Sierra Club
Redwood Chapter Newsletter
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Green Elephants Paul Arms | |
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Lately the divide between Democrats and Republicans - particularly on environmental issues - has widened, alienating many moderate Republicans who subscribe to the party's fiscal views, but who care deeply about protecting the environment. Fortunately, an organization has been formed to try and reform the environmental views of the Republican Party. Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America) was created in 1995 to resurrect the GOP's conservation tradition and to restore natural resource conservation and sound environmental protection as fundamental elements of the GOP's vision for America. Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, REP America is a nationwide grassroots organization with a Chapter structure similar to the Sierra Club's. They have a California chapter and chapters throughout the country. Their goal is to reform the Republican Party from the inside. Republicans have much to be proud of considering their early conservation history. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in setting land aside for national parks and wildlife refuges. It is interesting to note that Republican conservation history is interwoven with the Sierra Club. The first congressional bill to preserve Yosemite was passed by Republican President Abraham Lincoln who signed the legislation for the Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864. The grant deeded Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to the state of California. In 1890, the U.S. Congress set aside more than 1,500 square miles of forest lands around Yosemite Valley, soon to be known as Yosemite National Park. Two years later the Sierra Club was founded. It was a meeting between John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt that helped prompt the State of California to cede Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to Yosemite National Park. Republican President Richard Nixon encouraged and signed into law the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. Nixon also founded the Environmental Protection Agency. |
Today, the Republican Party leadership has become the anti-environment party with George W. Bush as Commander in Chief of the war against the environment and against environmental laws. Bush is only the latest in a string of recent Republican leaders who have been openly hostile to the environment. Many say it started with Ronald Reagan and Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, and went further downhill with Newt Gingrich and the 104th Congress. In fact, REP America began as a response to the rabid anti-environmental zeal of GOP leaders in the 104th Congress - a zeal that filled environmentally minded Republican voters across the nation with dismay and shock. After watching in disbelief for several months as GOP leaders in Washington D.C. attacked and undermined the environmental laws that cleaned up our air and water, saved species and protected many of our natural public lands from exploitation, they decided to form Republicans for Environmental Protection. They began speaking up as Republicans who care about environmental issues. REP America has had some success even with this administration. They worked hard to peel Republican legislative votes away from George W. Bush and were successful in helping to halt proposals to drill the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Even with a Republican-controlled US Senate, Bush is still having a hard time with REP. |