Environment

PROTECTING MARIN AND SONOMA’S UNIQUE ECOSYSTEMS

The natural treasures of Marin and Sonoma counties remind us every day of the beauty and the fragility of our environment.  Protecting our local environment is one of my top priorities in Congress.

Here at home, that starts with protecting our magnificent coasts from the threat of offshore drilling.  While the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries protect the coast of Marin, most of the Sonoma coast still is vulnerable to oil spills and land based pollution.  That’s why I’ve introduced H.R. 192, the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Protection and Modification Act, legislation to protect permanently the entire Sonoma and southern Mendocino coasts by expanding the existing sanctuaries.  Such an expansion will not only protect the incredible biodiversity found in this area, but thousands of research, tourism, and commercial fishing jobs that depend on it.  A similar version passed the House by a voice vote in a previous Congress.

In addition to our coasts, I am committed to protecting our local waterways, including the Russian River.  Our ability to safeguard the Russian River and its wildlife will have a lasting impact on our region’s water supply, restoration of threatened salmon and steelhead trout, and the quality of life in the North Bay.  I’m proud to have secured almost $6 million in federal funding for the restoration of the Russian River watershed and ecosystem.  This includes federal funding to restore its tributaries, including the Prince Greenway and the lower Santa Rosa Creek, and to study the Laguna de Santa Rosa for both flood management and wetlands restoration.

While protecting local waterways from pollution, we must also focus on the restoration of local wetlands, ninety percent of which have already been lost.  In recent years, biologists have come to understand the benefits of restoring these areas, including cleaner water in the Bay, as well as the reemergence of native plant and wildlife species.

I remain committed to the restoration of the San Pablo Bay wetlands, and have supported projects at the Sonoma Baylands and Tolay Creek.  In addition, I have championed several other projects vital to restoring our bay wetlands, including the restoration of six hundred acres of wetlands at Hamilton Field, and the transfer of 3,500 acres at the former Skaggs Island Naval Base. Due to legislative provisions I drafted, Skaggs Island has been transferred to the nearby San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge and will now be managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2007, the container ship Cosco Busan collided with the San Francisco Bay Bridge, spilling 58,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay and causing great harm to the surrounding environment.  Responders cleaning up the spill were using the same technology developed more than a decade earlier in response to the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.  The lack of modern spill mitigation technology was only reinforced during the response to the Deepwater Horizon spill, which killed eleven workers and spilled more than two hundred million gallons of oil into the ocean.  I introducedH.R. 1569, the Oil Pollution Research and Development Program Reauthorization Act, which, for the first time since 1990, would increase funding for oil spill response technology research and development.  This legislation also would provide grants to institutions of higher learning and research centers to improve technologies used to prevent, combat, and clean up oil spills.

Residents of Marin and Sonoma counties are proud of their local environment, and are committed to working to protect it. I will continue to fight against Republican attempts to roll-back environmental protections, cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, and undermine the ability of the federal government to safeguard public lands for future generations.  That’s why I voted against the 2012 consolidated appropriation bill.  For example, the misguided government funding bill cut clean air and water programs, reduced air quality standards, and gutted green technology projects.

Be assured I’ll do everything I can to ensure that Marin and Sonoma counties remain national leaders when it comes to environmental conservation and protection.

(Updated April 2012)