By Jim Hines
Editor’s note: By popular demand, we continue with the Jim Hines Chronicles, which reflects the emails by our premier lobbyist on the ins and outs of environmental activism and its opponents. This covers the last two months (February-March). Jim is our chapter vice-chair and conservation director who belongs to many wildlife groups.
Feb 1: I can't believe how many members of the new Republican majority in the House are anti-America. Why do I say that? Well, there are plans for numerous bills to be introduced to defund the National Park Service and our treasured national forests, or as one congress member told me "rid America of its National Park problem.” National preservation lands are the only thing America as a nation owns and these refuges generate a whole lot of money for the local gateway communities, along with money made for the American government which these members of the House seem to hate. But you notice that they take their paychecks, benefits and expensive travel trips from the government Totally hypocritical. Once you take away the treasured natural beauty America owns you weaken us as a nation. The reality is that many members of this Congress want to open these lands up to international corporations for mining and drilling. In the Los Padres National Forest, a mine is backed by a Washington DC firm with ties to Iran and other countries and offshore oil drilling by an Australian company backed by the same Russia that is killing people in Ukraine. And I will be dealing with these members of Congress for the next two years…wish me luck.
Feb 7: We have our work cut out for us in 2024. California oil drilling restrictions prohibit new or retrofitted wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, hospitals etc. as of Jan. 1. But the CA Independent Petroleum Assn. funded a ballot initiative to overturn it for a 2024 ballot. Oil’s lobbying defeated a similar bill in 2019.
Feb 12: Celebrating 50 years of wildlife protection since the passage of the Endangered Species Act, boosted by the Sierra Club’s Wildlife Team and other advocacy groups. “99% of species listed under the Act have been saved from the brink of extinction, but the rate of habitat destruction and other threats to biodiversity have only accelerated,” warned Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club’s Wildlife Campaign.
March 11: Goals for the Club’s Wildlife Committee include designating mountain lions and their habitat as endangered, passage of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in federal waters off Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties for marine species, along with more wildlife corridors, protection of gray wolves and spotted owls, designating steelhead trout as endangered in central and southern CA and phasing out longline fishing nets.
