CRUCIAL HOUSE VOTES COMING UP ON WETLANDS, CLEAN WATER, WILDLIFE HABITAT

Please call your Representative today and ask him/her to vote for
legislation to protect wetlands, clean water and wildlife habitat when the
Farm Bill comes to the House floor.  The vote is scheduled for Wednesday,
October 3.

The Agriculture Act of 2001  (RH 2646), hastily approved by the House
Agriculture Committee in early August, is really the "dirty farm bill"
because it is bad for farmers, bad for the environment, and bad for
taxpayers.  Specifically, the bill fails to help farmers protect clean
water and wetlands, subsidizes giant factory farms to build large open
lagoons for livestock waste, and weakens wildlife habitat and conservation
programs. By failing to protect farmland, it will encourage sprawl.  It
continues to provide huge subsidies to agribusiness, while offering very
little environmental protection.

Fortunately, an amendment will be offered to fix the bad provisions in the
dirty farm bill and provide billions of dollars to help farmers protect the
environment.  The Boehlert-Kind amendment improves water quality, provides
for wetland preservation, increases federal funding for protecting farm,
ranch, and forestlands from sprawl, protects food and drinking water
supplies, improves wildlife habitat, and builds upon open space programs.

Take Action:
To help farmers be responsible stewards of the environment, please call
your Representative as soon as possible.  Tell your Representative that you
support farm legislation that is protective of the environment and to vote
for the amendment to H.R. 2646 to be offered by Representatives Boehlert
and Kind.  Ask him/her to vote for final passage of  H.R. 2646 only if the
Boehlert-Kind amendment is attached.

To reach your Representative, call the Capitol Hill switchboard at
202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to your Representative.  If you
don't know who your Representative is, tell them your zip code and they can
transfer you, or  visit  http://www.house.gov/house/memberwww.html.
For additional information regarding the farm bill legislation, see
http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/waterquality/farmbill.asp.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]