Your Fight The Right-Wing Wackos for July 23, 2008

** Earthjustice **
There's a lot of speculation these days over who is to blame for our rising gas prices. But one thing is for certain: drilling for oil off our coasts won't get us out of this predicament. Yet the threat of offshore drilling -- and its disastrous environmental effects -- could become a reality if Congress votes to lift a longstanding ban on new offshore drilling in the coming weeks. We need your help to make sure that doesn't happen.

Tell Congress to continue to oppose offshore drilling!
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** Center for Biological Diversity **
At a time when fisheries are suffering, and environmental review and public feedback on fisheries management are crucial, the Bush administration is proposing to make an end run around both -- which could have catastrophic effects on management of crucial resources such as sea turtles, corals, and valuable fish populations.

Instead of streamlining environmental review of fisheries management, the Fisheries Service's proposed rule creates a cumbersome system that makes compliance difficult. In addition, the proposed rule makes it hard for citizens to weigh in by vastly shortening public comment periods from a mandatory 45 days to as little as two weeks, and introduces multiple new ways for fishery managers to avoid environmental review and public participation entirely. Moreover, the rule would put environmental review authority in the hands of fishery management councils -- advisory bodies largely made up of appointed members with significant financial interests in the fisheries they manage -- rather than the agency accountable to the public for the state of our fisheries.

The Fisheries Service's proposed rule threatens the health of our fisheries and the public's ability to do anything about it. Worse yet, it sets an ominous precedent for the government to roll back crucial NEPA requirements for other categories of agency actions across both land and sea.

Please tell the agency to take back these flawed regulations and develop new regulations that comply with the spirit and letter of the Act.
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** People for the American Way **
The Bush administration's at it again -- denying reality that doesn’t fit its political agenda (as it's done with global warming, the war, the economy and so much more).

The press this week reported on an offensive protocol by the Census Bureau for how it intends to handle married same-sex couples during the 2010 Census. The Bureau will NOT count legally married gay couples as married, and will instead EDIT the data submitted by married gay couples to change their status to "unmarried partners."

Please sign on to our petition to the Census Bureau urging them not to do this.