The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Excerpts from the Idaho Green Party news...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1. FREE TRADE PENDULUM SWINGING IN OTHER DIRECTION

The Idaho Green Party has sent letters to Boise Mayor Dave Bieter, Idaho
Attorney General Larry Wasden, and Governer Dirk Kempthorne inquiring about
committing Idaho to comply with draconian constraints on domestic
procurement (purchasing) policy included in the recently completed CAFTA and
proposed for FTAA. In the letters, we request details about the policy and
request that Idaho be removed from the arrangement, which could force Idaho
government agencies to purchase products and services from other countries,
jeopardizing the local economy. It would also mean that procurements would
be arranged through "free trade" practices that have no regard for social
justice, community economics, or environmental resources. The Idaho state
legislature passed a Joint Memorial opposing CAFTA last March urging "fair
trade, not free trade." In a related development, the recent WTO decision
that US cotton subsidies are illegal will have profound implications on
agriculture, the environment, and food security in the US. However, this
could lead to a paradigm change in corporate welfare practices - and will
corporate globalization finally be reconsidered?


Read the CAFTA letters and learn where to send your own:
http://www.idahogreens.org/Greenweb/Frame-Issues.html

D MacKenzie, "WTO ruling may spell end of farmer's subsidies," New
Scientist, 5/6/04:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994962

Download our latest trifold, "Fair Trade, Not Free Trade":
http://www.idahogreens.org/Greenweb/Documents/Trifolds/fairtrade.pdf
===============================================================

4. AMERICA'S MOST DIRTY POWER PLANTS

The Environmental Integrity Project has published a report on top air
polluters and their ties to the Bush administration. Since 1999, the 30
biggest utility companies owning the majority of the 89 dirtiest power
plants examined in the study have poured $6.6 million into the coffers of
the Bush presidential campaigns and the Republican National Committee. The
study looked at the 9 plants that comprise the three top 50 lists and found
that the majority of the plants were owned by 30 corporations. Those utility
companies and their trade association engaged in an intense fundraising
campaign that netted $6.6 million for Bush and the RNC since 1999. Of the 89
plants that made it onto one or more of the dirtiest plant lists, 47 - well
over half - either have been sued or placed under investigation by the EPA
for violating the Clean Air Act. In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention found that roughly 10 percent of American women carry mercury
concentrations at levels considered to put a fetus at risk to neurological
damage.

"America's Dirtiest Power Plants: Plugged into the Bush Administration":
http://www.environmentalintegrity.org
===============================================================

5. VESTIGIAL ECOSYSTEMS PROTECTED FROM GRAZING

The federal Office of Hearings and Appeals in Salt Lake City has granted a
stay requested by Western Watersheds Project that blocks a BLM decision
authorizing grazing in the Laidlaw Park Allotment of Craters of the Moon
National Monument and Preserve. The stay prevents the BLM from implementing
a plan that would have increased cattle and sheep numbers on the allotment
despite the agency's previous finding that grazing has severely degraded the
area. The Laidlaw Park lands provide critical habitat for sage grouse,
antelope, pygmy rabbits, burrowing owls, sage thrashers, loggerhead shrikes,
and other sagebrush-dependent wildlife. President Coolidge designated
Craters of the Moon as a national monument in 1924. Before leaving office,
President Clinton expanded the monument's acreage, recognizing the
scientific importance of the area's sagebrush steppe ecosystem and the fact
that Laidlaw Park is the largest kipuka in the world. Kipukas are "islands"
of sagebrush lands where soils have developed on old lava flows. Large areas
of more recent lava surround them. In its appeal, WWP argued that the BLM's
decision defied the Monument Proclamation for Craters of the Moon. The
proclamation identifies objects of scientific interest, including sagebrush
plant communities that provide essential habitat for sensitive sage grouse
populations. This unique habitat was the impetus for designating Craters of
the Moon as a national monument. The proclamation reads in part: "The
kipukas provide a window on vegetative communities of the past that have
been erased from most of the Snake River Plain. . . . these kipukas
represent some of the last nearly pristine and undisturbed vegetation in the
Snake River Plain, including 700-year-old juniper trees and relict stands of
sagebrush that are essential habitat for sensitive sage grouse populations."
Some 28,000 acres of public lands in Laidlaw Park are now dominated by
non-native annual grasses, including knapweed, rush skeleton weed, and vast
expanses of cheatgrass.

Western Watersheds Project homepage:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org