America's cherished wild lands are under assault as never before. In
addition to legislation in the U.S. Congress to increase logging in our
national forests and to allow oil drilling in the famed Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, powerful political appointees are also issuing orders
to overturn decades of federal public lands policy.
Earlier this year, the Bush administration resurrected a civil-war era
statute referred to as Revised Statute 2477 (R.S.2477) to allow special
interests and local jurisdictions to convert thousands of miles of primitive
rights-of-ways that cross federal land — including old mining and
livestock trails, footpaths, even streambeds – into damaging paved
roads and highways, recklessly endangering the very places Americans care
most about.
This amounts to a massive giveaway of OUR public lands. This little known
loophole leaves no place off-limits; private interests could plow roads
through any number of National Parks and Monuments, Wildlife Refuges,
National Forests, even Wilderness Areas, without environmental review
or meaningful public input.
Natural treasures at risk from these “roads to ruin” include
Utah's Canyonlands and Zion National Parks and the Grand-Staircase Escalante
National Monument, along with, Denali National Park in Alaska, migratory
waterfowl habitat in Colorado’s Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge,
some of the southwest’s most spectacular scenery in Dinosaur National
Monument, and California’s Mojave National Preserve.
We need your help today to stop greedy special interests from robbing
future generations of their birthright of public lands, parks, and wilderness.
As soon as next week, the U.S. House of Representatives will be debating
a bill that funds the Department of Interior. Representative Mark Udall
will offer an amendment to prevent the Department of Interior from allowing
irresponsible road construction across our national parks and monuments,
wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, national forests and other public
lands.
Please e-mail or call your Representative TODAY and urge your Representative
to support the Udall Amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill to
prevent the give-away of our parks and public lands.
You can also help educate your community about our nation’s threatened
parks and wilderness by sending a letter to the editor of your local paper.
Please take action today to keep our public lands legacy from disappearing!
Thank you!
SAMPLE LETTER TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE
Stop the Public Lands Giveaway
I am writing to urge you to help stop the giveaway of our public lands
by supporting the Udall Amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill.
I recently learned that the Department of Interior issued a rule earlier
this year to facilitate the ability for special interests to make bogus
rights-of-way claims across our public lands under a civil war-era statute
known as R.S. 2477. By reviving the R.S. 2477 loophole, which was justly
repealed in 1976, special interests may be allowed the ability to convert
old abandoned routes, livestock trails, and even streambeds into damaging
paved highways, and can do so without environmental or meaningful public
review. I am very concerned that this could have devastating impacts on
the very lands that Americans most cherish.
Natural treasures at risk from these roads to ruin include Utah's Canyonlands
and Zion National Park and the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument,
Denali National Park in Alaska, migratory waterfowl habitat in Colorado’s
Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge, some of the southwest’s most
spectacular scenery in Dinosaur National Monument, and California’s
Mojave National Preserve.
I urge you to support Representative Udall’s common sense amendment
to the Interior Appropriations bill to help safeguard our nation’s
National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, Wilderness Areas, and other special
places by stopping the administration from using the obsolete R.S.2477
loophole. Please help stop the giveaway of our public lands by voting
for the Udall amendment.
I look forward to hearing from you on this issue.
Treat the earth well,
It was not given to you by your parents,
It was loaned to you by your children.
Indian Proverb
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