Is Someone Close to You Still Undecided?

If you know someone who hasn't voted or is still worrying about whom to vote for, here are half a dozen new reasons to get to the polls and elect Barack Obama:

1. Green Republicans have switched. Two former Republican EPA Administrators just endorsed Obama. William Ruckelshaus and Russell Train, who guided the agency through its early years under Republican presidents (including Ronald Reagan) said that Obama, unlike McCain, has "compellingly stated his intent to re-engage the community of nations in support of policies that will begin the arduous task of realizing a clean and secure future for the planet."


2. Peace and quiet -- or 9,000 snowmobiles a month in Yellowstone? Repeatedly rebuffed by the federal courts, the Bush administration is now proposing to allow 9,000 snowmobiles a month to destroy the winter tranquility and harass wildlife in Yellowstone National Park. John McCain would continue to allow industrial recreation in our National Parks.


3. Saving the Endangered Species Act. After a stunning speed reading exercise in which 15 highly trained Department of the Interior reviewed 300,000 comments in 32 hours, the Department brightly concluded that no significant environmental harm would result from simply allowing federal agencies to voluntarily decide whether their projects might be a threat to wildlife. Only a new administration can insist that biologists, not highway engineers, are best qualified to decide whether a highway threatens wetland habitat. That is, after all, why American universities give advanced degrees -- we believe in detailed knowledge. Picking Sarah Palin to be his energy czar strongly suggests that John McCain does not. She is 50 percent off in her estimate of how much of America's energy her own state produces.


4. Your lungs. Bush's EPA wants to allow dirty power plants to operate more hours every year, putting more pollution into your neighborhood, without having to clean up. With a new administration, headed by Barack Obama, this rule will either never become law or it will be reversed. Breathe or choke? It's your choice at the polls.


5. Do you trust Washington? If so, vote for John McCain. He would allow federal agencies to take away your right to sue when a defective product makes you sick, kills your kids, or destroys your livelihood. This doctrine of "federal preemption" is at the heart of the Bush administration's effort to take away your right to protect yourself -- and right now fifty different federal regulations that would limit your ability to act in self defense in the courts are teed up for the next president and Congress.


6. Rules, rules, I'm so sick of rules.... The Bush administration has 90 regulations it wants to get rid of -- including major rules on pipeline safety, drinking water standards, oil spills, and pollution from mountaintop-removal mining. If John McCain is elected, this legacy of deregulation will become permanent. If Barack Obama is elected, we can start putting the federal cop back on the beat.

Paid for by Sierra Club Political Committee, www.sierraclub.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.