Sierra Club Mulls Proposal
To Back Immigration Limits

(Editor’s note: If Sierra is serious about this, they should have done it 40,000 years ago, when the wooly mammoths could have benefited. This is too little, too late. We propose a less politically sensitive option: that the Greens quit migrating out of the cities they’ve helped blight, and leave the clean countryside to the people who’ve kept it that way for generations.)

DALLAS —(AP)— A major environmental activist group may take a stand against the migration patterns of humans.

The 550,000 U.S. members of the Sierra Club are being asked to vote on a proposal that favors trying to slow the flow of immigrants to the country. Supporters say overpopulation caused by immigration hurts the environment. Opponents say the measure is racist and xenophobic.

"If it passes, it does an incredible amount of damage to work that environmental activists such as myself have done in advocating for environmental and economic justice for all people," said state Rep. Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth member. "It would be a major setback for people who have something more than a parochial world view."

The proposal would require the 102 year-old environmental group to develop a policy advocating immigration restrictions and to lobby Congress on the idea. Members were to have returned their ballots late last week. The ballots also provide an alternative that reaffirms a 1996 leadership decision to remain neutral on immigration policy.

Results are expected later this month.

Rita Beving of the Dallas Sierra Club said she probably won't vote for the measure because "it's political suicide." But she doubted it was ever meant to be racist.

"Immigration undoubtedly has a major effect on the use of major resources," Ms. Beving said. "It goes to the basic population issue."

Among those backing a reduction in immigration are Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, and Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson.

Sierra Club leadership, including President Adam Werbach, wants to maintain the status quo. And none of the club's 65 chapters nationwide has endorsed the proposal, while 27 have officially supported the alternative.