NATIONAL WILDLIFE
FEDERATION SAYS EVERGLADES ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEING
SAVED
Tuesday, September 26, 2000
The Everglades is one step closer to being saved after
the Senate vote today [Monday, September 25] on the
Water Resources Development Act (WRDA, S.2796). In
addition to authorizing funding for various Army Corps
of Engineers projects, this legislation authorizes $1.3
billion for Everglades restoration, the first step in
undoing the damage caused by years of manipulating the
flow of this magnificent "River of Grass." The
bill now moves to the House of Representatives for
consideration.
"Today's vote by the U.S. Senate to fund
restoration of the Everglades is a giant step toward
saving and restoring an American treasure," said
NWF president and CEO Mark Van Putten. "Now, it's
up to the House to do the right thing by passing this
critical legislation that has the overwhelming support
of the environmental, agricultural, and development
communities."
Approval of Everglades restoration is critical and
can't wait until after the November elections or until
Congress convenes with a new administration next year.
The Everglades is dying and every moment lost means
another acre destroyed and another piece of America's
heritage lost forever. Any delay means the damage will
continue unabated, and that any future restoration
efforts will be more expensive and less effective, if
they're possible at all.
There will never be a better time to act. Everglades
restoration has bipartisan support in Congress, from the
White House, from agricultural and business interests
and from voters. The legislation approved by the Senate
is the first step toward a 20-year effort to repair
decades of abuse of the Everglades. Congressional
passage of the Everglades restoration funding can become
an object lesson in "how to fix past
mistakes," and provide a blueprint for repairing
environmental damage nationwide. The National Wildlife
Federation urges the House to pass a bill which includes
Everglades restoration, to ensure that future
generations will have this incredible natural treasure.
"America can't afford to let the Everglades
die," says Van Putten.
WILDERNESS DEFINES WHO WE, AS AMERICANS, ARE
Adapted from a speech by Mike Dombeck, chief of the
Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to
the National Wilderness Conference Sept. 9 in Denver
Today, the National Wilderness Preservation System
accounts for about 5 percent of the land area of the
United States. That might not sound like much, and in
fact it's not nearly enough. But the scarcity of
wilderness makes it all the more precious. We need what
wilderness can give us.
Wilderness provides habitats for plants and animals,
including a refuge for endangered species; all too
often, wilderness is their last, best hope for survival.
Wilderness provides a reference for evaluating the
effect of management activities on soil, water, air and
ecological processes elsewhere. Wilderness provides
solitude, a refuge from the noise and traffic that
plague us in our daily lives. Wilderness provides scenic
beauty, a place for quiet reflection on what it means to
be alive. And let's not forget -- wilderness provides
economic benefits to communities through tourism and
recreation, and to society at large through clean water
and clean air.
But there's something else we need from wilderness,
something only it can give, something that makes it
unique: Wilderness is key to our cultural heritage.
Other peoples have their ancient myths and traditions,
their glorious architectures, their classical
literatures. We have our wilderness. Wilderness is part
of the American spirit, the American character, the
American legacy. It's part of who we are as a people.
The writer Wallace Stegner put it well: "We need
wilderness preserved," he said, "because it
was the challenge against which our character as a
people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that
it is still there is good for our spiritual health even
if we never once in 10 years set foot in it."
READ
THE WHOLE EDITORIAL
SNEAK ATTACKS -- QUIET ASSAULTS ON ENVIRONMENTAL
QUALITY
Friday, September 8, 2000
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A raft of important environmental measures are before
Congress this month on subjects ranging from national
forest management to endangered species protection to
U.S. efforts on global warming. Legislation in these
areas tends to raise, and ought to raise, spirited and
complex debate. Yet these bills have advanced in virtual
silence.
That's the idea, really, behind this year's crop of
anti-environment "riders." Knowing that their
proposals aren't likely to be popular with voters -- nor
stand much of a chance in Congress -- if argued on their
merits, lawmakers opt for a sneakier strategy.
They shape their pet interests into amendments they
attach, like barnacles, to a handful of massive spending
bills that carry an end-of-September deadline for
enactment. Most will get scraped off on the way to
passage, and some that survive may be vetoed. But at
least a few will find their way into law, without the
debate and accountability such measures deserve.
