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A re-newed assault on the environment is being planned because these corporate funds have purchased an 'at their bidding' administration only too eager to trash whatever is left of the environment after the last 3 years. Education, the Economy, Medicare, the Environment, the Constitution...there is getting to be precious little left to trash of this once great Country.
Peace
Roz
RAW: THE UNCOOKED FACTS OF THE BUSH ASSAULT ON THE ENVIRONMENT
ISSUE #17, JANUARY 7, 2004
Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail...again.
We're used to rejection when it comes to secretly planning ways to dismantle environmental protections, but it still hurts. Apparently there's a big ol' party going on in Arizona that most of us are missing out on. And let us tell you, if you're a fan of golf, cocktails, shmoozing corporate big-wigs, rubbing elbows with senior Bush administration staff, and covertly devising America's energy and environmental policies, you're going to be as bummed as we are to be left out of this shindig.
Several journalists are reporting today that Jim Sims, former communications director for the Bush Administration's Energy Task Force, current executive director of the Western Business Roundtable, and also apparently one of the hottest party promoters in the West, is holding a big throwdown/fundraiser/planning-session-of-evil this week in Phoenix.
Now first of all, isn't it kind of ironic that an energy task force famous for not telling the public anything even had a communications director? Did his answering machine say, "You've reached Jim Sims, I have no comment"?
Getting back to the story, Sharon Theimer at the Associated Press reports that for a minimal cover charge of $3,000 (which will be donated to Republican campaigns), corporations "can send two people to the 'Mulligans & Margaritas' fund-raiser Wednesday for the Western GOP Majority Committee, with $1,000 charged for each additional company representative who attends." That's a bargain when you consider the access and influence you're getting.
Theimer goes on to say that the party is taking place at the same time and location as a three-day conference where revelers can "strategize in a casual setting with members of Congress, White House officials, federal agency leaders, Western governors, CEOs, senior business executives and policy-makers from across the West...The prospectus for one conference promised participants could help write a "Top Ten `To Do' List for the Congress." Along with 20 Western Republican members of Congress, VIPs will include Undersecretary of the Interior Steven Griles, Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator Jeffrey Holmstead, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton, and Assistant Secretary of Energy C. Michael Smith.
Jim Sims, organizer of the conference and the fundraiser, claims that the two events are not connected. (Of course not, Jim, it's just a coincidence that you planned both events at the same time on the same golf course--hey, tee times are tough to get).
When criticized by Clean Air Trust, a respected colleague of ours, in a Cox News Service article, Sims dismissed the group as "part of an integrated and very sophisticated network of extremists, led by the Sierra Club and a couple of others." We appreciate the shout-out, Jim, but next time maybe you could put us on the guest list instead.
RAW is the Sierra Club's twice weekly email update to further equip you in the ongoing effort to educate and inform others of the devastating breadth and ferocity of the Bush administration's assault on our environment. We need your help to get this message out to the rest of America--please forward this email and encourage your friends, family members, and coworkers to subscribe.
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