Action Center: See Action Results

In June 2000 we asked you to contact the Clinton administration urging a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and other national parks, where these vehicles cause severe air, water and noise pollution, disturb wildlife and interfere with visitors' enjoyment. On December 22nd the National Park Service announced it will phase out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, bringing in snowcoaches that will allow continued winter use of the parks without limiting visitor numbers, yet still eliminating the harmful impacts of snowmobiles. Thanks to everyone who took action in defense of the parks! While we'd like to believe this is a secure victory, in reality the Park Service's plan likely will face future threats, so we'll keep close tabs on this issue and let you know if future action is needed. [See 2002 and 2003 Action Results for later developments.]

In August 2000 we asked you to write the Clinton administration in support of a salmon recovery plan that included removing four dams along the lower Snake River. On December 21st the administration released its final plan, which, thanks to your messages and others', contains significant improvements over the draft. The plan still falls far short, however, of what is needed to restore these endangered fish. While it includes stronger language recommending removing the dams if performance standards for protecting the salmon aren't met at 3-, 5- and 8-year checkpoints, instead of designating specific, science-based habitat restoration actions, the plan simply creates another planning process to determine what measures will be tried, delaying the start of such measures for many months despite the urgent need for action. The first test of whether the plan stands a chance of working will be the 107th Congress's willingness to fully fund it, including the dam removal engineering studies it requires. We'll keep you posted on developments as they arise and let you know when we need you to contact Congress or the Bush administration.

In June 2000 we asked you to contact the EPA and urge the agency to adopt strong new diesel fuel and emission rules that would help clean up the nation's air. Thousands of you responded (the EPA reported receiving more than 70,000 emails supporting strong new rules) and, on December 21st, the agency announced it had approved tough new standards that will require stringent tailpipe emission limits on new large trucks and buses and virtually sulfur-free diesel fuel to power them. Over the next decade, the new standards will reduce smog-causing nitrogen oxide by 95 percent and microscopic soot (associated with increased asthma attacks, cancer and heart disease) by 90 percent. NRDC hailed the new rules as the biggest public health advance since the removal of lead from gasoline in the 1970s -- THANK YOU for helping bring about this important victory!

In September 2000 we asked you to contact the EPA demanding strong rules that will control the millions of gallons of animal waste pollution produced by factory farms every year. On December 15th EPA administrator Carol Browner signed a proposed rule that, while holding corporate owners responsible for the waste, still contains permitting loopholes and does not require factory farms to effectively control animal waste pollution, which flows into nearby waterways, killing fish, polluting drinking water supplies, and spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the environment. We will continue to press for more stringent regulations and will keep you posted as to when your action is next needed on this important issue. In the meantime, thanks to all of you who took action for keeping the pressure on the EPA.

In November 2000 we urged Californians to go to the polls on election day and vote NO on Proposition 37, the Polluter Protection Act, which would have allowed oil, tobacco and alcohol industries to avoid paying the clean-up costs of the environmental and health damage they cause and shifted those costs to taxpayers instead. We also asked those of you living in San Francisco to vote YES on Proposition R, which favors turning Pier 45 on the city's historic waterfront into an environmental education center instead of a tourist-driven theme park. Prop 37 was soundly defeated and Prop R overwhelmingly passed -- thanks to everyone who got out and voted on one or both of these initiatives.

During the summer of 2000 we asked you to contact the National Park Service and urge the agency to adopt a bold, strong, and detailed plan for protecting and restoring Yosemite National Park. On November 14th Interior secretary Bruce Babbitt announced the Park Service was doing just that, with a $441 million restoration plan that will reduce Yosemite's traffic jams, turn parking lots back into meadows, and restore Yosemite Valley's riverbanks and other natural habitat. If you were one of the more than 10,000 people who wrote the Park Service or Secretary Babbitt urging them to adopt a plan that would truly protect this beloved American treasure, thank you for helping us secure this resounding victory!

In the spring of 2000 we asked you to contact your senators about the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, or CARA bill, to fund land and water conservation projects. After facing opposition from western senators who are against federal land acquisition, in October the House and Senate appropriations committees worked out an agreement with the Clinton administration that ensures significantly increased funding for land and water conservation purposes for six years through the regular appropriations process. This agreement should provide $1.6 billion in land and water conservation funding in the first year, increasing to $2.4 billion by the sixth year. The source of this new conservation funding will be general revenues and not offshore oil and gas. Importantly, by not tying funding to offshore oil and gas revenues, and by distributing the money through federal programs rather than to states under a formula based on oil leasing, the agreement eliminates any incentives for additional offshore drilling. Thanks to all of you who contacted your senators and representatives concerning this important issue.

In August 2000 we asked you to contact your senators and urge them to pass the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, or BEACH bill, which requires all coastal states to adopt EPA-recommended health-based standards for monitoring recreational beachwater and to notify the public when high bacterial levels make beachwater unsafe for swimming or surfing (monitoring practices previously varied from state to state). The BEACH bill also authorizes $30 million each year to help coastal states develop and implement these monitoring and notification programs. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent on September 21st, the House followed suit on the 26th, and the president signed the legislation shortly thereafter. Thanks to all of you who helped make the waters safer for beachgoers everywhere.

