Please submit EIS comments on immigration and population by August 20!
Alert date:
16 August 2018
Alert body:
From NPG:
If you haven't already - make your voice heard!
We have a unique opportunity to finally see some real government progress on the issues we care most about immigration-driven poopulation growth and the devastating, long term effects of such growth on our environment and resources.
The Council of Environmental Quality, a division of President Trump’s executive branch, is now taking comments from the public regarding the details of what is specifically evaluated when applying the National Environmental Policy Act. This is our chance to have population size and growth included in future Environmental Impact Statements.
All it takes is 2 minutes of your time.
NPG is pleased to support NumbersUSA, an ally organization working on issues similar to NPG’s goals, which has taken the lead in this effort. A recent communication from NumbersUSA states:
“In 1970, President Nixon signed into law the backbone of our nation's environmental protections, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA's mandate was simple but broad. All federal agencies which implement actions that have a ‘significant impact on the environment’ are required to analyze the effect of those actions on the environment before carrying them out.
We must tell The Council of Environmental Quality that population size and growth must be included in all Environmental Impact Statements.
Time is short. Please click here to send your comments today or visit The Federal Registerfor complete information. The period to comment ends on August 20, 2018 - so we must act quickly.
NPG submitted its comments earlier this week. Here is what we said:
“The leaders of Negative Population Growth urge you to include a careful evaluation of population size and growth in any future Environmental Impact Statements. The size of our population is the most pressing environmental issue of all, and no conservation efforts will ever negate the serious long-term effects of population growth. If we are to leave our children and grandchildren a truly sustainable future we must begin to slow, halt, and eventually reverse population growth until we reach a smaller, truly sustainable size.”
Feel free to use this as a model for your comments.
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Here are comments that CAIRCO's Fred Elbel submitted. You can use them as a model for your comments, but do not copy them verbatim:
American women voluntarily achieved replacement level fertility (2.1 children per woman) in 1972. Yet mass immigration is driving U.S. population to double within the lifetimes of children born today.
That will mean that every city will be effectively twice as large. Twice as many houses, roads, cars, hospitals, schools, and prisons. Twice the demand for diminishing farmland, water, and petroleum - which we are already importing from other countries. Double the pollution, and double the quantities of wastes that must be disposed of. Lines to get in to national parks will be twice as long.
Increasing demands on our fragile sustaining ecosystems are clearly a function of immigration-driven population growth.
Population numbers, as well as projected population increase, must necessarily and absolutely be included and strongly considered in all Environmental Impact Statements.
Excerpted from the Abstract of the 2016 PFIR Final EIS on Immigration Policy:
In this Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), the Washington, D.C.- based non-governmental organization (NGO) Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) assesses six types of potential long-term environmental impacts associated with three alternative immigration scenarios: 1) No Action Alternative, in which current immigration rates of approximately 1.25 million per year would be maintained to the year 2100; 2) Expansion Alternative, or 2.25 million annual immigration; and 3) Reduction Alternative, or 0.25 million (250,000) annual immigration into the United States.
U.S. population size was projected to the year 2100 under the three alternative immigration scenarios. Fertility and mortality rates were held steady under all three alternatives, at the levels used by the U.S. Census Bureau in its 2008 projections.
The No Action Alternative would lead to a U.S. population of 524 million in 2100, an increase of 215 million (70 percent) over the 2010 population of 309 million. The Expansion Alternative would result in a U.S. population of 669 million in 2100, an increase of 360 million (117 percent) above the 2010 population of 309 million. The Reduction Alternative would lead to a U.S. population of 379 million in 2100, an increase of 70 million (23 percent) above the 2010 population of 309 million.
Potential environmental impacts for each of the three alternatives were assessed in six pertinent topic areas: 1) urban sprawl and loss of farmland; 2) habitat loss and impacts on biodiversity; 3) water demands and withdrawals from natural systems; 4) carbon dioxide emissions and resultant climate change; 5) energy demands and national security implications; 6) international ecological impacts of U.S. immigration policies.
In general, the No Action Alternative (1.25 million annual immigration) and the Expansion Alternative (2.25 million annual immigration) would result in significant, long-term, widespread adverse environmental impacts on all resource topics analyzed. The Expansion Alternative in particular would result in major, highly adverse environmental impacts on a number of resources, even taking enhanced conservation and efficiency measures into account. The Reduction Alternative would still entail higher environmental impacts than at present, but much less than the other two alternatives.