Some of the riders are exercises in micromanagement:
cutting funds for reintroduction of grizzly bears to
wilderness areas in western Montana; vetoing plans to
create a small wildlife refuge along the Kankakee River
in northern Indiana and Illinois; financing a program to
kill buffalo in Yellowstone National Park that are
suspected, but not proved, to carry brucellosis;
blocking revision of an Army Corps of Engineers manual
to thwart changes in Missouri River management that
would help save three species of birds and fish.
Others of larger scope threaten profound impact on
natural resources. Long-delayed new rules on mining in
the West would be postponed yet again, leaving federal
lands (and taxpayers) at needless risk from
environmentally irresponsible or financial incapable
companies. New caps would restrict the number of
threatened or endangered species that could be listed
for protection, and the amounts that could be spent to
preserve habitat. Federal fuel economy standards for
automobiles, last revised in 1985, would be frozen for
another year.
The U.S. Forest Service is an especially popular
target for the meddlers this year. Various measures
would undercut its current policies and force the agency
to raise timber production, build new roads for logging
companies, halt or redirect new forest-management plans
now in preparation, and expand commercial logging in the
guise of "thinning" forests for fire
resistance.
And U.S. responses to global warming, by far, seem
the No. 1 target for this year's rider writers. Nearly a
dozen provisions attached to the spending bills would
interfere with U.S. agencies' smallest efforts to
explore ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Taken together, the riders represent a wide-ranging
effort to interfere with the work of federal agencies
and undo programs previously approved by Congress.
Most of this mischief will die, deservedly, in
behind-the-scenes deal-making. But that is no great
comfort to those who care about environmental
stewardship and must endure such skirmishing, and
uncertainty, on an annual basis. It certainly is no
credit to Congress, which ought to simply abandon the
practice of making environmental law by rider.
Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
RAGING WILDFIRES - ADMINISTRATION NEGLECT IS
PROVING DISASTROUS
From Dallas Morning News
August 8, 2000
Wildfires often are nature's way of weeding.
But this summer, nature's self-trimming has been
particularly violent. Wildfires erupting across the
western United States have caused astounding carnage.
With the worst fire weeks still ahead, at least 66
blazes already have consumed vast acreage in 11 states.
Despite heroic efforts of 25,000 exhausted
firefighters, volunteers and soldiers, the inferno has
engulfed at least 4 million acres - twice the 10-year
average. New fires are beginning each day adding to a
firefighting tab of as much as $15 million a day.
There are many reasons why this summer has been so
deadly and is on pace to become the most deadly wildfire
season ever. Higher temperatures and lower precipitation
have made lightning strikes in wild lands as volatile as
a person dropping a match into a haystack soaked in
gasoline.
Yet there also are disturbing human explanations for
this long, hot summer. For years, federal officials
adhered to a policy of fighting every wildfire. In
retrospect, that strategy fulfilled the law of
unintended consequences. It impeded nature's remedy and
created a tinderbox.
Others blame years of heavy logging and poorly
administered reforestation efforts. There's also a dire
shortage of trained firefighters, the aftermath of years
of tight budgets and retirements. Firefighters from New
Zealand and Australia and soldiers from Texas' Fort Hood
and other installations are being pressed into service
this summer.
Tragically, the government was warned of this
potential catastrophe. Just last year a General
Accounting Office report warned of excessive vegetation
and urged state and federal officials to establish a
better-coordinated fire suppression strategy. Unless
resolved, these conditions would produce larger and more
uncontrollable fires, they said.
In the shadow of the fire lines, President Clinton
last week released $150 million in emergency aid and
ordered the agencies to come up with a rehabilitation
plan. No doubt that's too little, too late, although it
is a signal that land management policies need a major
overhaul.
Now the nation faces a massive rehabilitation
project. Scorched land can't hold back water. When rain
arrives, barren hillsides will produce mudslides.
Each year, lightning or careless campers ignite
wildfires. This summer's disaster demonstrates that
administrative missteps can be more insidious than
either the thoughtless act of a vacationer or the spin
of nature's roulette wheel.
SENATE MUST VOTE TO SAVE OPEN LAND
From the Baltimore Sun
By Andy Falender and Alix Pratt
BETHESDA -- In Maryland, cities and towns find
themselves reeling as they confront a rapidly growing
problem: the loss of open space caused by sprawling
development.
