As the closing days of the United States Congress appear near, I would like to remind the Daily readers of some important issues that we all need to be aware of:

Many dangerous anti-environmental riders and attachments to bills will be shoved through Congress in these remaining weeks.

One example: A formerly positive and benign bill, to protect the Presidio in San Francisco, is stuffed with many anti-environmental add-ons.

Similarly, many important environmental laws were suspended as part of the logging salvage rider that the congress passed through earlier: The Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.

All of these Acts were made to ultimately preserve and protect our health and the health of our families — not just rivers and owls.

(The logging rider itself, which also allowed the suspension of all environmental laws, was so openly worded that many healthy trees were cut by the greedy timber companies.)

The suspension of these various acts would not have passed judicial review, so congress cut off the possibility of legal redress on these issues.

The radical right wing members of congress have no desire to create legislation that can endure the tests of a fair judicial review in a democratic society.

Please do not question your leaders, they (and their big corporate polluter sponsors) will take care of things — and ruin the planet in the process.

Thankfully, most of the radical anti-environmental moves over the past two years in Congress have failed.

Many of the last-minute attachments and riders, stuck to various bills like flies on sticky paper, are an attempt to shove through anti-health/pro-polluter agendas.

But we must not let them.

I urge the students of ISU and people of Iowa to get involved and call or write your senators and congressional representatives voicing your support of a clean and healthy environment for all people, our children, and the many complex, incredible, unique, and fragile eco systems in the U.S.

Eating Big Macs in the Hub is nothing compared to the massive and irreversible damage this last minute anti-environmental legislation could cause.

Joseph Coates

Ames, IA