Welcome to CUSP EnviroScore
Congressional Environmental Scorecard
a Wholistic approach toward achieving US sustainability.

The Truly-Environmental Congressional Scorecard.
Because It Includes Votes Affecting Future U.S. Population Numbers.

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CUSP (Comprehensive US Sustainable Population) - Congressional Environmental Scorecard, a proposed new standard, takes account of federal legislators’ votes in three areas: Consumption/Conservation/Preservation, Immigration, and Natural Increase, equally weighted to produce a combined score. This 2:1 emphasis on numbers reflects their importance relative to consumption/conservation. Population numbers can grow at an ever-increasing rate as shown in the CUSP logo, doubling and redoubling like the compounding of money placed at interest in a bank account. On the other hand, consumption and consequent pollution per capita, cannot. They are limited by supply and ability to purchase.

This chart highlights the small group of United States Congresspersons who "get it". (in the 109th Congress, 2005-2006) For a full explanation, see the Statesmen page.

October 1, 2006

Media Release for the CUSP Congressional Environmental Scorecard for the 109th Congress.

April 1, 2006

Media Release for the CUSP Congressional Environmental Scorecard for the 108th Congress.

The CUSP Plan to raise awareness of the population-environment connection and to encourage reduction in U.S. population and consumption.

1.) All U.S. environmental organizations to form a "Sustainability Coalition" to promote reduction in U.S. impact (I = PAT) on the environment to a level which assures availability of renewable resources far into the future.

2.) The Coalition to lobby for passage of federal legislation calling for an annual report to the nation on U.S. progress, or lack thereof, toward the achievement of sustainable use of resources. This report is to include progress on the supply side, such as increase in use of renewable energy, and progress on the demand side, particularly in reduction of U.S. population.

3.) The Coalition to require its political arm, The League of Conservation Voters, to include among the votes in the Congress which it scores, those votes which affect future U.S. population numbers.

4.) The Coalition to publicize the need for a sustainable U.S. future for the benefit of the nation and the world.
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   The immigration reform movement needs a message with wide appeal. A message that MoveOn.org will want to use to mobilize millions on the Internet, a message that Bruce Springsteen will want to take on tour.
That message is that the U.S., like almost every country, is FULL.

   Nature no longer can provide her services sustainably in the U.S. We’ve got to consider the future. In our time we have to show restraint and compassion, stop destroying and looting natural systems for immediate gain, robbing future generations. They are entitled to what earlier generations in the U.S. bequeathed us. In fact we should strive to pass along our natural inheritance better than we found it. That’s patriotism.

   The nation is full. The environment ( i.e. the surroundings, the ambient) is telling us that. Rural or urban, near or far, East or West, when you look at the whole picture, you see that the nation is full.

In fact, the nation is over-full, as can be seen by noting how much irreversible damage has already been done, is being done every day. How many species, our fellow mortals, we are crowding out of existence. How few of our rivers are fishable and swimmable anymore. How many water tables we are causing to drop irreversibly each year. How each year we cause more unhealthy pollution of our air and water. How the U.S. is losing farmland and wetlands to the continual encroachment of more and more crowds of people each year.

   If someone says, "That’s ridiculous! Look at all the space, the water, the forests!" We say, "Okay, then are you willing to at least plan for the time when it will be full?"

   Luckily, there’s now H.R.3284, The Higher Education Sustainability Act, to create non-partisan, multidisciplinary academic centers to report to the public on progress toward achieving a sustainable society. These academic "Think Tanks" will tell the government the host of steps that need to be taken, including those to end overpopulation and the irreversible damage it causes, especially to end the runaway population growth caused mainly by immigration.

   H.R. 3284, introduced in the 109th Congress by Representaive Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) with bipartisan support, exists partly due to lobbying by CUSP Partners in Portland, OR for legislation encouraging transition to a sustainable U.S. economy!

