Desert Digest

DESERT COUNTDOWN ON THE 102nd CONGRESS

In the waning weeks of the 102nd Congress, Senator Cranston continues his determined efforts to get the California Desert Protection Act passed by the Senate this year. In early August, Cranston convinced the Senate Energy Committee to consider and vote on (or "mark up") the bill. But Senator John Seymour blocked any effective Committee action. Before the markup, Cranston had offered a drastic reduction in the desert bill--a major compromise--to Seymour, but even those extreme cuts were not enough to satisfy California's junior senator.
In light of Senator Seymour's continuing obstructionism on desert protection, Sierra Club activists and other supporting groups are calling on their members for one more push to urge additional Senators from other states to co-sponsor and vote for the bill. There are presently 24 cosponsors nationwide. Club activists are also working to show the importance of the desert issue in this fall's Senate election campaign. Both Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer enthusiastically support the desert bill.
Southern Calif. Field staff member Larry Freilich called the August 5 markup session "high theater. "We had the votes in the committee, and would have gotten the bill out except for Seymour invoking a technicality of committee procedure." Senator Tim Wirth, (D-CO), knowing the Republicans on the committee wanted to vote on an ancient forest bill which came up first, maneuvered to attach the desert bill to it. Seymour immediately moved to table the link, and when he lost the tabling motion, he quickly changed his strategy to use an obscure procedural rule which forced the committee to adjourn at once. Thus, in spite of a favorable 11-9 vote, no actual markup could occur that day.

The bill the committee was preparing to mark up is not the original Cranston bill, S. 21, but the version overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives last November, 297-135. Because the House bill included a number of compromises regarding wilderness acreage and designation of the Mojave as a national monument instead of a park, this bill would be easier to move in the committee now.

In a meeting with desert activists shortly after the attempted markup, Senator Cranston indicated that he will once more request the committee to take up the California Desert Protection Act (H.R. 2929). And he discussed his attempted compromise with Senator Seymour.

The details of the proposed Cranston compromise were kept confidential during Senatorial negotiations, but were announced in a press release after the markup session. Principally, Cranston offered to drop the Mojave National Park entirely from his bill, as well as to reduce Bureau of Land Management wilderness acreage from 4.5 million to 3.3. million acres. Eliminating the Mojave proposal was especially galling to dedicated activists who considered it the keystone of the desert bill; however Cranston felt it could be separately achieved later.

The Senator assured activists that because of his colleague's rejection of the major compromise he had offered, he no longer feels bound by it. Clearly, Seymour will not help the desert. Cranston urged activists to work for support of senators in other states.

Please help the California Desert Protection Act pass the Senate before the end of the 102nd Congress! Come jump on the bandwagon! Call Vicky Hoover in San Francisco (415)923-5527 or Larry Freilich in Los Angeles (213) 387- 6528 to volunteer and find out what you can do. In addition, a valuable way to help the California desert is to work on the campaigns to elect Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to the U.S. Senate in November!

-- Judy Anderson and Vicky Hoover
 
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