Legislative Scorecard Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 5^th, 2012

Contact: Mike Berkowitz, (248) 345-9808, mike.berkowitz@sierraclub.org

Michigan Sierra Club Releases Legislative Scorecard for State Legislators

All but four Republicans scored zero percent, most Democrats scored above 75 percent

LANSING - The Sierra Club Michigan Chapter today released its 2011-2012 Legislative Scorecard, which tracks legislators environmental voting records, for the Michigan House of Representatives. While the scorecard generally showed Democrats voting to maintain and/or strengthen environmental protections, more disturbingly it showed Republicans generally vote to weaken or eliminate environmental protections.

“It’s extremely frustrating that the environment has become a partisan political issue,” said Mike Berkowitz, the Michigan chapter organizer for the Sierra Club. “Of the 62 Republican State Representatives, 58 scored zero percent. If that statistic doesn’t scare you, it should. The Republican House leadership has completely failed at protecting clean air and clean water for Michigan citizens.”

The Sierra Club’s scorecard calculated the results based upon eight roll call votes in the House for the 2011-2012 legislative session. According to the Scorecard, House Democrats scored an average of 78 percent, while House Republicans scored an average of one percent. Six lawmakers scored a perfect 100 percent. A full list of “Environmental Champions” (100 percent), “Environmental Stewards” (80 to 99 percent), and “Pollution Promoters” (zero to 25 percent) is included at the end of this release. The only Republican who crossed over to vote with Democrats on more than one bill on the scorecard was Rep. Matt Lori (R-Constantine.) Nine Democrats scored less than a 65 percent, two of whom scored as low as 38 percent. The full scorecard is available here.

“We focused on votes that our members and our Legislative Committee voiced major opinions about,” said Lydia Fischer, chair of the Legislative Committee for the Michigan Sierra Club. “Overall, votes were selected that clearly showcased the true environmental intent of the legislators.”

Aside from the partisan nature of the voting, the number of anti-environment bills that were advanced also increased. “Almost every single environmental bill considered over the last year was an attack on Michigan’s environmental protections,” Berkowitz continued. “Pro-environment bills that we lobbied for – such as bills to protect Michigan residents from the dangers of fracking – never even received public hearings in committee.”

“Why does our legislature have the wrong priorities when it comes to protecting Michigan’s environment?” asked James D’Amour, a Sierra Club member once active in the Republican Party. “Clean air and clean water should not be partisan issues. We were the best progressive leaders in making conservation a top priority. This so-called ‘new’ GOP is disappointing and disheartening for Republicans like me who care about the environment.”

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The Sierra Club is the nation’s largest grassroots environmental organization, with over 170,000 members and supporters in Michigan.

2011-2012 Environmental Champions (100% score)

District	Name	Party
5	John Olumba	D
9	Shanelle Jackson	D
11	David E. Nathan	D
25	Jon M. Switalski	D
27	Ellen Cogen Lipton	D
53	Jeff Irwin	D

2011-2012 Environmental Stewards (80-99% score)

District	Name	Party
1	Timothy Bledsoe	D
6	Frederick C. Durhal Jr.	D
7	James Womack	D
8	Thomas Stallworth III	D
12	Rashida Tlaib	D
15	George T. Darany	D
17	Phil Cavanagh	D
21	Dian Slavens	D
26	Jim Townsend	D
35	Rudy Hobbs	D
39	Lisa Brown	D
50	Charles Smiley	D
54	David Rutledge	D
68	Joan Bauer	D
69	Mark S. Meadows	D
75	Brandon Dillon	D
92	Marcia Hovey-Wright	D

2011-2012 Pollution Promoters (25% and below)

District	Name	Party
19	John J. Walsh	R
20	Kurt Heise	R
23	Pat Somerville	R
24	Anthony G. Forlini	R
30	Jeff Farrington	R
32	Andrea LaFontaine	R
33	Ken Goike	R
36	Peter J. Lund	R
38	Hugh D. Crawford	R
40	Charles Moss	R
41	Martin Knollenberg	R
43	Gail Haines	R
44	Eileen Kowall	R
45	Tom McMillin	R
46	Bradford C. Jacobsen	R
47	Cynthia S. Denby	R
52	Mark Ouimet	R
55	Rick Olson	R
56	Dale W. Zorn	R
57	Nancy E. Jenkins	R
58	Kenneth Kurtz	R
59	Matthew J. Lori	R
61	Margaret E. O'Brien	R
63	Jase Bolger	R
64	Earl Poleski	R
65	Michael Shirkey	R
66	William Rogers	R
70	Rick Outman	R
71	Deb Lynn Shaughnessy	R
72	Ken Yonker	R
73	Peter MacGregor	R
74	David Agema	R
77	Thomas B. Hooker	R
78	Sharon Tyler	R
79	Al Pscholka	R
80	Aric Nesbitt	R
81	Judson S. Gilbert II	R
82	Kevin Daley	R
83	Paul Muxlow	R
84	Kurt Damrow	R
85	Ben Glardon	R
86	Lisa Posthumus Lyons	R
87	Mike Callton	R
88	Robert J. Genetski II	R
89	Amanda Price	R
90	Joseph Haveman	R
91	Holly Hughes	R
93	Paul E. Opsommer	R
94	Kenneth B. Horn	R
97	Joel Johnson	R
98	Jim Stamas	R
99	Kevin Cotter	R
100	Jon Bumstead	R
101	Ray A. Franz	R
102	Phil Potvin	R
103	Bruce R. Rendon	R
104	Wayne A. Schmidt	R
105	Greg MacMaster	R
106	Peter Pettalia	R
107	Frank Foster	R
108	Ed McBroom	R
110	Matt Huuki	R

