 11th-hour compromises to the already heavily compromised Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act - with no pubic hearings whatsoever.
Click here to read more details about the "Cost of Compromise" in the Missoula Independent!
Click here to read the 449-page Defense Bill public lands rider!
Make no mistake, these types of public land give-aways will become the norm by which big Wilderness groups get a little bit of Wilderness without telling you the true and unacceptable costs - unless you put a stop to it!
