The complete list of 475 [976] names can be reached from my home page at http://www.netmagic.net/~franklin/frankly.html. I have an open invitation out for anyone to examine the list of names and identify other prominent Republicans on the list. I can only find five, and one of those appeared at the 1996 Democratic Convention.

Who were the authors of these legislative riders? What did the riders propose? Did the new environmental regulations governing the mines ON PUBLIC LANDS in California have to do with the toxic wastes coming from the PRIVATE-FOR-PROFIT mines on PUBLIC LANDS.

``We may run into a potential government shutdown, and I don't think the American public wants that,'' Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana said Friday. Baucus is leading a Senate effort to strip eight particularly controversial environmental measures from the Interior Department's $13.4 billion spending bill. These legislative riders, all opposed by the White House, cover ground ranging from mining, grazing and logging policy to the construction of a 30-mile road through Alaskan wilderness. (Emphasis added)

Though not specially tailored for California, a number of the riders would nonetheless affect the state where 40 percent of the land is owned by the federal government. For instance, one measure would postpone new environmental regulations governing the 30,000 mines on public land in California. Another would block the Interior Department from getting more money from the oil companies that drill off California's coast. A third imposes a moratorium on new management plans governing the 24 million acres of Forest Service . . ."

Question 3 pertained a to a legislative rider that would postpone new environmental regulations governing the 30,000 mines on public land in California. Still another rider would block the Interior Department from getting more money from the oil companies that drill off California's coast.

The FIRST anti-environmental rider would prevent the National Park Service from enforcing fishing regulations designed to protect wildlife in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.

The SECOND anti-environmental rider would authorize construction of a road through the middle of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

The THIRD anti-environmental rider would terminate an ongoing public process of recovery of the grizzly bear in the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness in Idaho and Montana.

The FOURTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the U.S. Forest Service from removing dangerous and environmentally damaging roads until all unauthorized "ghost" roads (roads that were created by illegal off-road vehicle use) had been closed or upgraded.

The FIFTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the Forest Service from using prescribed fire to remove brush until all commercial timber has been cut from the area.

The SIXTH anti-environmental rider would override the Endangered Species Act by requiring Congressional approval for changes to the operation of Columbia River reservoirs.

The SEVENTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the Forest Service from updating plans to manage national forests.

The EIGHTH anti-environmental rider would require the U.S. Forest Service to offer for sale from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska at least 90 percent of the allowable sale quantity (240 million board feet) of timber per year. If the Forest Service fails to meet the target, because of environmental or market constraints, the rider would allow parties to sue the Forest Service to produce more timber and require the agency to pay local communities 25 percent of the value of the timber not harvested.

Well that was at least something for my four hours of work. But even the press release did not address the NINTH anti-environmental rider postpoing the environmental regulations for

mines on PUBLIC LANDS or the TENTH anti-environmental rider that would block the Interior Department from getting more money from the oil companies drilling off the coast of my state of California.

I looked in the Congressional Quarterly and I found nothing. I looked in Roll Call and I could find nothing. I still do not know the names of the Senators who authored those ten riders. Why is it so difficult to get this kind of information in a Democracy? Does this mean there is a BLACKOUT of information on these anti-environmental riders ACROSS THE COUNTRY? It sure looks like it.

I am glad to see the Mercury News has identified the author of one of the DIRTY TEN anti-enivironment riders to the Department of Interior's appropriation bill. Somehow it did not surprise me that it turned out to that good old despoiler of the tundra, Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. I was happy to see you selected a Boston Globe article which argued the case so well for the anti-environmental movement, rather than the AP dispatch which did not tell the pitiful story of people dying because they could not get to a hospital. If, however, one turns to the debate in the Senate between Senator Murkowski and and Senator Baucus, we learn two very important things.

First, Cold Bay is the site of an airfield that can take aircraft up to size of a 747, however, it has no deep-water harbor. Kings Cove has one of the largest fishing canneries in Alaska and has a deep-water harbor, but no airport. A truck road between Kings Cove and Cold Bay would provide immediate access to shipping the cannery's products out by large air freighters. Bad weather conditions create difficulties for helicopter medical evacuation from Kings Cove. Bad weather conditions also make it impossible for people located immediately outside Cold Bay to drive one or two miles into town because of the "whiteout" conditions that prevail during the winter months.

Second, Senator Baucus thanked Senator Murkowski for making S.1092 a free-standing bill so it could be debated in the Senate. It seems that the other NINE anti-environmental riders to the Interior appropriations bill can not be debated under the Senate rules as they are riders to an appropriations act. How nice for the anti-environmental movement. But it seems the appropriation bill has been withdrawn for some reason by the Republican majority. Well, they will try to sneak these anti-environmental riders through elsewhere, and we can be sure this will not be reported in the Mercury News.

The FIRST anti-environmental rider would prevent the National Park Service from enforcing fishing regulations designed to protect wildlife in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.

The SECOND anti-environmental rider would authorize construction of a road through the middle of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Author: Senator Frank Murkowski, REPUBLICAN, Alaska.

