congressional_record: CREC-1996-10-21-pt1-PgE1935
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| CREC-1996-10-21-pt1-PgE1935 | 1996-10-21 | 104 | 2 | SIERRA CLUB'S ANTI-GOP EFFORTS ASSISTED BY REP. BOEHLERT | HOUSE | EXTENSIONS | ALLOTHER | E1935 | E1936 | [{"name": "Wes Cooley", "role": "speaking"}] | 142 Cong. Rec. E1935 | Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 143 (Monday, October 21, 1996) [Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 143 (Monday, October 21, 1996)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages E1935-E1936] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] SIERRA CLUB'S ANTI-GOP EFFORTS ASSISTED BY REP. BOEHLERT ______ HON. WES COOLEY of oregon in the house of representatives Monday, October 21, 1996 Mr. COOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, during my tenure in Congress, I have been astounded by the intensity of partisan political activities by national environmental groups. The Sierra Club has clearly been among the most partisan and politically active of all these groups. According to the Federal Election Commission's records from July 1995, the Sierra Club has contributed a total of $8,500 to four Republican candidates for Congress and $85,162 to 47 Democratic candidates during the current election cycle. The September/October 1996 issue of Sierra magazine reported the group had endorsed 131 candidates for House and Senate. Not surprisingly, only 7 of these were Republicans. Moreover, during last winter's special U.S. Senate race in my State, the Sierra Club reported spending $168,454 in independent expenditures on behalf of Democratic nominee Ron Wyden. Many similar independent expenditures are currently underway throughout the Nation. I was dismayed, but not surprised, to learn that Representative Sherry Boehlert, cochairman of the Speaker's Task Force on the Environment, has aided and abetted the Sierra Club in its efforts to defeat Republicans this November. Consequently, I signed the following letter along with many other free market and conservative groups asking the Speaker to discipline Representative Boehlert for his unforgivable actions. I urge my colleagues to read this letter and learn more about Representative Boehlert's efforts to help the Sierra Club elect a Democrat majority in Congress. September 16, 1996. Hon. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Speaker: We are writing to express our concerns about recent activities of Representative Sherwood Boehlert, which we believe undermine the mission and credibility of your Speaker's Task Force on the Environment. You have stated that the value of your Task Force is that it offers a forum in which members with widely varying views on environmental and regulatory issues can learn from each other in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. Rep. Boehlert has poisoned that atmosphere. On August 13 during the Republican National Convention, Rep. Boehlert was the featured guest at a Sierra Club fundraising reception at the Harbor Island West Hotel in San Diego. The Sierra Club presented him with their ``highest award for elected officials.'' In his remarks, Rep. Boehlert concluded by telling the audience that a ``cleaner, healthier, safer environment is what I am working for. That is what you are working for, and we are partners.'' Rep. Boehlert's partners at the Sierra Club are doing something else besides working for a cleaner, healthier, safer environment. They are also engaged in a massive effort to ``take back the Congress,'' which their president, Adam Werbach, recently described as ``the worst Congress ever, period.'' The political director of the Sierra Club, Daniel J. Weiss, has described their election strategy as a ``multi- million dollar educational campaign.'' Of 131 House and Senate candidates officially endorsed by the Sierra Club in the current issue of Sierra magazine, seven are Republicans. The challenger is endorsed in Georgia's sixth Congressional district. FEC reports in July show that in the current election cycle the Sierra Club had contributed a total of $8,500 to four Republican candidates and $85,162 to 47 Democratic candidates. In addition, the Sierra Club reported spending $168,454 in independent expenditures during last winter's special Senate election in Oregon on behalf of Ron Wyden. Similar independent expenditures are planned for the fall campaign in many races. Media packets distributed by the Sierra Club at their San Diego fund-raiser viciously and unfairly lambasted Congressional attempts to reform and improve federal environmental laws and attack you personally in the most outrageous terms (as do Sierra Club fundraising letters). Immediately before their fund-raiser, Rep. Boehlert's partners at the Sierra Club sponsored a protest rally and walk along the harbor in San Diego to ``take back the Congress.'' One protester carried a homemade banner that depicted a bulldozer driven by you with the words ``Private Property Rights'' emblazoned on the blade. Underneath were the words ``Stop GOP Terrorism'' with a swastika drawn inside the O in GOP. It should also be mentioned that Sierra magazine featured Representative Richard Pombo, the other co-chairman of your Task Force on the