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The Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, HR554, to the best of my knowledge has cleared all committees and the next logical step would be to schedule it for a vote by the House of Representatives, but with the current turmoil in congress caused by the failures on Wall Street, I can’t get through to my contact to find out the exact status of this particular legislation. My personal opinion is that it has been placed on a back burner and action on it will be delayed for the time being. This does not mean that we are out of the woods, but it does give us another small window of opportunity to express our opposition. With the up-roar among the citizens caused by the proposed bail-out plans for Wall Street and the up-coming elections, constituents have really gotten the undivided attention of representatives, and if you have not written or petitioned yours to express opposition to HR554, you now have a short but golden opportunity to let your sentiments be known. While my information has been very limited, I was very pleased to find out that quite a few of our members have talked to their representatives or have written them a letter in opposition to the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act. I also know that a number of our clubs have submitted petitions opposing this legislation. While these efforts are really commendable, the down side is that these individuals and clubs represent only a very small percentage of our membership. If we want to stop or have this legislation significantly modified in our favor, it is going to require a lot more participation. We have to let our representatives know what our desires are if we want them to act in our favor. I am serving as president of my club again and for several months I have encouraged our members to contact or write a letter to our representative regarding HR554. As you might expect my efforts were basically ignored. Finally, I decided to write a petition that our members could sign and a sample letter that they could use as a guide to write their own. Quite a few of our members signed the petition and several of the ones that did not sign took copies of the sample letter to use as a guide in writing their own. I regret that I waited so long to do this and that all of our members did not participate, but at least we have taken a positive step. I would like to challenge other club presidents to take similar action to get more of our members and respective clubs involved.
I am getting very little feed back about the issues I am addressing in my
articles. I do occasionally see some of them reprinted in the exchange bulletins
we receive from other clubs. If you have any recommendations or suggestions,
please let me know. I would very much like to know about any conservation and
legislative matters in your particular areas and also what actions your club
might be taking in national issues like the Paleontological Resources
Preservation Act. My e-mail address is <osjbw via November 2008 AFMS Newsletter |
Last Revised on
January 05, 2009
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