Call your Senator to stop SB 1290
From: Frank Jackalone:
Sierra Club lobbyist Dave Cullen reports that the state lands bill, SB 1290, which threatens Florida's public lands, especially our state parks, passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. Its companion bill, HB 1075, also passed last week on the floor of the House of Representatives.Our last chance to defeat or improve SB 1290 is on the Senate floor this week.Sierra Club Florida will take two actions to mobilize grassroots in opposition to the bill. First, we will distribute an alert on Sunday to all Sierra Club members in Florida asking them to call their state senators.Second, we will involve as many volunteers as possible in a virtual phone bank to generate calls from our members to their senators all day Monday, 9:00 am to 6 pm.Anyone can join our virtual phone bank from the comfort of your home, office, park -- just about anywhere! We use a system that allows you to make calls from any location if you have a computer with an online connection and a phone. It's the same technology we used to help beat the fracking bill last week, involving 19 volunteers who reached more than 1,000 of our members and got 200 calls transferred directly to their senators.Can you give us an hour or more to make calls? All you need is a phone line and a connected computer. We'll provide the names and phone numbers of our members and show you how to connect automatically to a live person and connect that person directly to their Senator's office.If you are interested and available, please reply directly tophil.compton@sierraclub.org and he'll get you scheduled to participate in the phone bank.Thanks for your help!- Frank
Cattle grazing in state parks? Call your Senator to stop it.Dear friend,We urgently need you to call your state Senator. A bill is headed to the Senate floor that would remove key environmental protections for Florida State Parks and threaten the use and enjoyment for all Floridians.SB 1290 passed out of its last committee last Thursday and will be brought to the floor of the Senatethis week.
Please call your Senator and urge him or her to vote ‘No’ unless SB 1290 is amended to:
• Exclude our state parks and preserves from the land exchange provision. These important lands must not be given up to private use in exchange for conservation easements that could well eliminate public access
• Require land management plans to remain consistent with the purposes for which they were acquired. DEP’s goal of requiring land management plans to be compatible with conservation or recreation purposes or both potentially opens our parks and other conservation lands to inappropriate uses like hunting, logging, grazing, and off road vehicles. ‘Conservation’ and ‘recreation’ are broad categories and the purposes the lands were acquired for may be much narrower. The bill’s language grants DEP too much discretion.
This is the last real chance to impact this bill. The House and Senate versions are the same and could be sent to the Governor next week. Please call your Senator now, tell them where you live and that you vote.Call your Senator now:
Thank you for taking action and for all you do for Florida's environment!Dave Cullen
Lobbyist
Sierra Club Florida
