US MILITARY Asking For Exemption From

[Guest guest]

URGENT URGENT URGENT

US MILITARY Asking For Exemption From

Environmental Laws

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING:

Thursday, March 14, 2002

 

By Taffy Lee Williams

 

PLEASE HELP! CALL OR FAX CONGRESS TODAY!

 

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing to

consider

" Environmental and Encroachment Issues " on March 14th,

2002, and will hear

from representatives of the U.S. Military on the

" burdensome " nature of

environmental laws, citing specifically the National

Environmental Policy

Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Exemption from

these laws in the name of " national security " will shield

the Military from

being held accountable for the impacts of environmentally

catastrophic

activities.

 

MILITARY TECHNOLOGIES OF CONCERN (selected) that can cause

significant or

permanent loss of viability, biodiversity, disruption of

ecological

processes and the ability of a region to repair itself, and

 

are thus in

violation of environmental laws:

 

DEPLETED URANIUM: (DU) the heavier-than-lead by-product of

nuclear weapons

production is being used to coat shells, bombs, even tanks.

 

DU " dust " (with

a half life of 4 billion years) is littered throughout

Vieques, Puerto Rico,

the Balkans, Iraq, and now Afghanistan; this has coincided

with a rise in

the rates of infant deformity, cancer and illness in

civilian populations.

Agricultural products, crops and water supplies have been

contaminated.

 

WEAPONIZATION OF SPACE: Predicted effects are extensive

damage and

alteration of the upper atmosphere and protective ozone

layer.

 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING in western states has destroyed

regions once rich

with life, imperiled countless lives and precipitated a

skyrocketing cancer

rate.

 

HAARP - HIGH FREQUENCY ACTIVE AURORAL RESEARCH: An

intensive and

increasingly destructive program designed to " understand,

simulate and

control ionospheric processes " by beaming 3.6 Gigawatts of

effective

radiated power of high frequency radio energy into the

ionosphere.

 

SURTASS LFA (Surveillance Towed Array System Low Frequency

Active (LFA

Sonar): At 240 decibels (dB), the " pings " of the US Navy's

LFA Sonar are

some of the loudest sounds ever heard on earth. These

sounds can travel 300

miles in any direction while attenuating (weakening) to

only 140 dB,

covering an astonishing 374,000 square miles of ocean. (105

 

dB is the

standard fire alarm; the decibel scale is logarithmic.)

Powerful military

sonars have been linked over the past 20 years to dozens of

 

mass strandings

of whales and dolphins; specimens collected revealed severe

 

acoustic trauma:

lungs, ears, and cranial tissues had ruptured or exploded

from the violence

of resonance. Mass species extinctions are predicted as the

 

Navy plans to

" patrol " 80% of the world's oceans although non-intrusive

powerful passive

systems are available.

 

The US Military should not be given freedom from compliance

 

with US

environmental laws. Nor should it be excused from violating

 

foreign

environmental regulations and statutes as this will

ultimately undermine our

security by exacerbating worldview of the US as a

disrespectful superpower

bully.

 

Congress has excluded testimony from community and state

witnesses during

the previous three similar hearings held in the past year.

 

Urge your representatives, Sec. Rumsfeld and the House

Armed Services

Committee to:

 

1. Strengthen environmental laws and OPPOSE any attempt to

weaken them to

accommodate military activities.

 

2. OPPOSE environmentally catastrophic activities such as

the use of

Depleted Uranium, Nuclear Weapons Testing, the

Weaponization of Space, and

HAARP Technology.

 

3. OPPOSE the use of high intensity military acoustic

devices like SURTASS

LFA Sonar, and SUPPORT new passive technologies that won't

harm the

environment.

 

4. OPPOSE Military attempts to bypass legislative review

and gain exemption

from environmental laws through amendments to any other

committee bills

(such as Military Procurement or Appropriations).

 

5. SUPPORT expansion of the witness list to include

representatives from

impacted communities, regions and states.

 

6. Enforce a full disclosure of military technologies and

the creation of an

independent citizen and scientific defense oversight

committee.

 

For House members contact information:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html (zip code entry)

The capitol switchboard is at (202) 224-3121.

 

Everyone should contact Armed Services Committee Chairman

Bob Stump (fax:

(202) 225-6328 and Resources Committee Chairman James

Hansen (fax: (202)

225-5857) on this issue.

 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!