There is going to be a community forum this evening to discuss Sen. John McCain’s border security bill, SB 750, and what it means to the Southern Arizona borderlands.
The so-called Arizona Borderland Protection and Preservation Act—which was first introduced in March, then backed off after being approved by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and is now making a comeback with critics—would “cut unnecessary red tape and enable Border Patrol agents to have access to all federally managed land in Southwest Arizona, so they can perform their jobs effectively, keep our communities safe, and secure the border once and for all,” waiving laws on all federal public land and all tribal land within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.(Read more, here.)
In short, if the Border Patrol feels it’s necessary to build surveillance towers in the middle of Saguaro National Park, if the bill sees the light of day, they can do so without any permission or input.
Here’s a statement by McCain and U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon (who sponsors a sister bill in the U.S. House) from earlier in year:
“For decades, drug cartels and human smugglers have exploited U.S. land management laws by crossing our borders illegally and harming Arizona’s national parks and protected areas. Amazingly, the laws put in place to protect these lands also prevent Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs. Currently, it is impossible for our Border Patrol agents to effectively secure the border when current land management laws prevent them from routinely patrolling large swaths of federal land. Our common-sense legislation would cut unnecessary red tape and enable Border Patrol agents to have access to all federally managed land in Southwest Arizona so they can perform their jobs effectively, keep our communities safe, and secure the border once and for all.”
The forum tonight is happening at the Alliance for Global Justice, 225 E. 26th St., at 7:30 p.m., where panelists that include U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Dan Millis of the Sierra Club, and Cyndi Tuell of Oak Flat, will talk to us about what advocacy groups are referring to as the “latest assault on undocumented workers, climate refugees and the Sonoran Desert.”
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2015.
Global justice? What can that possibly mean? Each country has it’s own unique and somewhat individual laws.
Is this the one world government crowd again? Zero population growth and the SDS?
Sounds like a very slanted group of panelists, all with the Obama agenda of no development of any kind, all illegals are welcome, more climate change BS, etc. God help us; deliver us from these fools!
Until these groups unite behind some sort of interior enforcement, their objections sound pretty hollow. What they really seem to stand for is open borders and unlimited immigration (and the wishes of the American people be damned).
Exactly bslap. They have no shame.
Be there!
As usual, McCain’s pandering to the loony, xenophobic, racist republican base is implementing yet another attack on the environment, the Web of Life that supports ALL OF US as well as wasting more treasure on the bloated war machine…
Never mind that the Democrats through the EPA has turned rivers gold and destroyed drinking water. Or that Planned Parenthood is based on racist intentions.
If you have a problem with McCain say it. But the “web of life ” has not been violated based on mining. Or forestry management or most all the issues used to scare voters.
Life expectancy is increasing as diet and exercise come to the forefront.
In 1948 the United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/). Human beings are, first and foremost, earthlings. Deny climate change all you want, the facts are clear that our planet is being altered by our addiction to fossil-fuel based energy consumption. More shopping, more guns, more walls, and fiercer forms of patriotism will not solve the mess; as the Pope, the Pentagon, and now Muslim leaders have recognized, climate change is a huge threat to ALL of us, regardless of race, religion, gender, age, or any other arbitrary category that divides us. Why not work together rather than against each other?
“Labor leader Cesar Chavez, who was also against ethnic organizations like La Raza, would tell illegal immigrants to get out of the country, especially because they lowered the wages of American workers. And he was often far from compassionate in handling illegal immigrants.”
Can’t stump the Trump. You have to go, you have to go.
Mary, I think you may have some of us confused with your term “climate change.” Are you saying it is man caused and we can change it back? Or are you simply saying the climate is changing? (Which it has constantly done)
To date man has never been able to make a correction to the world climate.
Dan, since the industrial revolution humans have released untold amounts of carbon in the atmosphere. Who knew it would come back to bite us in the behind? But our ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, weather systems are intensifying. What would happen if you sat in a closed garage with the car running? Our earth is enveloped by a layer of breathable air; carbon emissions mess with a closed ecosystem – yeah, it is a BIG system, but there is no Planet B after we trash this one. Let’s work together to find better alternatives….if it isn’t already too late to save our species!
Monty Mary what you have done is very ingenious…and lazy. You have taken a political statement trumpeted by tricky old Am Gore and used it to try to skip to summation that we are doomed.
It’s snowing in Calgary. Volcanoes released billions more than fossil fuel and we are living longer than ever.
You have fallen victim to the fear de jour. Send them your money and pray for results.
Because you won’t get any.
Don’t look now climate change amphobians:
Save for hurricane-turned-cyclone Sandy in 2012, the US mainland has been spared any major hurricane destruction since a spate of big storms, including hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Dennis, struck the Gulf Coast in the mid-2000s. Indeed, a 9-year “drought” in Category 3 or greater storms that reach land is unmatched by any stretch since at least 1850, according to a 2015 NASA study.
In olden days (4 years ago) it was propagated that hurricanes were intensifying because of GW. Already, not so.
Hmmm, it’s so lucky we don’t have to worry about hurricanes now; it frees up our mental energy to worry about those wildfires instead. As the economic costs of intensifying weather systems mount, so will acknowledgement that anthropomorphic induced climate destabilization is real. It’s just “inconvenient” to admit it and to have to do anything about it. History will sort it all out for us, if any of your descendants can live on the Eaarth they’ll inherit (yeah, spelled wrong on purpose – Bill McKibbon’s book tells why).
…and the Christian Science Monitor reports July, 2015 is the hottest month on record….
Oh, No! It’s Hot Out Here!
Too Much Carbon In the Atmosphere!
I’m not surprised that temperature history is inadequate, you can’t even get an accurate weather forecast for tomorrow let alone 150 years ago. Measuring devices have become so much more accurate and we now collate thousands of locations.
But to believe that it’s starting fires? Come on Mary. You need to lighten up a little and enjoy life.
2013
“While global warming has been trumpeted as an epic climate change crisis with human-produced CO2, a trace atmospheric “greenhouse gas” branded as a primary culprit and endangering “pollutant,” remember that throughout earlier periods of Earth’s history CO2 levels have been between four and eighteen times higher than now, with temperature changes preceding, not following atmospheric CO2 changes.
It’s also worth remembering that about half of all estimated warming since 1900 occurred prior to the mid-1940s despite continuously rising CO2 levels. Also consider that, even today, about 97% of all current atmospheric CO2 derives from natural sources.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/08/21/the-new-york-times-global-warming-hysteria-ignores-17-years-of-flat-global-temperatures/