In late August 2000 many of you contacted Texas governor George W. Bush and Texas wildlife officials, urging them to establish a shrimping closure along the south Texas coast in order to protect endangered sea turtles. In a partial victory (and in direct response to the overwhelming public outcry), state officials announced a seasonal shrimping closure that will protect the turtles during spring and early summer nesting season. But although 96 percent of public comments favored a permanent, year-round closure, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department bowed to pressure from the shrimp industry and allowed shrimping to continue between July 15 and December 1. As some of the worst turtle strandings have occurred during October and November, environmental groups will continue to press for a permanent, year-round sea turtle reserve along the Texas coast. Thanks for your help so far; we'll keep you posted on developments and let you know when your action is next needed on this issue.

In June 2000 we asked Californians to write Governor Gray Davis urging him to support continuing and strengthening the state's Zero-Emission Vehicle Program. On September 8th the California Air Resources Board unanimously affirmed the program despite intense lobbying by oil companies and the auto industry to weaken or kill it. The decision will spur production of electric and other advanced-technology vehicles not just in California but across the country and throughout the world. A key to the victory was an amazing 75,000 letters, faxes and emails sent to Governor Davis. If one of those messages was yours, thank you!

After a two-and-a-half-year campaign led by NRDC and SeaWeb to restore swordfish populations in the north Atlantic, the federal government on August 1, 2000, announced measures to protect these fish. The government's decision will close 132,670 square miles of the Atlantic ocean to longline fishing of swordfish and tuna on a seasonal basis. Longlines are fishing lines that can stretch for dozens of miles and are baited with hundreds of hooks; they indiscriminately catch and kill marine life including sea turtles, sharks, and juvenile swordfish -- and with over half the North Atlantic swordfish caught too young to breed, the population is seriously overfished. The closures are expected to result in a significant reduction -- between 31 and 42 percent -- in the number of juvenile Atlantic swordfish caught and killed by longliners. In deciding whether to eat swordfish, however, consumers may still want to consider that while recovery measures are now in place, the north Atlantic swordfish population is not yet replenished.

In May 2000 we asked you to contact the U.S. Forest Service and urge the agency to close two domestic sheep grazing areas next to Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep habitat in California's eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range. On July 21st the Forest Service announced it was canceling the grazing permits for these areas. The agency's action is long overdue, as domestic sheep, which carry a pneumonia that is lethal to the wild bighorn, have repeatedly wandered out of these grazing areas into bighorn habitat. Thanks to all of you who wrote the Forest Service in support of protecting this unique race of bighorn found only in the steep, precipitous terrain of the Sierra Nevada. Only about 125 adults remain, and last year, in response to a petition filed by NRDC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the bighorn as an endangered species on an emergency basis. In light of the bighorn's substantial decline and the need for immediate action to prevent its extinction, the listing is now permanent.

In June 2000 the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) adopted three new rules governing public vehicle fleets in the South Coast Air Basin that will help rid the region (including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties) of toxic diesel pollution. The first rule requires public fleets to buy only "low emitting" (i.e., gasoline or alternative fuel) cars and light and medium duty trucks. The second requires all cities and transit agencies to buy only alternative fuel buses, and the third requires all public entities and their contractors to buy only alternative fuel garbage trucks. The alternative fuel provisions alone will impact over 10,000 heavy duty vehicles.

This is a major victory for clean fuels and public health, and a major defeat for the oil companies and engine manufacturers who unsuccessfully lobbied the SCAQMD (as well as the EPA and California's legislature and governor) to define "alternative fuels" under the rules to include diesel fuel. Thanks to your hundreds of letters, e-mails, and calls, the agency rejected that approach, finding that while "clean diesel" fuel may become cleaner in the future, it's not as clean as alternative fuels (and therefore not clean enough) now. Once again, your actions made a huge difference.

In May 2000 the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority voted unanimously to buy 370 compressed natural gas transit buses, rejecting a staff recommendation to switch to diesel buses. This great victory was made possible by the many hundreds of e-mails, letters and calls from our online activists (especially those of you living in California) to MTA Board members urging that they only purchase clean alternative fuel buses. Your voices were heard, as evidenced by both Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke's leadership in moving to buy the clean fuel buses contrary to the staff recommendation, and by Mayor Richard Riordan's switch of his previous vote for diesel to a clean fuel vote, which ultimately helped sway the Board to support the purchase of clean fuel buses. These purchases will bring the MTA's fleet of clean natural gas buses to over 1,000, making it the largest clean fuel transit fleet in the country. Thank you for helping make it happen!

On April 15, 2000, President Clinton designated the Giant Sequoia National Monument, capping a year-long NRDC campaign to persuade the president to permanently protect these famed natural wonders.  Encompassing 328,000 acres in the Sequoia National Forest, the new monument will allow for continued public access for hiking, camping, river rafting, kayaking, horseback riding and other recreation.

