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CAPITOL FLYER
Thursday, December
1, 2005
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Capitol
Flyer is intended to keep you abreast of the latest developments
in Washington affecting the National Wildlife Refuge System.
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Table of Contents:
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Arctic
Update
In
November, the Senate approved a Budget Reconciliation bill that
includes language allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Following the Senate vote, the House approved a Budget Reconciliation
bill that did not include the Arctic drilling language.
The
House's decision not to include the Arctic drilling provision was
due to a group of moderate Republicans who told the House Leadership
they would not support the Budget if the Arctic language was included.
These moderate Republicans, together with the Democratic caucus,
provided enough opposition to protect the Arctic Refuge.
The
two versions of the Budget Reconciliation bill will now be considered
by a House-Senate conference committee, which will develop a final
compromise version. The final version, which could include the drilling
clause, will then go to the House and Senate for votes.
The
National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA) encourages you to contact
your Senators and Representative again and urge them to keep Arctic
drilling out of the final Budget Reconciliation bill.
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to table of contents)
Mining
Provision Would Endanger Refuges
Drilling
in the Arctic NWR is not the only provision in the Budget Reconciliation
bill that would be harmful to the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Another section of the bill could put millions of acres of public
land, including refuges, up for sale to mining companies.
The
mining provision would allow companies to buy rights to public lands,
ending a 10-year moratorium on the practice. The mining industry
claims the proposal is an important improvement to the antiquated
mining law and would allow companies to have different reclamation
plans once the life of a mine has expired. However, conservation
groups claim the mining provision could allow the privatization
of over 270 million acres of public lands for any number of purposes.
Mining companies must prove a mineral deposit to obtain a patent
for the land, but once the patent is granted, a company could drop
its plans to mine and sell the property instead.
The
provision affects the long-standing General Mining Law of 1872,
which allows mining companies to purchase patents on public lands,
thereby giving them outright ownership of the land and its minerals.
A moratorium on patents has been in effect for the past decade,
due to controversy over the program and its pricing. Companies are
still allowed to stake a claim to the land, which gives them access
to its minerals below the surface but does not hand over ownership
of the land. The Interior Department received over 300,000 mining
claims this year, with the average mining claim covering about 20
acres.
Currently,
when a mine on federal lands is finished, the company is required
to return the land to its prior use, such as wildlife habitat, grazing
or recreation.
The
NWRA signed on to a letter to Congress with eleven other conservation
groups, including Trout Unlimited and the National Wildlife Federation,
among others, opposing the mining provision and urging Congress
to remove it from the final Budget Reconciliation bill.
You
can contact your senators and Representative about the mining provision
by calling the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
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to table of contents)
Congressional
Update
Congress
is currently out of town for an extended Thanksgiving recess. The
House is due back December 6, while the Senate is scheduled to return
December 12.
When
they return, both chambers of Congress have a number of tough issues
to try to work out before the Christmas holiday. Two appropriations
bills have yet to be completed for fiscal year (FY) 2006: the Defense
and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bills. Currently,
a continuing appropriations resolution will keep federal funds for
these two bills flowing through December 17. The Defense appropriations
bill could be used as a vehicle to move the Labor-HHS measure and
a variety of items such as hurricane funding.
In
addition to appropriations measures, the House and Senate must work
out differences between their versions of the Budget Reconciliation
bill, including the issue of drilling in the Arctic NWR. A tax cut
package related to the Budget Reconciliation bill is expected to
be taken up in the House when they return next week.
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NWRA
and TCF Host Beyond the Boundaries Workshop
The
NWRA, in cooperation with The Conservation Fund, hosted a workshop
for 30 refuge Friends groups at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. The workshop
focused on threats to refuges from beyond refuge boundaries.
The
workshop follows a report issued by the NWRA in August highlighting
refuge threats and successes arising from issues beyond refuge boundaries.
The "State of the System: Beyond the Boundaries" report (available
at www.refugenet.org) kicked off a new initiative designed to generate
community awareness about the need to protect areas around our national
wildlife refuges and action to protect these areas. Land uses that
go on outside refuge boundaries have a direct impact on the quality
of conservation inside the refuge.
The
Beyond the Boundaries workshop educated 60 participants (two from
each of the 30 participating Friends groups), with a range of speakers,
including refuge managers, academics, and Assistant Secretary of
the Interior Lynn Scarlett, among others. The workshop was made
possible by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
Hewlett Foundation, New-Land Foundation and Beneficia Foundation.
Information
on the workshop will soon be available on the NWRA's website.
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Take
Action!
If
you received this issue of Capitol Flyer directly from the NWRA,
your e-mail address is registered with the Refuge Action Network.
But have you taken action on refuge issues? Help make a difference
on refuge issues by utilizing the NWRA's
RAN e-advocacy tool. It's fast, easy and effective!
Please
visit the NWRA Web site or contact Michael Woodbridge, Assistant
Director of Government Affairs, at 202.333.9073 or mwoodbridge@refugenet.org
for more information.
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Capitol
Flyer, a monthly e-newsletter from the NWRA, is prepared by Michael
Woodbridge, NWRA's Assistant Director of Government Affairs.
For additional information, please contact mwoodbridge@refugenet.org.
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