Number: 1996-01
WHEREAS, this year marks the 60th Anniversary of the National Wildlife Federation–whose members have long been committed to the conservation and good stewardship of natural resources, to the protection of wildlife habitat and to preserving and enhancing public health and the environment; and
WHEREAS, significant progress has been made towards these goals during the last 25 years through passage and implementation of major federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Air Act; and
WHEREAS, much still remains to be done to conserve natural resources and to ensure clean air, water, and land for humans and wildlife in our country; and
Clean Water Act
WHEREAS, although significant progress has been made in cleaning up our nation’s waters under the Clean Water Act with over one billion pounds of toxics and over 900 million tons of untreated sewage no longer discharged annually into our waters, about one third of our waters are still not safe for fishing and swimming; and
WHEREAS, historically the lower 48 states have lost over one half of their original wetlands, and we continue to lose tens of thousands of acres of wetlands annually; and
WHEREAS, wetlands act as natural and very effective filters to protect both surface and ground water from polluted runoff, provide critical habitat to many threatened and endangered species, help control flooding and provide billions of dollars to our economy from commercial fishing and recreation; and
Endangered Species Act
WHEREAS, the Endangered Species Act has helped to prevent the extinction of hundreds of threatened and endangered species, yet approximately 940 species are currently listed and remain in need of protection under the Act and over 500 additional species await listing and are being denied protection due to the current Congressional listing moratorium; and
Safe Drinking Water Act
WHEREAS, our country has one of the world’s safest drinking water supplies due in large part to the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet experts in infectious and parasitic disease with the Centers for Disease Control estimate that 940,000 people are sickened and 900 die from contaminated tap water in the U.S. each year; and
Clean Air Act
WHEREAS, the air in our most polluted cities is dramatically improved since the enactment of the Clean Air Act and lead from auto emissions has been virtually eliminated from our air, yet many areas of the country still do not meet the Act’s health-based standards for many pollutants and over 1.6 billion pounds of toxics, such as ammonia, toluene, chlorinated organic compounds, and mercury are still discharged into our air every year; and
WHEREAS, some members of the 104th Congress have proposed bills to reauthorize these laws, in independent “takings” and “risk assessment” bills, as well as budget and appropriations bills, all of which would effectively roll back and repeal these laws, seriously undermine programs to implement them, and reverse the progress we have made in this country in protecting public health, wildlife habitat and our environment;
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in its Annual Meeting assembled March 1-3, 1996 in West Palm Beach, Florida, reaffirms its commitment to the conservation of our nation’s natural heritage and to the protection of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations and for the wildlife with whom we share this Earth; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NWF supports proposals to improve, enhance and strengthen our current environmental and natural resources conservation laws and the programs to implement them to deal with the serious remaining environmental and natural resource conservation problems in an effective and cost-efficient manner; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NWF opposes extremist proposals to roll back and repeal our current environmental and natural resource conservation laws and similar extremist proposals to undermine effective implementation of these laws by underfunding programs to implement them, and that NWF urges the President and Congress to reject any and all such attempts and to adequately fund environmental and natural resource conservation programs.