Take for example Senator Domenici's corporate welfare Bill, the Public Rangelands Management Act S-1459, which will be voted on this week.
This Bill exempts all grazing decisions on public landsincluding National Forests and Wilderness areasfrom the National Environmental Policy Act, stripping the American public of their federally protected right to participate in our public lands policy. Over the years, banking corporations have loaned billions of dollars to ranchers, using the public lands they graze as collateral. S-1459 protects this sweetheart deal with the banking industry by licking the system in place and locking the public out.
If S-1459 passes, grazing management decisions will be made behind closed doors by government officials, ranchers, banks, and, of course, politicians. The passing of this Bill will make it virtually impossible to reduce livestock numbers on overgrazed forests and grasslands, even if cattle are starving, and it will tie up range studies in a snarl of bureaucratic red tape. The passing of this bill will increase the term of grazing permits from ten to fifteen years. It will open National Forests for the first time to sub-leasing. There are over 260 million acres of our public lands at stakelands which now belong to all Americans.
Senator Domenici's Bill is just one more big government, big business giveawaya giveaway that forces taxpayers to pay nearly one half billion dollars a year in subsidies to "ranchers" that include Hewlett/Packard, Metropolitan Life, the Japanese Zenchiku Corporation and multi-national oil corporations. Senator Domenici says he wants to balance the budget, so while he's cutting our education and our health care, he's handing over our hard earned tax dollars to the banking and livestock corporations. Ask your senators and congressmen why they aren't going to give up one penny of the 400-600 billion dollars in corporate welfare that we the tax-payers give to subsidize the mega-corporations of the United States. Why do they take away welfare from people that can't live without it and give our tax-dollars to the corporate aristocracy that are sucking us dry?
This Bill reminds us of The Salvage Logging Riderthe Bill President Clinton failed to veto. That Bill passed, and now allows timber corporations to cut down America's last remaining old growth trees in our National Forests. The Salvage Logging Rider took away many of our civil libertiesjust as Domenici's grazing Bill will do. All over America there is anger, outrage and disgust as our forests are falling. Anger and outrage at the most undemocratic, devastating and corrupt legislation that has ever passed the US Congress. Disgust at a President who signed it into law. By signing that Bill he betrayed us all and now he's saying he's sorrybut will he veto the Domenici Bill which will have the same negative impacts on our environment and our democratic system? (We understand there is a one million dollar reward for anyone who can prove that the Salvage Logging Rider is unconstitutional at the Supreme Court level and secure an injunction against all salvage logging.) President Clinton is now apologizing for the "GRAVE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE TO OUR NATIONAL FORESTS" that the salvage logging rider will cause. But apologies won't bring back our forests or our wildlife. We must stop this from happening again!
WHAT ABOUT GOOD OLD DEMOCRACY? Why is there no taxpayer representation in Domenici's Bill? Because if we were being represented, we wouldn't foot the cost for this outrageous corporate welfare. We wouldn't choose to put our tax dollars in the hands of corporate billionaires who happen to hold enormous grazing permits. We would never pay to devastate millions of acres of our National Forests and wilderness areas. We would never pay to kill our wildlife, watch our streams be ruined, and see our forests turn to desert. Once these lands are leased, hunters and fisherman will also be the big losers.
AREN'T YOU SICK OF BEING USED BY YOUR GOVERNMENT? WE ARE!!
Please call your senator and representative today! (202) 224-3121
