Begin forwarded message:
From: "Michael Canney" <alachuagreen@gmail.com>Date: May 5, 2008 8:40:33 AM PDTTo: "GPF Energy" <gpgp-energy@googlegroups.com>Cc: "Alachua Greens" <alachuagreens@yahoogroups.com>Subject: [alachuagreens] Fwd: Green EcoAction Ctte: First 100 Days of Eco Actions by a Green President (text)Reply-To: alachuagreens@yahoogroups.com__._,_.___First 100 Days of Eco Actions by a Green President
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Scott McLarty <scottmclarty@yahoo.com >
Date: Mon, May 5, 2008 at 3:56 AM
Subject: Green EcoAction Ctte: First 100 Days of Eco Actions by a Green President (text)
Last week, Wes Rolley of the Green Party's
EcoAction Committee sent a note to Green Party
lists announcing a set of recommended
environmental actions to be enacted during the
first 100 Days of a Green Presidency.
The recommendations are also meant to be sent to
other parties' presidential candidates, on the
remote chance that our Green presidential ticket
won't win on Election Day 2008.
Wes sent a link to the pdf page, but I copied it
into e-mail text -- see below. The Media
Committee is preparing to publish it in a news
release.
Scott
Media Committee
* * * * *
Introductory letter to presidential candidates:
Dear Candidate,
The attached document is a plan for the first 100
days of environmental action by a truly Green
President. It was compiled by the EcoAction
Committee, Green Party US and is the first step
in reclaiming political leadership for the green
movement in the United States, a role that
naturally belongs to the Green Party but which
for far too long, we have declined to fulfill.
You will note that the objectives are clear. We
have done the home work to determine exactly what
can be done by executive order and what requires
action by Congress. In this respect, we have been
guided by the experience of committee member Earl
Hatley (OK), appointed by the Governor of
Oklahoma to a statewide commission.
We fervently hope that you will make the
environment a major part of your campaign. It is
the opinion of the EcoAction Committee that there
is little we can do that is more important than
addressing global warming. America has lost its
position of providing moral leadership in the
world. There are two reasons for this and they
both demonstrate our uninformed arrogance: the
war in Iraq and our lack of leadership on
climate. This must not continue.
* * * * *
First 100 Days Energy and Environmental Policy
http://www.gp.org/committees/ ecoaction/ documents/ First_100_ Days.pdf
The Green Party Platform:
Ecological and Energy Sustainability
The human community is an element of the Earth
community, not the other way around. All human
endeavors are situated within the dynamics of the
biosphere. If we wish to have sustainable
institutions and enterprises, they must fit well
with the processes of the Earth. The ideology of
industrialism, in both capitalist and communist
countries, insists that modern society lives on
top of nature and should rightly use and despoil
the rest of the natural world as we
desire—because any loss of the ecosystems is
merely an "externality" in economic thought and
because any problems can be addressed later by a
technological fix. We are now living through the
painful consequences of that arrogant, ignorant
perspective. Many of our children suffer from
accumulations of mercury and other toxins in
their neurological systems, environmentally
related cancer is on the rise, and our air and
water are increasingly polluted. Meanwhile, our
ecosystems are being compromised by the spreading
presence of genetically engineered organisms.
Our houses and buildings, manufacturing
processes, and industrial agriculture were all
designed with the assumption of an endless supply
of cheap and readily available fossil fuels.
Pollution and despoiling the land were not part
of the thinking. The Green Party, however, is
optimistic about the alternatives that now exist
and that could be encouraged through tax policy
and the market incentives of fuel efficiency. We
also challenge the grip of the oil, automotive,
and automobile insurance industries that have
managed to block or roll back progress in public
mass transit. The gutting of subsidies for the
railroads has meant not only fewer passenger
routes but also the addition of thousands of
large freight trucks on our highways, decreasing
public safety and increasing pollution. We are
committed to extending the greening of waste
management by encouraging the spread of such
practices as reduce, return, reuse, and recycle.
We strongly oppose the recent attempts to roll
back the federal environmental protection laws
that safeguard our air, water, and soil.
The Solutions:
The President will implement the following plan
within the first 100 days in office:
Energy: Rule making
1. The President will instruct the EPA to place a
moratorium on new permits for coal fired-power
plants, and will instruct the NRC that there will
be no new nuclear power plants in the future.
Existing nuclear plants will be decommissioned as
expeditiously as possible, starting with the
oldest plants, or plants with the most consistent
violations first.
2. The President will instruct the EPA to enact
rules which will:
a. Quickly, reduce by 90% the mercury emissions
of coal-fired power plants by 2012.
b. Make rules reducing CO2 and SO2 emissions by
80% by the year 2020.
c. Regulate the disposal of coal-fired power
plant wastes in a manner that will protect human
health and the environment.
3. EPA will be instructed to impose a moratorium
on new permits for mountain top coal removal,
while the Administration works to ban the
process. EPA, through rule making, will ban the
dumping of mountain top removal wastes in stream
beds and valleys.
4. NASA and other agency scientists will be
encouraged to provide agency heads, and the
President's Council on Environmental Quality with
the new data regarding climate change and
environmental quality issues so that the
President may inform the public and put in place
policies to address new findings. The National
Renewable Energy Laboratory will be funded to
assist with a fast paced technology development
project for the production of renewable energy
sources.
Congressional Bills:
5. The President will send to Congress a bill
which will end government subsidies to the
nuclear and fossil fuel industries. These funds
will be quickly diverted to development of mass
transit systems on national, regional and local
levels. In addition, the bill will create greater
incentives for industry and citizens to reduce
energy use through conservation and generate more
renewable energy sources. The Bill will require
that, on a national level, there will be a
mandatory 25% renewable energy mix in the
national grid by 2015. All states will be
assisted (from oil and nuclear subsidy funds) to
do the same; including, encouraging local
generation as much as feasible.
6. President will send to Congress a bill to
increase CAFÉ standards to 60 mpg for cars and 45
mpg for light trucks by 2012.
Agriculture: Rule making
1. The President will instruct the EPA to set a
national phosphorus standard for all waters of
the U.S. that will protect our steams from
nutrient growth. Bacteria standards will be made
stricter in order to protect human health. In
states that have not set Total Maximum Daily Load
(TMDL) standards (as required under the Clean
Water Act since 1984), for impaired water bodies,
the EPA will set deadlines for taking such
action, or states will face the loss of primacy
under the Clean Water Act.
2. The USDA will make rules requiring labels of
imported foods, foods with growth hormones, and
foods produced by CAFOs.
Bills:
1. The President will send a bill to Congress
which will stop export of any technology abroad
for projects that involve fossil fuel or
deforestation.
Toxics: Executive Order
1. In order to continue the for Tribal
governments the availability of assistance and
funds from the federal agencies to manage
environmental issues and natural resources on
their lands, the President will issue an
Executive order that continues the Order
originally issued by President Clinton, requiring
that all federal agencies continue their policy
of direct negotiation with Indian tribes on a
government to government basis.
Bills:
1. The President will require Congress to
initiate a Superfund Tax Reauthorization Act in
order to comply with the Superfund Authorization
and Re-authorization Act of 1986 as amended to
the Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act of 1980.
2. The President will send a bill to Congress
which will codify the Environmental Justice
Executive Order 12,898, defining and protecting
the rights of EJ communities to be free from new
proposals for permits that would potentially
increase their burden of toxic contamination, and
prioritize these communities for cleanup.
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