Dear Representative:
I write in regard to the Interior Appropriations bill. Of greatest concern to me is the fact that the bill reported by the committee essentially zeroes out funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and drastically reduces funding for the Forest Legacy Program.
Taken together, these two programs are the best tools available to us to ensure that burgeoning population and sprawl do not consume our most important environmental and recreational lands. It is profoundly shortsighted to gut these programs at a time when sprawl accelerates.
I also urge you to support several conservation amendments likely to be offered during floor debate. One, an amendment by Reps. Chabot and Andrews, would eliminate the outrageous subsidy taxpayers give to logging companies by paying for new logging roads in America's largest national forest, the Tongass in Alaska.
The Tongass is a wonderland of wildlife habitat, important to fishers, hunters, Native people and local communities. More roads and clearcuts can only harm them. Already the Tongass has more than 5,000 miles of roads and the timber available from existing roads is more than adequate to supply local mills.
Last year, taxpayers spent $48 million for logging and road building on the Tongass, but took in only $800,000 from logging companies in return. Over the next decade, if the Forest Service carries out its logging plans, the cost could exceed $1.2 billion. It is long past time to stop subsidizing timber companies to ravage one of our great national treasures.
Here are other amendments I strongly urge you to support:
- One by Rep. Alcee Hastings to help to help ensure environmental justice for low-income and minority communities; and
- One by Reps. Bart Stupak and Clay Shaw to prevent the EPA from making final its proposed weakened sewage dumping policy.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,S J Wichita, KS

Time and again our leaders have been told there isn't enough VIABLE oil in the area. The oil companies just want to take over and show that they can do what ever they want. We need the area to stay as it is for the wild life, if we don't our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren will lose out. Not to mention the wildlife that will suffer for generations.