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Media Contact:  Gail Philbin, 312-493-2384

Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Celebrates Three Milestones in 2012

Chapter’s 45th Anniversary; National’s 120th; and 25th of Michigan Wilderness Act

Lansing – Lynne Stauff and Dave Errickson can honestly say the nation’s oldest environmental organization changed their lives.  The Lansing residents met on a Club outing in Glacier National Park in 2006, got engaged at another park and tied the knot last August.

“My first Sierra Club outing brought me the love of my life,” says Errickson.  “In five years of membership, I have gotten back far more than I could ever give.”

 “We courted over trail work, splashing boulders in a muddy stream, rinsing off in a cold creek, sharing meals with like-minded people while watching the sun set over the mountains,” Stauff adds. “We still enjoy Sierra Club trips and volunteering with our local chapter.  It’s been an adventure of a lifetime!”

Even folks who can’t attribute the success of their love lives to the Sierra Club owe a great deal to this national organization, which celebrates its 120th anniversary in 2012, and to the Michigan Chapter, which fetes its 45th.

“If you’ve ever enjoyed Sleeping Bear Dunes, Grand Island, Nordhouse Dunes or many other wild places in Michigan or around the country, you have the Sierra Club to thank,” says Jean Gramlich, an Oakland County resident and chair of the Chapter’s Executive Committee.  “Its victories are a part of the fabric of our lives.”

The national Sierra Club played a key role in killing a plan to flood the Grand Canyon in the 1960s after mobilizing thousands of people in protest in the days before the internet and social media. Similarly, since its founding in 1967, the Michigan Chapter has had many important victories, beginning with the protection of 35 miles of pristine coastline that became Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in 1970.

The Michigan Chapter’s success stories range from the historic 1987 Michigan Wilderness Act, which protected 90,000 acres of old growth forests, lakes and dunes, to a 2002 ban on Great Lakes oil drilling to 2008 legislation requiring power companies to invest in alternative energy and energy efficiency.  The volunteer-led organization’s advocacy helped shut down old coal-fired power plants and stop new ones from being built, blocked over 100 damaging oil and gas leases, and brought greater scrutiny and regulation to factory farms.

Yet, the victory Chapter Director Anne Woiwode takes most pride in is the Michigan Wilderness Act, passed in 1987 after a 10-year political battle she witnessed as a young environmentalist. The law created 10 now-familiar wilderness areas full of remote lakes and spectacular dunes:  Big Island Lake, Delirium, Horseshoe Bay, Mackinac, McCormick, Nordhouse Dunes, Rock River Canyon, Round Island, Sturgeon River Gorge, and Sylvania.

“My son came home from college after a visit to Nordhouse Dunes and raved about it, asking if I’d ever heard of it,” recalls Woiwode. “I was happy and proud to know the Sierra Club had ensured that he and future generations would be able to enjoy this great natural treasure.”

The Michigan Chapter will observe its year of anniversaries with a variety of events such as film screenings, wilderness outings and presentations to underscore the vital role it has played in protecting the state’s natural heritage. For details, visit www.michigan.sierraclub.org or contact Gail Philbin at gail.philbin@sierraclub.org. 

Sierra Club-GVSUFilm Series Celebrates Three Anniversaries in 2012

Media Contact:  Gail Philbin, 312-493-2384

Screening of "Gasland" Spotlights Latest Environmental Threat to Michigan

Grand Rapids -- The Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter and Grand Valley State University’s School of Communications join forces to celebrate three Sierra Club milestones in 2012 with a film series and membership drive that kicks off with a free, public screening of the award-winning documentary “Gasland.”  The movie and a post-screening Q&A take place Thursday, Feb. 16, 7-9 pm. at GVSU’s Loosemore Auditorium, 401 Fulton St. W, Grand Rapids.

The event and collaboration honor the 45th anniversary of the Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter and the 120th of the national organization, and it marks the 25th anniversary of the Michigan Wilderness Act. This 1987 legislation, spearheaded by the Michigan Chapter, protected 90,000 acres of old growth forests, dunes and lakes after a 10-year political battle to designate the best of Michigan’s three million acres of national forest lands as wilderness.

“This is a great way to introduce people to the Sierra Club, because the movie is about a new environmental threat we’ve seen here in Michigan and are tackling head on,” said Anne Woiwode, Michigan Chapter director.

