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"Under the cynical pretext of protecting national security, the Bush Administration strong-armed the Senate Armed Services Committee...

Nov 18, 2003 5:41PM PST

into approving the most far-reaching rollback of marine mammal protection in the last 30 years."


"Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,

As you may already know, our campaign to protect marine mammals against deadly sonar and other man-made threats suffered a terrible setback last week in the United States Congress.

Under the cynical pretext of protecting national security, the Bush Administration strong-armed the Senate Armed Services Committee into
approving the most far-reaching rollback of marine mammal protection in the last 30 years. It exempts the U.S. military from obeying core provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Because these unprecedented exemptions are part of a "must-pass" defense bill, they were quickly approved by both the House and Senate, and President Bush is sure to sign the bill into law.

Before I tell you what this setback will mean for marine mammals, I want you to know one thing: we fought our hearts out to defeat these disastrous provisions. Our legislative staff worked day and night to get Congress the facts and win over critical swing votes. Two weeks ago, thousands of NRDC activists in the key states of Virginia, Michigan, Arizona and Maine joined the fray by flooding their senators' offices with pro-marine mammal phone calls.

Thanks to their selfless efforts, we came awfully close to pulling off a
last-minute victory. In the end, however, we just could not overcome a White House that was shamelessly -- and erroneously -- claiming military necessity in the midst of wartime.

What do these new exemptions mean in the real world? It will now be far
easier for the U.S. military to harass and kill whales, dolphins and other
marine mammals with high-intensity sonar and underwater explosives. The armed forces will no longer be limited to harming or killing a "small number" of animals.

In another ominous change, the new law allows the military to entirely
exempt itself from all environmental review under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In the past, NRDC has used that process to block destructive activities like the detonation of tons of explosives in sensitive marine areas.

Finally, the military will now be allowed to destroy the habitat of endangered birds and mammals that live on 25 million acres of land under the Pentagon's jurisdiction.

The Bush administration claims that these drastic steps are necessary
because environmental laws are compromising combat readiness for the war on terror.

Baloney! Even the EPA's own administrator testified last spring that she
couldn't name a single training mission anywhere in the country that had
been delayed or canceled because of environmental restrictions.

Make no mistake, this White House has cynically exploited the war in Iraq as a convenient opportunity to try to give the Pentagon what it has always sought: a free pass to trample our environment and carte blanche to harass marine mammals in the course of testing its weapons and sonar.

It is a telling measure of this administration's hatred of the
environment that the bill was even more destructive to marine mammals than what the Pentagon itself had asked for!

But I would urge you to outrage and action, not despair. Let's put this
setback in perspective. Getting the military to stop injuring and killing marine mammals is a monumental task, one that could take decades. We have already made great strides in court, and the tides of change and public opinion are on our side. More than 80 percent of Americans don't think the Pentagon should be above environmental laws. If we harness that people power, we will one day prevail....(yadayadayada)

Thank you for all you've done.

Sincerely,

John H. Adams
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

. . .

BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org

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