The THIRD anti-environmental rider would terminate an ongoing public process of recovery of the grizzly bear in the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness in Idaho and Montana.

The FOURTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the U.S. Forest Service from removing dangerous and environmentally damaging roads until all unauthorized "ghost" roads (roads that were created by illegal off-road vehicle use) had been closed or upgraded.

The FIFTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the Forest Service from using prescribed fire to remove brush until all commercial timber has been cut from the area.

The SIXTH anti-environmental rider would override the Endangered Species Act by requiring Congressional approval for changes to the operation of Columbia River reservoirs.

The SEVENTH anti-environmental rider would prevent the Forest Service from updating plans tomanage national forests.

The EIGHTH anti-environmental rider would require the U.S. Forest Service to offer for sale from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska atleast 90 percent of the allowable sale quantity (240 million board feet) of timber per year. If the Forest Service fails to meet the target, because of environmental or market constraints, the rider would allow parties to sue the Forest Service to produce more timber and require the agency to pay local communities 25 percent of the value of the timber not harvested.

The NINTH anti-environmental rider postponing the environmental regulations for 30,000 mines on PUBLIC LANDS in California.

The TENTH anti-environmental rider that would block the Interior Department from getting more money from the oil companies drilling off the coast of the state of California for public oil from public lands

Once upon a time in America, newspapers would devote their front pages to important national and international news. If any page of the newspaper was read, it was the front page, but that was before the Mainstream Media began managing the news for political and economic purposes. Today we have entered the age of BLIP News, DRIP News and KWIK News.

BLIP News is that news the rich and the powerful in this country would just as soon you did not read, because if you read it you might begin to think, and thought is dangerous in a country where more and more power is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

DRIP News, on the other hand, is available in large amounts, because DRIP News, like the Chinese water torture, is designed to wear you down mentally. The function of Drip News is to indoctrinate the reader into holding certain political and economic views -- views that warm the heart of the powerful and privileged in this country.

The last category, KWIK News, can be likened to the hot air in a child's balloon. It occupies an inflated space, and when the balloon is punctured, as they always are, it dissipates into the surrounding air with no fuss or bother except for the sound of a pop! KWIK News is cotton candy for the mind.

In today's Mainstream Media, the front pages of newspapers must, by definition, contain only DRIP News and KWIK News. The BLIP News, if it is allowed at all in a managed news paper, is relegated to the interior sections and pages of the paper.

Consider, for example, the San Jose Mercury News of Saturday, October 3, 1998. There, above the fold and across the entire width of the front page, we have the current DRIP News -- the Clinton-Lewinsky Sex Scandal. Below this important news of the day, we have from left to right, the following KWIK News stories. First, a mother has the doctors remove sperm cells from the dead body of her son, who had committed suicide. Why? So she can have a grandchild. Then, with a dramatic color photograph, we are told about the capture of an escaped crocodile monitor in a San Jose neighborhood. On the right we read about an automated Bail Machine and below this we receive the news that a 91-year-old cowboy singing star has died.

Back on page 3B we read the headlines: "Some HMOs cut Medicare" We are quickly reassured, however, that the patients in rural areas will be hit the hardest. It seems that the HMOs had until this past Friday to notify the feds if they were going to quit participating in the Medicare system. But we who live in urban Santa Clara Country need not worry as much as those patients in the rural counties of the state (and the nation). In any case, no patients will be left without care "because they can enroll in traditional fee-for-service Medicare, the federally financed health care plan for the disabled and people 65 or older. But they may have to pay hundreds of dollars more in premiums." (Well, the diabled and people older than 65 have lots of money, and the HMOs have been bilking Medicare long enough.)

Further back in the Local and State News on page 6B, a reporter poses the question: "Playground, tree factory or wildlife preserve? The U.S. Forest Service wants to know what you want out of Sierra Nevada national forests." This article is important because it describes the findings of the "$6.4 million Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, a detailed study of the air, water, wildlife and forest resources of the Sierra released in 1996. Congress requested the study after the Sacramento Bee chronicled the degradation of the Sierra."

"Among other things, the Ecosystem Project report found that national forests hold on average one-fourth the amount of old-growth forest found in national parks, that Sierra streams are the most damaged habitat in the range, that half the Sierra's native amphibian populations are at risk of extinction and that the number of people living in the mountains doubled between 1970 and 1990 -- and should triple by 2040."

Environmentalists in California who are going to vote in next Tuesday's election for either Barbara Boxer or Matt Fong should be greatly interested in the National Environmental Scorecard the League of Conservation Voters has produced on the just-completed 2nd session of the 105th Congress. All but three of the Democratic senators had pro-environmental scores equal to, or much greater than the highest-scoring Republican senators, who came in with scores of 60 per cent. The lowest-ranking Democrat (Breaux of Louisiana) had a score of 47 per cent.

Twenty-seven Republican senators voted against all environmental legislation (zero per cent scores), twenty-one more had scores of from 7 per cent (most of them ) to 27 per cent (a few of them). Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, on the other hand, had scores of 100 per cent and 93 per cent, respectively. Do you really want to add another anti-environment vote to the Senate?