Each of us should be asking our Representative to co-sponsor this bipartisan bill. Make sure your Rep. knows about the bill. A university in the District, which has the multidisciplinary graduate programs to qualify it for one of the Centers, will lobby with you.

   It takes all of us !

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It is obvious that environmental problems are largely due to the presence of human numbers living unsustainably. "We have met the enemy and he is us !", Pogo said. Adam Werbach, the then 23-year old President of the Sierra Club, wrote in 1997, "We must slow our population growth and save our heritage."

The impact of humans on environment is often expressed by the Holden-Ehrlich formula,

I = P x A x T

which states that human impact (I) on environments can be summarized as due to population numbers (P) times the affluence (A) of the society, or average consumption per capita, times the level of environmental harm done by the technologies employed (T). ¹

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CUSP

• Purpose is to turn the U.S. back from that cusp, to catalyze action to move the U.S. toward sustainability without delay .

• Method: is to rate Congressmembers’ environmental record properly, comprehensively.

• Goal is to raise public awareness that many higher costs, inconveniences and hardships, inequities, and lowered quality of life and standard of living are due to people longages more than to resource shortages , so that the Congress and Administrations must:

• acknowledge natural limits to further growth in U.S. population.

• consider the benefits of smaller, sustainable U.S. population like the U.S. had as recently as the 1940’s.

• vote comprehensively on environment, acknowledging the role of population numbers.

• develop a national population policy leading toward a sustainable economy.

Presently they do none of this.

CUSP, derived from authoritative tallies, should become the accepted standard measurement of Congressional voting leading toward a sustainable US economy.

• The widely-accepted League of Conservation Voters National Scorecard (LCV) includes no votes on U.S. population.

• The well-established ZPG (Zero Population Growth now called Population Connection) Congressional Report Card includes no votes on immigration, even though U.S. Census Bureau (Analysis) figures show that the majority of U.S. population growth is due to immigration, the highest numbers in U.S. history.

A Congressmember can no longer be regarded as a staunch guardian of environments by virtue of a high LCV score alone.

CUSP Success: Project Vote Smart has accepted the CUSP Score as a measure of Congressmembers‘ environmental awareness.
Main Goal: LCV adopts a CUSP-type approach, scores some votes that affect future U.S. population numbers.

CUSP’s Philosophy:
Reaching U.S. sustainability is essential for preserving and protecting the Nation’s (and the World’s) natural heritage. Present U.S. growth is unsustainable. Today’s Americans are stealing from the future, their growth in numbers largely the result of federal actions promoting that growth.

"The transition to sustainability for the United States is a fundamental, enormous change - but one that is required to avoid destroying the economic, environmental and social bases of American lives and to maintain a high quality of life."
(Report of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (1996) )²

Major conclusion of the 1972 Report to the President and Congress of the Commision on Population Growth and the American Future (John D. Rockefeller III, Chair) appointed by the Congress in 1970 at the request of the President: ³

CUSP does not hate anybody. On the contrary, it loves everybody and everything now and in the future, the "unborn", in the fullest sense of that word. It expresses that love in its effort to popularize the movement to reduce human population in the world, first and foremost in the United States because it is in the U.S. that "I₁" and "N" are so large that, while China plus India have population numbers nearly nine times those of the U.S., the "I" global impact of the U.S. on the environment exceeds that of China and India combined ! ⁴

¹ for a detailed discussion of I=PAT, see "The Population Explosion", Ehrlich & Ehrlich (Simon & Schuster, 1990)

² President’s Council on Sustainable Development , Population and ConsumptionTask Force Report, 1996 (National Archives).

³ "Population and the American Future - The Report of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future" (New American Library (Signet), 1972), later printed by the Government Printing Office. (National Archives).

See also "Establishing a National Population Policy", National Audubon Society, Population & Habitat Campaign Fact Sheet, 1998.

⁵ "The Environmental Movement's Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998)", Roy Beck & Leon Kolankiewicz, Journal of Policy History, Special Isuue: Environmental Politics & Policy, v. 12, No. 11, p. 123 (2000).