Environment, as its first ``Eco-Thug of the Month.'' It has also featured at least five other members of your Task Force as Eco-Thugs of the Month: Representatives Billy Tauzin, Andrea Seastrand, Nathan Deal, Helen Chenoweth, and Jimmy Hayes. In addition, the Sierra Club has officially endorsed the opponents of two other members of the Task Force's Steering Committee, Representatives James Longley and Brian Bilbray. The Sierra Club is not the only radical organization Rep. Boehlert has been working with to thwart Congress's environmental reform efforts. In a January 30 letter to the legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council thanking NRDC's staff for their help, he wrote, ``At this time in 1995, the prospects for environmental protection looked bleak.'' On July 23, the news service Greenwire reported that, ``Starting this week, the Natural Resources Defense Council will air 60-second radio ads against 16 House members with `anti-environmental voting patterns.' '' An Associated Press story published in the November 2, 1995 Atlanta Constitution reports that Rep. Boehlert attended an environmental protest rally on the Capitol steps and ``joined in the chant `Stop the rollback. Free the planet.' '' We enthusiastically applaud the efforts made by the 104th Congress to reform our nation's disastrous command-and- control environmental policies. Given Rep. Boehlert's actions outlined above to stymie those efforts and to defeat those who support them, we respectfully suggest that it is inappropriate for him to serve as co-chairman of your Task Force on the Environment, a position of great responsibility that gives him power to control what environmental legislation can come to the floor. We are enclosing relevant supporting materials. We look forward to working with you to address these concerns. Sincerely yours, Malcolm Wallop, Chairman, Frontiers of Freedom; Paul M. Weyrich, President, Free Congress Foundation. Joseph M. Phillips, Director, Federal Affairs, National Rifle Association I.L.A.; Dennis Hollingsworth, Director of Natural Resources, Riverside County Farm Bureau; Peter T. Flaherty, Chairman, Conservative Campaign Fund; Amy Moritz, President, National Center for Public Policy Research; Carol W. LaGrasse, President, Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc.; Nancie G. Marzulla, President and Chief Legal Counsel Defenders of Property Rights. Morton C. Blackwell, Republican National Committeeman for Virginia; David Ridenour, Director, Environmental Policy Task Force; Chuck Cushman, Executive Director, American Land Rights Association; Fred L. Smith, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute; Margaret Ann Riegle, Chairman, The Fairness to Landowners Committee; Jeffrey P. Harris, Exec. Director, National Coalition for Public Lands and Natural Resources. Met Johnson, Executive Director, Western States Coalition; G. Ray Arnett, President, Arnett & Associates; David B. Howard, President, Land Rights Foundation; The Honorable Donald Amador, Commissioner, OHMVR Div., Calif. Department of Parks and Recreation; Douglas Domenech, Executive Director, Madison Project; Kathleen Marquardt, Chairman, Putting People First. Dr. S. Fred Singer, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project; The Honorable Wes Cooley, Member of Congress, Oregon, Second District; Karen Kerrigan, President, Small Business Survival Committee; Clark L. Collins, Executive Director, Blue Ribbon Coalition; Henry Lamb, Exec. Vice President, Environmental Conservation Organization; Thomas A. DeWeese, President, American Policy Center. David M. Rothbard, President, Comm. for a Constructive Tomorrow; Bruce C. Grefrath, Washington Representative, National Inholders Association; Y. Leon Favreau, President, Multiple Use Association; Caren Cowan, Executive Director, New Mexico Wool Growers Inc.; William T. Riley, Northwest Council of Governments; Robert L. Gardner, President, Curry County Oregon Project. Edmund Peterson, Chairman, Project 21; William E. Theis, Steering Committee, Stop Taking Our Property; Jack E. Phelps, Executive Director, Alaska Forest Association; Helen A. Baker, Director, Women For California; William Pickell, General Manager, Washington Contract Loggers Assn.; Randal L. Pelton, Chairman, Chelan County Citizens Coalition. Edward H. Waldheim, President, California Off-Road Vehicle Association; Peggy A. Wagner, Director, Montanans for Multiple Use; Dr. Bonner R. Cohen, Editor, EPA Watch; R.O. Voight, President, Maine Conservation [[Page E1936]] Rights Institute; Adam Dubitsky, President, ABD Communications; Robert MacMullin, President, MacMullin Forestry & Logging. William J. Murray, Chairman, Government Is Not God PAC; Barbara Mossman, Spokesman, American Loggers Solidarity; Chuck Chase, Director, Eastern Oregon Mining Association; Patricia A. Bradburn, President, Virginians for Property Rights; Darlene Slusher, President, Accord Chapter, People for the West!; Karl W. Mote, Retired, Mining Industry; Harry A. Baker, Jr., Chief Instructor, California 44 Education & Training; Robert J. Smith, Senior Environmental Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute; Mike Dail, President, Federal Land Bank Association of Mason. ____________________ |