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Border Overkill

06/17/2013 Nativegrl77

The Border is Already Secure

Republican senators like Chuck Grassley (IA) and John Cornyn (TX) have been offering various amendments to the immigration bill they claim are necessary to secure the border, but their real purpose is try and kill the bill by placing impossible roadblocks on the pathway to earned citizenship.

The truth is that the border is already as secure as it’s ever been and the immigration bill is already slated to invest billions more to make additional improvements. In fact, the border has already met the border security targets included in the failed 2007 immigration reform bill.

Check out this infographic to see why the border is already secure and we don’t need any poison pill amendments from Republicans to make sure it stays that way.

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Washington Transit System

06/17/2013 Nativegrl77

CHP Washington State Banner

Anyone want to name a bridge after Tim Eyman? The song may be funny but the situation at the State Capitol is not.

The demand for transit and safer streets for bicycles and pedestrians continues to grow and yet many legislators in Olympia simply don’t seem to get it. Washington needs to fix and properly fund our current transportation system before spending money on new highways. Senator Curtis King, Co-Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, is promoting a new transportation funding proposal that will set us back decades. This new budget proposal fails to fund over $900 million worth of projects that are necessary to operate our transit system, provide street improvements for bikes and pedestrians, and address polluted water runoff associated with roads.

Our bridges are literally crumbling around us. Workers can’t get to jobs because their bus service has been cut. The new road “mega-projects” being considered in the transportation funding proposal would dramatically increase climate changing pollution and increase sprawl. The Senate transportation funding proposal is simply unacceptable.

Tell your legislator to invest in transit, pedestrian and bicycles.

Email your legislators and tell them not to support any transportation package that fails to achieve what the House Transportation Committee advanced during the regular session in April. At a minimum, the 12 year revenue package must:

Authorize “local option” funding for transit systems;
Fund transit directly at $420 million;
Fund pedestrian and bicycle projects at $370 million;
Fund polluted runoff mitigation and control at $156 million.

We need your support to create a better future where smart investments help us and our neighbors get where we are going safely.

Cars are our number one source of climate pollution in this state. A sustainable future demands that we have functional transit and safe streets where our children can bike and walk. The Senate transportation package invests exactly 0 dollars in a healthy future. We need to do better.

Public polling shows over and over that Washington voters support fixing our broken roads and bridges and funding transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure more than new highways. Let your legislators know today that you do not support a transportation revenue package that won’t invest in safe and healthy communities, and doesn’t emphasize a fix-it-first approach to roads spending. Let’s ensure the transportation budget reflects our environmental values.

Take Action! Thank you for all that you do,
Tim Gould, Chair, Transportation & Land Use Committee

P.S. Share this alert with your social networks:

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National Geographic : Emerging Explorers | New Trips | Great Nature Project

06/17/2013 Nativegrl77 1 Comment

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TRAVEL

At National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C., we just wrapped up one of our most exciting events of the year: our Explorers Symposium. This annual event brings together our Emerging Explorers, Grantees, and Explorers-in-Residence to share their exhilarating, boundary-pushing work and foster a spirit of learning and collaboration.
Meet our 2013 class of Emerging Explorers.This amazingly diverse group includes a roboticist, an astrobiologist, a glaciologist, an entrepreneur, and a data artist, all of whom are at the forefront of the new age of exploration. Discover all the things our explorers are up to, read updates on their projects, and see our gallery of amazing tales from the field.

Watch explorers pushing the limits of what’s possible.

EXPLORE MORE

•	Read a tribute to severe-storm researcher Tim Samaras.

•	View our Explorer Moment of the Week gallery.

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Join Us in a New Age of Exploration

Climber Cory Richards said, “we endure pain for the joy that comes with discovering ourselves and the planet.” Support our adventurers in the new age of exploration.

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Journey the Silk Road by train, sail the Pacific Isles, and explore the Northwest Passage with National Geographic. Plus, see our trips to the Galápagos, Cuba, and more in our new travel catalog.

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Are You Ready to Explore?

Shop National Geographic’s collection of field-ready gear and gadgets, including tools, binoculars, and more.

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Do You Know How Sex Works?

Explore one of the world’s most popular pastimes on June 18 at 8 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel.

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FROM EXPLORATION TO DECORATION

Photos and maps from our 125 years of exploration are ready to be custom printed for your home or office.

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We want this to be a conversation, so we made this video

06/17/2013 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

Hi, all —

In the past few weeks, people from all over the country have written in to the White House to share the stories of how their families came to America. Each one we read is a reminder that many of us share a similar experience. That’s certainly true for my own family — my parents came as newlyweds from Bolivia. These are narratives that Washington needs to hear as this town debates the right way to reform our broken immigration system.

At the White House, we’re no different from any other office anywhere else in America. As a team, we have a lot of stories that began outside the United States.

To help make this an actual dialogue about who we are as a country, we thought we’d share some of those stories with you.

That’s why we put together this video. Watch it, then pass it along to help get a conversation going in your community about your American immigration stories.

President Obama wants the result of this debate to be legislation that reflects who we are as a country — as much a nation of laws as we are a nation of immigrants. And he wants his White House to reflect who we are as a people — individuals from different circumstances united by a shared set of values and a common set of goals.

This issue is personal, as much for my colleagues here as for people anywhere else. And the thing I love about this video is that these folks help to make it clear why it’s important to fix this broken system. All of them are fulfilling huge dreams, and if others get the chance to have that same opportunity, we’ll all benefit as a nation.

And if more people understand that the motivation for this reform is about living up to our values as Americans, it will be easier to get this done.

So will you take a minute to watch?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/wh-immigration-stories

Thank you so much!

Cecilia

Cecilia Muñoz Director, Domestic Policy Council The White House

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TAKE ACTION: Protect Arctic Marine Mammals From Oil Exploration

06/17/2013 Nativegrl77

We’ve almost reached our goal of 50,000 public comments but we need your help to get there before the June 27 deadline!

After taking action, please share this with your friends:

Thank you again for taking action to protect northwest orcas from being delisted from the Endangered Species Act. The National Marine Fisheries Service is still reviewing public comments, including yours. We promise to keep you updated on the fate of southern resident orcas, but in the meantime, we wanted to let you know about an action that you can take to protect Arctic marine mammals, including beluga and bowhead whales, from oil exploration:
The Arctic’s marine mammals use sound for survival, but planned oil exploration activities could strip them of that ability.
Take action: Tell the National Marine Fisheries Service to say no to Arctic oil exploration that would harm marine wildlife!
Marine mammals—such as bearded and ringed seals, beluga whales, and the endangered bowhead whale—depend on sound to communicate, find food, and avoid prey. Oil exploration activities fill the ocean with loud noise that can interfere with these basic functions. Seismic surveying, for example, uses air-guns to detect oil beneath the sea-floor. The blasts—loud enough to cause deafness—occur day and night for months, and cover vast areas of the ocean.
The federal government is proposing moving forward with loud and risky oil exploration methods even though it has not completed an assessment of the cumulative impacts on Arctic marine mammals. Tell your government to take responsibility for protecting the marine mammals of the Arctic.
The remote Arctic Ocean and its wildlife are already under great stress from climate change. Why add the stress of oil exploration?
Tell the government not to permit any Arctic Ocean oil exploration until it completes a full analysis of the effects and understands how to mitigate the damage to marine mammals.
Sincerely,

Erik Grafe Staff Attorney, Alaska Office Earthjustice
P.S. We’ve almost reached our goal of 50,000 public comments but we need your help to get there before the June 27 deadline! After taking action, please share this with your friends: