"The government is putting fish before families. The insanity must end," says attorney Mark Meckler, national coordinator of the grassroots Tea Party Patriots. "It is devastating California's economy. We are being crushed by burdensome regulations and taxes imposed by politicans who care more for causes and political gamesmanship than people."
The rally from noon to 5 p.m. protests California's restrictive environmental laws that often pit eco-activitists against business or community interests: In this case, the state's "bread basket" versus a bait fish.
On May 25, 2007, U. S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger issued a ruling based on federal environmental laws, to cut water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect a three-inch minnow called the Delta smelt.
Since the Wanger decision, once fruitful farmland along I-5 now resembles Oklahoma's catastrophic "Dust Bowl." Signs attached to poles stuck into dry, scrub furrows along the route read, "Congress Created Dust Bowl."
Protesters blame "Eco-Tyranny"
"It's time to repeal AB 32, which is essentially California's experiment in controlling global warming," the Tea Party Patriot's Meckler adds, "It is devastating California's economy."
AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also creates standards for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to regulate refrigerant gases, the kind usually found in air-conditioning or HVAC-R systems, which are found in food processing, storage or transportation sites and manufacturing or industrial facilities.
Californians from the Central Valley to Los Angeles and San Diego are already feeling the pinch of AB 32 and environmental regulations with higher water and grocery bills.
Rep. Devin Nunes, (R-Visalia), whose district nestles in the heart of the Central Valley, cites unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley at nearly 20 percent, with some cities reporting unemployment at nearly 40 percent.
A University of California, Davis study, based on a December 2008, report by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service on water reduction in the San Joaquin Valley, estimated area job losses at 80,000 and revenue losses at $2.2 billion for 2009.
"People and communities have been replaced by a parade of extreme environmental activists and their misguided causes, " Nunes said on July 8, after the House Appropriations Committee rejected one of his recurring attempts to block federal spending on decisions that divert precious irrigation water to protect salmon and the delta smelt among other species.
"Our politicians and their appointed cronies are strangling this great states, " says Meckler, adding. "It's time the politicians and bureaucrats got off the backs of California's productive people and freed them to produce the innovation, wealth and jobs that only they can. Government is not the solution; government is the problem."
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For info on the Aug. 28 Event:
www.sac828.org
Mark Meckler, National Coordinator & California Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots
530-274-9900 www.teapartypatriots.org
Patty Meckler, Assistant Coordinator California Tea Party
530-274-9900 www.sacteaparty.com
Dawn Wildman, Co-coordinator, California Tea Party Patriots
619-296-5159
Ben Bergquam, Central Valley Tea Party
www.patriots4ai.com
559-840-2913
Brad Roltgen, Co-organizer of the Central Valley Tea Party
559-240-2378
brad@centralvalleyteaparty.com
Karen Kenney, Event Media Relations
818-996-6820
818-996-6820