Rampant, unconfined development can alter a town's
character and permanently change the quality of life for
its citizens. While sprawl can have a very local and
personal feel -- the meadow next door boxed into house
lots, the woods where you walk lost to another
superstore, the daily commute turned into a nightmare of
traffic -- it is not unique.
The loss of open space is a national problem crying
out for a national solution.
One giant step forward would be passage of the
Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), the most
significant piece of environmental legislation to move
through Congress since the clean water and clean air
acts of the 1970s.
CARA's funding, at $2.8 billion a year, would come
directly from offshore oil and gas revenues. The bill
passed the House in May by a resounding bipartisan vote
of 315 to 102.
In short, three out of four representatives
understood how badly cities and towns in their districts
need help in combating sprawl and providing healthy
recreational opportunities. Three out of four
congressmen heard voters' concerns about the loss of
farms, forests and historic treasures. And they realized
the breadth of the coalition for CARA, which runs the
gamut from environmental groups to national real estate
organizations.
It's estimated that CARA would steer at least $37
million annually to Maryland. Six out of eight of
Maryland's House members voted for CARA, and now we urge Sen.
Barbara Mikulski
and Sen.
Paul Sarbanes
to intensify their support for CARA.
The Senate, if sufficiently motivated, will
deliberate on the bill this summer. By voting for CARA,
senators will be able to stem the annual loss of 3.2
million acres to development and road building. They'll
also be following the golden advice attributed to the
late house speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill:
"All politics are local."
In other words, the nearby meadow crisscrossed with
hiking trails and blooming with flowers may not become a
maze of house lots after all.
The heart of CARA is restoration of the neglected
$900 million Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Every year, $450 million from LWCF would be distributed
as matching grants for recreation and open space
projects that are selected by cities and towns -- not by
the federal government. This is ground-up conservation,
based on the belief that a community knows what it needs
and only requires the tools to get it done.
And it works. Before Congress canceled its funding in
recent years, LWCF's matching grants program resulted in
more than 37,000 projects. Soccer fields, swimming
pools, bicycle paths, watershed lands, urban woods and
suburban pastures -- the everyday places that improve
the quality of life in your neighborhood.
A few examples in Maryland include John Eager Howard
Playground, Cylburn Park and Harlem Park Playfield in
Baltimore, and the Sandy Point, Deep Creek Lake and
Gunpowder Falls state parks. In addition, LWCF has
funded the Assateague Island National Seashore,
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and Antietam and
Monocacy National Battlefield.
It is historic environmental legislation that
responds to the pressing needs of Maryland and every
state in the Union.
Andy Falender is executive director of the
Boston-based Appalachian Mountain Club. Alix Pratt is a
resident of Bethesda and chair of AMC's Washington
chapter, which includes Washington, Maryland, and
Northern Virginia.
Originally published on Jul 17 2000
END OF AN EYESORE, END OF AN ERA
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
By Dennis Kutzner
Sunday , July 2, 2000
The National Tower in Gettysburg is set to be toppled
at 5 p.m. tomorrow. Those who have considered it an
eyesore, inappropriate to the landscape and a tacky
tourist trap will be delighted, but I will not be among
the jubilant.
For 26 years the tower was the only place on the
battlefield from which every site where action took
place 137 years ago was visible. I suppose now the only
way to get such a perspective will be to pay a
helicopter fee.
The tower also was the only spot from which visitors
could get their bearings, knowing they were near the
start of the bend in the famous fishhook of the Union
line.
The cost for ascending the tower was reasonable, and
it had a gift shop as nice as any in Gettysburg. Of
course, the shop's proceeds didn't go to the park.
Why didn't the National Park Service purchase the
site and run it itself? Guess no one will really ever
know that answer. Anyway, the tower's demolition will be
a sight to see. I plan to be there.
A COMMITMENT TO CONSERVATION
by Don Bonker and Rod Chandler
Special to The Seattle Times
Wednesday, June 21, 2000
There are things that bind Americans. Things we all
relate to and care deeply about. Most of these take root
in our childhood and become memories we hold onto as we
grow. A Little League game in the summer. The vastness
of an ocean beach. And space. Lots and lots of open
space. Among the things we cherish about the Northwest
is open space.
