Kristine

My dear friend Michael Paoletta will be riding in support of — and raising funds for — CancerCare. All donations will benefit the incredibly essential non-profit organization, CancerCare.

CancerCare is a national nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization that provides free, professional support services to anyone affected by cancer: people with cancer, caregivers, children, loved ones, and the bereaved. CancerCare programs—including counseling and support groups, education, financial assistance and practical help—are provided by professional oncology social workers and are completely free of charge. Founded in 1944, CancerCare provided individual help to more than 100,000 people last year, in addition to the more than 1 million visits to our websites.

Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and David Vitter (R-La.) have introduced The Puppy Uniform Protection Statute (PUPS), S. 707, companion to H.R. 835, to allow oversight of abusive puppy mills in the United States. Puppy mills are large-scale, commercial breeding operations where dogs are commonly housed in overcrowded, filthy, and inhumane conditions. S. 707/H.R. 835 will close a loophole in the Animal Welfare Act that currently allows large-scale, commercial breeders who sell puppies online or directly to the public to escape licensing and regulation.

Will you make quick phone calls to your federal lawmakers and urge them to co-sponsor S. 707/H.R. 835?

TAKE ACTION
Please make a brief, polite phone call TODAY to your two U.S. senators and your U.S. representative and urge them to co-sponsor S. 707/H.R. 835, the PUPS Act. Click here to look up your federal lawmakers’ names and phone numbers. When you call, remember to leave your name and address so it’s clear you are a constituent.

After making your call, fill in and submit the form on the right to automatically send follow-up emails to your legislators, reiterating your support for this legislation. Congress receives a lot of email, so remember to personalize the subject line and email message so that your message stands out.

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Nevada: Protect Horses and Burros

The Nevada legislature is considering SJR 5, a dangerous resolution that takes a step backwards on the protection of wild horses in Nevada. This resolution would essentially make it the official policy of the state that wild horses should not be protected in Nevada, and the state would urge the U.S. Congress to oppose wild horse and burro protection legislation. Nevada is home to about half of the wild horses and burros on federal lands in the west, and their populations can be managed to reduce conflicts on the range through humane methods such as fertility control. Only about 18,000 federally protected wild horses roam Nevada’s vast public lands. The state of Nevada should be urging more protection, not less, of these historic icons of the American West.

TAKE ACTION
Please make a brief, polite call to your state senator and urge opposition for SJR 5. Look up your state senator’s name and phone number.

After you make your calls, please  send a brief, polite email message to your state senator. Elected officials receive a lot of email. Be sure to edit your message so it stands out.

Click Here to Send Your Message

Dear Friend,

You should care about Rio Tinto.

This British and Australian-based mining giant has a shocking and well-documented record of toxic contamination that spans the globe: from Indonesia to Bolivia to Utah.

Now, as one of the major backers of the proposed Pebble Mine, it is threatening to destroy one of our greatest natural treasures: the Bristol Bay wilderness of Alaska.

Rio Tinto wants us to believe it has changed its polluting ways. Its chief executive claims they want to have a ‘net positive effect’ on the environment.

Talk is cheap.  Help us put their words to the test.

http://www.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2205

First, watch what they do, not what they say. Their 2,000-foot-deep Pebble Mine would be gouged out of the heart of paradise. It directly threatens the planet’s greatest sockeye salmon runs, vital populations of bears, wolves and whales, as well as Native communities that have thrived in Bristol Bay for thousands of years.

The gargantuan gold and copper operation would generate some 10 billion tons of mining waste, laced with toxic chemicals, that must be held back forever by massive earthen dams up to 50 stories tall — all in an active earthquake zone!

Does that sound like a ‘net positive effect’ on the environment?

We shouldn’t trust any company — much less a company with Rio Tinto’s dismal record — to take a catastrophic risk with one of our last and greatest wild places.

Next week, Rio Tinto’s officers and shareholders will meet in London. Please join me in telling them we are not buying the company’s ‘kinder, gentler’ image until it abandons its stake in the Pebble Mine.

http://www.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2205

NRDC will deliver your message, along with 100,000 others, directly to the shareholders meeting.

The Pebble Mine is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. But to stop it, we must convince Rio Tinto it will be a financial and public relations disaster as well.

Help NRDC get them the message — and put them to the test — next week in London. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Robert Redford
Trustee, Natural Resources Defense Council

Dear Friend,

I am dismayed — and heartbroken — to report that the last-minute budget deal agreed to by Congressional leaders on Friday night will strip endangered species protection from gray wolves across most of the Northern Rockies, leaving them at the mercy of states that plan to kill hundreds of them.

This stealth attack on wolves — which circumvents the will of the courts and good science — was inserted by Representative Mike Simpson (R, ID) and Senator Jon Tester (D, MT). It was approved by the leadership of both the House and the Senate, and it was okayed by the White House.

It is a shameful day for this nation when both parties unite behind the slaughter of an endangered species — without public hearing or debate.

And there is another victim here as well: the Endangered Species Act.

Congress has never before removed an animal from the endangered species list. By replacing scientific judgment with political calculation, the House and Senate have struck at the very heart of wildlife protection in America.

We have to make sure that the political door is not thrown open to new attacks on other imperiled species.

Send a message to your Senators and Representative right now, expressing your outrage at this attack on wolves and telling them to keep their hands off the Endangered Species Act.

In the meantime, I urge you to keep faith with our shared dream of a sustainable future for wolves in the Northern Rockies. Tens of thousands of you made your voice heard over the past six months as we tried to stave off this worst-case outcome in Congress.

We fought the good fight but, in the end, we could not overcome the Beltway politics of cynicism and deal-making. We are left feeling terrible sorrow for the wolves that will now die as a result.

But make no mistake: we have fought too long and too hard for wolf recovery to give up. We always knew that achieving our goal could take years, perhaps decades. And as I write this, NRDC is already preparing for the next phase of this fight.

Our Montana office will be monitoring the states to ensure that they uphold their commitment to protect viable populations of wolves — and we intend to hold those states accountable. We will also continue to promote practical methods for ranchers to end wolf conflicts without shooting these magnificent animals.

I’ve never been more determined that wolves be allowed to roam wild and free in the Rockies. I know you’ll stand with us.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

P.S. Part of what makes this defeat so hard to stomach is that the Senate and White House stood strong against 18 other anti-environmental riders. Thanks to your phone calls and emails, we staved off an attempt to cripple the EPA’s ability to control air and global warming pollution. That makes the bipartisan attack on wolves all the more unconscionable.