To: All Sierra Club leaders
Fr: Carl Pope
We do not know if the discussions we discovered yesterday about trading of
votes of some Senators from steel producing states for Bush Administration
support for federal guarantees of pensions and health care for steel
industry retirees will yield a proposed "deal" or not. We do know what we
think of the very concept of such a corrupt bargain, and I'm urging you to
sound the alarm with your friends, your local media, contacts you may have
in the labor movement, and just plain friends of a decent, principalled
governmental process.
For Immediate Release
April 11, 2002
Contact:
David Willett, 202-675-6698
Sierra Club Blasts Senate Proposal to Trade Arctic Drilling for
Steelworkers' Pensions
Letter from Steelworkers' District 11 Director below
Washington, DC: The Sierra Club today blasted proposals by the Alaska
Senatorial delegation to swap votes for drilling the Arctic Wildlife Refuge
for federal funding to pay for pension and health care costs for retired
steelworkers as "raising cynicism and blackmail to an art form."
"The proposals, under active discussion today between the Administration,
and House and Senate Republican leadership, the Alaska delegation and some
Senators representing steel-producing states, would involve all parties
abandoning their stated political principles and adopting policies they
profess to abhor," according to Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.
"The security of pensions and health care for retired steelworkers should
not depend on whether Senators from steel-producing states agree to destroy
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The livelihood and culture of the
Gwich'in people of the Refuge, and the health of its caribou, musk-oxen,
polar bears and migratory birds should not depend on whether the Bush
Administration can terrify steelworkers into believing that their pension
plans will collapse unless the Arctic Refuge is turned over to the oil
industry."
The Sierra Club expressed its strong agreement with District 11 Director
for the United Steelworkers, David Foster, who wrote in a letter to Senator
Wellstone that "I am adamantly opposed to any effort from any source to tie
the fate of steelworker legacy relief to drilling in the [Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge] or to any other provision of the Energy Bill. "
Pope also pointed out the bitter history of promises made to working
Americans by the Republican leadership in Congress since September 11.
"These discussions are happening with the same callous politicians who
promised last fall that if the Congress agreed to bail-out the airlines,
they would protect airline employees who were laid off. There is no reason
to believe that this process will yield either protection for steel
industry retirees, or responsible management of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
"The Sierra Club has supported the principle that steelworker retirees need
protection from the federal government for their health care and pension
plans. We stood with the steelworkers a few months ago at their rally on
the Mall. But Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is right when she calls
these proposals 'blackmail,'" continued Pope.
The Sierra Club also said that, "unfortunately, these cynical proposals are
typical of the shape that energy legislation took first in the House, and
increasingly in the Senate." The group pointed to yesterday's rejection of
Senator Feinstein's amendment to require transparency in energy futures
trading as another example of how the Senate energy bill has been
"plundered" by special interests.
"If you or I kite bad checks, we go to jail," said Pope. "Senator
Feinstein was only asking that Enron be required to disclose its energy
trades, many of which amounted to fancy check kiting."
Pope concluded by saying, "indeed, the main thing that these Senators seems
on the verge of learning from the Enron debacle is how to run their affairs
just like Kenneth Lay ran his. The proposal to trade the destruction of
the Arctic for pension security for steelworkers looks an awful lot like
one of Enron's off-book partnerships."
###
Letter from David Foster, Director of United Steelworkers of America's
District 11
contact: (612) 623-8045
United Steelworkers of America
District 11
April 11, 2002
U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone
Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC
Dear Paul,
As you know from our long association, my entire life in the
Steelworkers' Union has been about fighting for the future of the men and
women and retirees who have given their sweat and blood in America's steel
mills and Minnesota's and Michigan's iron ore mines. Nothing has pained me
more than the recent town meetings on the Iron Range where I have had to
tell thousands of steelworker retirees about the loss of their health
insurance benefits as a result of the steel crisis bankruptcies.
Two weeks ago I lobbied your office and the offices of 21 other United
States senators on providing legacy cost relief to the hundreds of
thousands of steelworkers whose retirement security is at risk. The
vehicle for our effort was the as-yet-to-be introduced Rockefeller bill.
During the last two days I have become aware of attempts to derail
this effort to provide legacy cost relief for steelworker retirees by tying
its future to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other
aspects of an unconscionable energy bill emerging in the U.S. Senate. This
energy bill provides tax breaks for wealthy energy companies, hurts
American consumers with massive deregulation schemes, and harms the
interests of steelworkers in the aluminum industry in the Pacific
Northwest.
I want to make myself unequivocally clear on this issue. I am
adamantly opposed to any effort from any source to tie the fate of
steelworker legacy relief to drilling in the A.N.W.R. or to any other
provisions of the Energy Bill. I would expect, as my U.S. Senator from
Minnesota, that you would fight this disastrous effort to couple these
unrelated issues as the cynical political move that is. I would expect, as
my U.S. Senator from Minnesota, that you would continue to stand against
any drilling in the A.N.W.R. and to vote against any legislation that
funded steelworker legacy relief in this fashion.
Please feel free to contact me for further discussion.
Sincerely,
David Foster, Director
United Steelworkers of America, District #11
(612) 623-8045
2829 University Ave. SE #100
Minneapolis, MN 55414
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