Resolution Number SFL08.01

Enforce & Reinstate Vital Environmental Protections Enacted Late In The Clinton Administration

WHEREAS, the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" protecting 58.5 million acres of wild roadless areas in our national forests was signed in the final days of the Clinton Administration, and it was based on sound science as well as on 600 public hearings and 1.6 million comments with over 90 percent of those comments favoring protecting these forest areas which are the source of most of America's water supply, as well as being vital for wildlife, recreation, and agriculture; and

WHEREAS, President Clinton signed Proclamations in 2000 and in 2001 establishing some national monuments, among them the Giant Sequoia National Monument and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, while in the waning days of the Clinton Administration, Interior Secretary Babbitt "withdrew from mineral entry" over a million acres of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California to prevent new mineral patents as a prelude to examining this area for further environmental protection; and

WHEREAS, the George W. Bush Admistration has been trying to negate the environmental protections of the former Clinton Administration by successfully overturning Secretary Babbitt's "withdrawal from mineral entry" for that biologically diverse region of Oregon and California, by approving management plans for national monuments which do not abide by the letter or the spirit of the Presidential Proclamations signed to establish them, and has been working hard to overturn the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule," but the most recent court decision upheld this "roadless rule" though Bush succeeded in exempting Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the protections, and is seeking to dismember the protections state-by-state most recently in Idaho, Colorado, and southern California;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party calls for the forthcoming federal administration and the California Congressional delegation to work to ensure that the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" protecting roadless areas in our national forests is fully reinstated and enforced, calls for management plans for national monuments established by President Clinton to abide by the letter and the spirit of the Presidential Proclamations signed to establish them, and calls for reinstitution of the "withdrawal from mineral entry" for the more than one million acres of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California forestland as a prelude to hearings and study regarding further protection for this Siskiyou wild rivers region; and

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California Democratic Party shall send this resolution to Presidential nominee Barack Obama, to U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Ron Wyden, and Hillary Clinton, and to the Democratic Congressional delegation from California.

Submitted by Bruce Campbell & Luke Breit, Chair, Environmental Caucus

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Adopted by the Executive Board
Of the California Democratic Party
At Its Executive Board Meeting
Westin Hotel, Millbrae 
June 15, 2008