“Gasland,” an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning film by Josh Fox, offers a first-person account of the filmmaker’s quest to find out more about hydraulic fracturing –“ fracking” for short -- a brutal but increasingly popular method of extracting deep-seated natural gas that has come to Michigan in recent years. Exempt from environmental regulations, fracking blasts 3-7 million gallons of chemical-laced water into rock to release gas.  The result is air pollution and toxic water wells that can produce flaming faucets, as shown in “Gasland,” and even earthquakes.

The Michigan Chapter has been working with legislators on a package of bills to delay fracking in Michigan and strengthen regulations to protect people from the fallout of this dangerous process. The approach represents just one of a variety of tactics including grassroots action, coalition building and litigation that has helped the Chapter secure numerous environmental protections in the last five decades. In addition to the Michigan Wilderness Act, its diverse victories include the protection of 35 miles of pristine coastline that became Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in 1970, a 2002 ban on Great Lakes oil drilling, and 2008 legislation requiring power companies to invest in alternative energy and consumer energy efficiency.

The joint Sierra Club-GVSU celebration in 2012 represents the first-ever collaboration between the nation’s oldest environmental organization and the only Michigan university deemed one of the top 25 "cutting edge" green colleges in the United States by the 2009 Kaplan College Guide.  It coincides with GVSU’s winter semester and will feature another environmental film screening on campus April 5th and student recruitment activities including a wilderness outing hosted by GVSU film professors John Philbin and John Schmit.

“In the 1980s while living in California, I got hooked on the Great Outdoors and joined the Sierra Club – it was a place I found kindred spirits,” says Philbin, who made a documentary about Yosemite National Park rangers in 1986.  “And Sierra Magazine got me dreaming of hiking trips to all the national parks. I’m happy to help introduce the Club to my students and rally a new generation to the cause.”

For more on Gasland, visit: www.gaslandthemovie.com.  For details about Sierra Club’s anniversary year, contact Gail Philbin at gail.philbin@sierraclub.org or 517-484-2372, ext. 16. For information about the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, visit www.michigan.sierraclub.org.

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"Too many children losing connection to world around us" 

January 02, 2012 -- Jackson Citizen Patriot guest column by Mark Muhich Click here to read full story.

January 19, 2012

Media Contact:  Gail Philbin, 312-493-2384

Groups Call on State of Michigan to Shake Up Agriculture Practices

East Lansing, MI – A diverse group of faith, farming, conservation, community and food organizations today called on the Michigan Agriculture Commission to reassess and revamp some of the state’s most controversial livestock farming practices.  The seventeen organizations called for a complete reassessment of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Generally Accepted Agriculture Management Practices, or GAAMPs regarding use of liquid livestock wastes and concentration of facilities.  The organizations specifically ask the state officials to give “due consideration” of impacts of these practices on agricultural communities and the environment, as well as on individual operations.

Janet Kauffman, spokeswoman for Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, presented a letter from the organizations to the Commission at their meeting today.  Kauffman said "the big picture shows big impact and real harm -- to neighbors, to watersheds, and to the Great Lakes.  To stop pollution downwind and downstream, agricultural practices can't just be for one farm anymore.  We need to add it all up and find practices that protect whole communities, and whole watersheds."

According to the letter, the voluntary GAAMPs for liquid manure and facility concentration have lagged far behind the scientific documentation of the negative impacts of this waste on public health, natural resources and the well-being of communities.   By law the GAAMPs are updated every year, however updates are usually minimal and has not addressed the rapid growth of intensive livestock practices. The introduction of liquid manure systems and the application of the liquid manure onto fields with subsurface tiles, and rapid expansion and the concentration of large facilities has been linked to water pollution downstream, including in the Great Lakes.  Pathogens, including E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and Giardia are commonly found in ditches that drain the farms into streams and lakes.

Lyman Welch, Water Quality Program Manager, Alliance for the Great Lakes, explained the significance of cumulative impacts, “Agricultural runoff threatens our Great Lakes with algal blooms that harm the lakes’ health, and the economy of the region through lost tourism and lost recreational use. Michigan’s agricultural practices must be updated to help prevent nutrient runoff from harming the Great Lakes.”

“Thirty years is a significant length of time, time to reassess practices for effectiveness,” said Rita Chapman, Sierra Club Clean Water Program Manager, “to make sure they still result in clean water and air, and healthy sustainable agricultural communities.  It’s time to look ahead to agricultural practices that all can live with.”

In addition to ECCSCM, Sierra Club and the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the letter presented to the Commission today was signed by the following organizations:

- Adrian Dominican Sisters, Program for Justice Peace, and Corporate Responsibility
- Clean Water Action
- Clinton River Watershed Council
- Food and Water Watch
- Great Grand Rapids Food Systems Council
- Izaak Walton League of America, Dwight Lydell Chapter
- Lone Tree Council
- Michigan Environmental Council
- Michigan Farmers Union
- Michigan Trout Unlimited
- National Wildlife Federation
- Program of Environmental Studies/Geology, Alma College
- Society for Protecting Environmental Assets
- Western Lake Erie Waterkeepers