[BCNnet] what to expect from our new Congress

[bobolnk at ix.netcom.com]

The information below is from Audubon Advisory, an e-newsletter which comes out , I believe, every 2 weeks and has a good summary of what's going on nationally with bird conservation issues.  It has pretty graphics, good font size, etc., unlike this excerpt  Anyone is welcome to subscribe at this link:

 http://audubonaction.org/audubon/join.html

I thought people on this listserve might be interested in the assessment of the new leadership in the current Congress
    
Audubon Advisory
December 21, 2006
Vol 2006 Issue 12


A happy New Year seems likely as Congress changes leadership in a decidedly more conservation-oriented direction.

What do we think the new Congress means for environmental issues? Well, for starters it means that Senator Barbara Boxer (CA), a strong champion for environmental protection, will now chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. With a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 89%, as compared to former Chair Jim Inhofe (OK), who has a lifetime score of 5%, we can expect good environmental legislation to come out of Senator Boxer's committee. 

This same pattern repeats itself for other key committees that affect environmental legislation. The all-important Appropriations Committees will be chaired by Senator Robert Byrd (WV) and Representative David Obey (WI), with lifetime scores of 52% and 84% respectively; we expect funding for environmental priorities to get a better deal in the new Congress, though the budget remains very tight. 

The House Resources Committee, formerly chaired by the #1 Enemy of the Environment, Richard Pombo (CA), is now chaired by Nick Rahall (WV); LCV lifetime scores are 7% and 65% respectively. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is now chaired by Jeff Bingaman (NM), with a lifetime score of 68%, as opposed to the former chair, Pete Domenici, also from New Mexico, who has a lifetime score of 13%. On the House side, same story. Incoming Chair for Energy and Commerce Committee John Dingell (MI) has a lifetime score of 71%; outgoing chair Joe Barton (TX) has a lifetime score of 7%.

What does a new set of leaders in Congress mean for some of our key issues? Drilling in the Arctic Refuge? Lower on the radar screen now. We must always remain vigilant on this issue, but the Refuge is safer than it has been in years. Weakening the Endangered Species Act? Not likely, though we may see some legislation on this in the first session of the 110th Congress that addresses tax incentives for private landowners. If crafted properly, this is legislation we would likely support. Global Warming? Stand back as Congress goes from 0 to 60 on this issue. Former Environment Chairman Inhofe was infamous for characterizing global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Senator Boxer has said that addressing global warming will be one of her top priorities. Expect renewable energy and energy conservation to take the spotlight over drilling and a continued dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.

Challenges remain; the margins in both the House and the Senate are very tight. But we are still excited at the prospect of doing some good things for both the American landscape — and its birds and wildlife — and the global environment.

Now is the time to press our advantage. Please help us in the coming year with your phone calls, your emails and with new names for our activist list. Use the tell a friend link below to encourage friends and family to sign on!

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Victoria's Secret? 
Many catalogues you receive in the mail (and often toss without even looking at them) are made from paper taken from the vast but quickly shrinking North American boreal forest. 

Stretching from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, North America’s boreal forest is one of the world’s largest intact forests. It accounts for 25% of the earth’s remaining forests and covers 1.4 billion acres. The boreal forest provides vital breeding grounds for up to a third of North America’s land birds (up to a billion warblers and 500 million or more sparrows) and 40% of its waterfowl. 

One of the threats to this vast northern forest comes from logging trees for pulp paper, used in catalogues like Victoria's Secret, which produces 360 million catalogues a year. 

Recently, Victoria's Secret's owner, Limited Brands, agreed to stop buying paper from suppliers that log Canada's boreal forest, cutting down swaths of critical habitat for birds and caribou in the process.

We'd like to send a holiday thank you to Victoria's Secret — an industry leader — for taking this important step to preserve critical habitat for birds and other wildlife.

If you would like to send a thank you, please do so here. 
 
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"Do-Nothing" Congress Ends on Do- Nothing Note
The second half of the 109th Congress ended with the Congress not fulfilling its responsibility to complete the funding bills for Fiscal Year 2007, which runs from October 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007. Instead, both the House and the Senate passed what are known as Continuing Resolutions (CRs). In effect, a CR funds the federal government at current spending levels — in this case, all government programs are funded at the Fiscal Year 2006 funding levels.

The current CR will support government funding at last year's levels until mid–February, when it expires. The incoming Democratic leadership says they will work to extend the CR through the rest of FY07, and at the same time begin their constitutionally-mandated requirement to craft funding bills for Fiscal Year 2008 (which runs from October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008). 

All the work Audubon put into our funding priorities for this current fiscal cycle will be funded at last year's levels or, in some cases, may be dropped out of the current CR. We will now move our focus to the upcoming Fiscal Year 2008 cycle to get the highest levels of funding possible for conservation and ecosystem restoration. 

Water Resources Development Act Caught in the Crossfire
The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) almost made it to the finish line. Both chambers passed legislation and staff worked on a conference report in the hopes that differences in the two bills could be worked out in the lame duck session. Unfortunately, neither the House nor the Senate had much interest in finishing this piece of legislation after the elections. 

WRDA contained a number of funding provisions for the Everglades, Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Coastal Louisiana, and other restoration efforts, as well as critical Army Corps of Engineers reform and peer review for projects. We're hopeful the new Congress will pick this up where the lame duck Congress left off and finish the job.

Congress Closes With Christmas Present for Pro-Drilling Special Interests
In the closing hours of the lame duck session on December 8, Congress passed offshore drilling legislation that expands the oil and gas industry’s access to the Gulf of Mexico. The drilling legislation that will now become law opens up 8 million acres off the coasts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi to drilling. The bill, which passed the Senate earlier this year, is much narrower in scope than the House version, which would have lifted longstanding protections for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and would have allowed drilling much closer to shore.

Although the passage of this bill does remove some of the incentive to pass new drilling bills in the new Congress, and pro-drillers like Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) were defeated, threats will remain. As drilling-supporter Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) said just days ago, “We do appropriations bills every year and we’re going to be there. Energy bills are going to move, and they’re amendable, and we’re going to be there.” 

 
ESA Tax Incentives Package 
We can expect to see some early action on the Endangered Species Act. A tax incentives package to help private landowners deal with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act is an idea that has been kicked around for a while and its time has come in the 110th Congress. With leadership friendly to the ESA, we expect to see legislation that strengthens the ESA and provides incentives to landowners to protect habitat critical to endangered species.