The largest trees on the planet, giant sequoias live more than 3,000 years and grow in just 75 groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Though these living legends are an integral part of America's natural history, the U.S. Forest Service, which has allowed clearcut logging and destruction in many of America's old-growth forests, has failed to provide adequate protection for the giant sequoia forests.

In 1999 NRDC began an aggressive effort to convince the president to confer monument status on the sequoias, and we asked you to help. You responded in unprecedented numbers -- more than 10,000 of you faxed the White House supporting our monument proposal -- and the result once again demonstrates the power we have to make a difference when we join forces to protect our nation's natural treasures. Thank you for helping us accomplish this "tree-mendous" victory!

In April 2000 New York Governor George E. Pataki announced that New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority would commit to a fleet-wide strategy to drastically reduce emissions from its fleet of over 4,200 diesel buses, and would increase sharply its commitment to cleaner fuels like compressed natural gas (CNG). The announcement caps a hard-fought seven-year "Dump Dirty Diesels" campaign by NRDC to clean up New York City's diesel bus fleet. The MTA's commitments include:

• eliminate dirty diesels, and create the world's cleanest transit fleet;
  
  
• add 300 CNG buses and 250 hybrid-electric buses to the fleet and build three new depots that are CNG-compatible;
  
  
• use low-sulfur diesel fuel and install advanced emission controls on over 3,000 remaining diesel buses by the end of 2003;
  
  
• accelerate the phase-out of the oldest, dirtiest diesels in the fleet; and
  
  
• establish a public process led by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation to create a vehicle-based emissions standard that would require all new bus purchases to meet CNG emissions levels, regardless of the fuel used, and to establish New York state's first emissions testing facility for diesel buses and trucks.

Traditional diesel vehicles emit huge quantities of asthma attack-inducing particulate matter, more than 40 carcinogens, and high quantities of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. In contrast, CNG buses emit virtually no particulate matter, few toxic chemicals, and many fewer smog-forming nitrogen oxides. Hybrid-electric buses are a new introduction to the MTA's fleets; they will be vigorously tested under the new program, with the goal of matching or surpassing CNG performance. In the months preceding the announcement, many of you in the New York area contacted Governor Pataki and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, urging them to adopt a "no more diesels" policy. Thanks for helping make the difference!

In March 2000 Mitsubishi and the Mexican government announced that they have abandoned plans to build a massive industrial salt plant in southern Baja California. The Mexican government had proposed to construct the saltworks in partnership with the Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan at Laguna San Ignacio, the last undisturbed birthing and nursery grounds of the Pacific gray whale. The decision is a victory of monumental proportions for an NRDC-led international coalition of environmentalists, fishermen, scientists and NRDC Members that has been fighting the saltworks with protest, negotiations and consumer action.

The gray whales travel thousands of miles each year to winter and breed in Laguna San Ignacio, where more than 300 other animal species also make their homes. The area is considered so ecologically valuable that the United Nations declared it a World Heritage Site and the Mexican government created a "biosphere reserve" to protect it. Yet this is the spot Mitsubishi chose for what would have been the largest salt plant in the world.

NRDC and our partners used many tools in our five-year battle to save the whale nursery. We met and negotiated with Mitsubishi executives and Mexican government officials. We appealed to the United Nations World Heritage Committee. We watchdogged the progress of the saltworks plan and reported on the harm caused by another nearby salt factory. And we brought the full force of world opinion and consumer power to bear on Mitsubishi and the Mexican government. But without the efforts of the phenomenal number of NRDC Members and others who took action, we could not have achieved this stunning victory. More than one million people sent petitions, letters and emails to Mitsubishi demanding that the company give up its plans to industrialize Laguna San Ignacio. Still others made their wishes known by refusing to buy Mitsubishi products and letting the company know why. We share our joy in this victory with all of you who helped us achieve it.

In 1999 NRDC launched our California parks and open spaces initiative to preserve hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the state and create, maintain and improve state and neighborhood parks by fighting for passage of Proposition 12, a $2 billion bond measure on the March 7, 2000 ballot. We also worked to pass Proposition 13, which provides nearly $2 billion to protect and restore California's water resources. We asked for your help to pass these critical measures, and we got it. Throughout the state concerned Californians spread the word and persuaded friends, family, neighbors and even strangers to vote yes on Props 12 and 13. By passing the parks and water bonds, Californians made a sound investment in the state's future. Thanks to all of you who made your vote count at the polls!

In February 2000 the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted a statewide transit bus rule that requires all new transit buses to run on alternative fuels or use new diesel fuels and technology that are well beyond current technology. The result is that new buses will be much cleaner and, as a bonus, the rules governing diesel buses will set the stage for new federal truck limits which NRDC and others will now push to match the low California bus limits. While we would have liked a rule that banned all future diesel bus purchases, this was clearly further than the board was originally prepared to go. Our challenge was to prevent the board from adopting a weak rule being urged by many transit agencies and the engine manufacturers, so we asked you to contact the board and demand it strengthen its original proposed rule to help reduce diesel bus pollution. Thousands of you wrote and called, and your letters, emails and calls clearly made a big difference. Thanks to all who took action and made this new tough transit rule possible!

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