Rep. Jared Huffman’s bill to permanently instate ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore and eliminate the park’s free-roaming Tule Elk herds failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote in the final days of 2018. Had it passed, HR-6687 would have changed the law and the national seashore forever. With the Democrats now in the majority in the House, the former chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rob Bishop (R-UT)  has been replaced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who is far friendlier to conservation and public lands. Huffman continues to serve on this important Committee and heads the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.

HR 6687 is up for a vote in the Senate this week. Please let your Senators know that you oppose this bill not only for its plans to eliminate Tule elk from the Pt Reyes National Seashore but for the secrecy under which the bill was advanced. By contrast, the General Management Plan Amendment process underway is transparent. It gives the public the opportunity to review the park service's proposed plans, provides for public comment, and requires that planning decisions be based on an Environmental Impact Statement. HR 6687 preempts that process. Please take a moment now to call the Senators below to ask them to allow the GMPA process to play out and to oppose HR 6687.

The National Park Service has published its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) for more than 28,000 acres leased for cattle grazing at the Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This is the first step in the GMPA planning process. Your comments to the National Park Service Public Scoping website could determine the fate of the park and its wildlife for generations to come. Public comments to the draft plan must be submitted by November 30. 
 

They say politics makes strange bedfellows, and that’s apparently the case with Rep. Jared Huffman and Rep. Rob Bishop, the Utah congressman who, in a giveaway to Big Oil, cut a million protected acres from the Bears Ears National Monument. Bishop champions “unlocking” public lands so that drillers, miners and cattlemen can feast upon them, and wants to “return” federal lands to the states for development.

Much has changed in the nearly 40 years since the Point Reyes National Seashore General Management Plan was adopted— the effects of climate change;  a growing list of endangered and threatened species; record numbers of visitors to the national parks; a $12 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance throughout the National Park System.