Be it an urban park with abundant soccer fields and
tennis courts, the nearby forest we hiked in with our
parents, a quiet place to rest near a river, or the
vastness of an ocean beach, we welcome the scenery and
tranquility of a natural setting and value the quality
of life it represents. We Americans care deeply about
that space. We also want our children to enjoy and
appreciate the spectacular beauty of the Northwest so
they can share our memories of growing up here. It is
part of what defines this country.
It is time to give these spaces the recognition they
deserve.
As lawmakers, we were challenged to protect our
scenic areas without adding to the tax burden or
resorting to mandated actions that infringed on the
rights of private citizens.
And there is an effort to do just that on Capitol
Hill today through the Conservation and Reinvestment Act
(CARA). CARA represents a recommitment to full and
permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation
Fund (LWCF), which was established in 1965 by Congress
as a permanent revenue source for wildlife conservation
and outdoor recreation.
Money from the fund comes from revenues paid to the
federal government for offshore oil and gas leases. The
idea was to reinvest some of the proceeds from this
development back into communities and the natural
environment for future generations to enjoy.
In fact, some of Washington's "crown jewel"
natural areas were created in part with LWCF funding.
These include North Cascades National Park, Alpine Lakes
Wilderness, the Mount Si Conservation Area, and the
Nisqually and Grays Harbor national wildlife refuges.
When we first came to Congress, the LWCF had been
quietly doing its job for years. However, like many
other federal trust funds, Congress over the years
diverted money for the LWCF to other purposes.
A host of our greatest landmarks and treasured places
came into being with help from the fund - Green Lake and
Gas Works Park in Seattle, Riverside Park in Spokane,
Coulon Park in Renton, and countless other state and
local parks, trails, public beaches, wildlife refuges
and community swimming pools.
Several weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives
approved a bill that would protect and strengthen this
incredibly important fund - by a huge majority of
315-102. That margin represents a remarkable
achievement, showing that Republicans and Democrats can
work together to develop a shared vision for protecting
wildlife habitat and human quality of life.
The bill re-authorizes the fund at its full level of
$900 million per year. It also dedicates another $1.9
billion each year to federal, state, local, and tribal
agencies for a variety of important outdoor recreation
and conservation programs. These include wildlife
conservation and restoration, environmental assistance
for coastal states, historic preservation, urban park
restoration, endangered species recovery, conservation
easements on private lands, and "in-lieu-of"
tax payments to timber-dependent local communities. The
first year after passage of this legislation, Washington
state would receive almost $55 million - some for
federal projects, most for state and local park and
conservation programs.
And it is worth noting that all the money for this
bill comes from existing federal royalties on offshore
oil and gas profits - not from new or existing taxes.
What does more money for resource conservation mean
for all of us? It means better parks and open spaces in
our state's urban areas, which are coming under
increasing pressure from growth. It means preserving our
historic sites and natural areas. It means protecting
our endangered coastlines. It means conserving wildlife
and endangered species. And it means protecting our
national parks, which are coming under the dual strains
of underfunding and overuse.
We don't serve in Congress anymore, but we know what
a critical opportunity this is for the state we
represented. We care about the quality of life in
Washington, and we care about those things that bind
Washingtonians together - experiencing a clean Puget
Sound, hiking in the forest, watching the growth of
vibrant, healthy communities, going with children to
local parks. The time has come to protect the very
important Land and Water Conservation Fund through early
passage of CARA.
Absent any new funding initiatives, these amenities
are possible because of the Land and Water Conservation
Fund. The legislation that will do all this is now in
the Senate, which we hope will follow the lead of the
House and make this legislation a reality this summer.
Please let our senators know how important this
program is for our state and future generations. CARA
may be our last opportunity to preserve the great
natural heritage of our state.
Democrat Don Bonker was the representative from
Washington's 3rd Congressional District for 14 years.
Republican Rod Chandler was the representative for the
8th Congressional District for 10 years.
Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company
A HISTORIC CHANCE FOR CONSERVATION
New York Times Editorial
June 27, 2000
The most important land conservation bill in many
years is now before the United States Senate, and time
is running out. The bill, which passed the House in May
by a resounding margin despite the opposition of the
House Republican leadership, would set aside nearly $3
billion a year, most of it guaranteed, to buy parks and
open space, provide wildlife protection and restore
damaged coastlines. The House bill was largely the
handiwork of two members who rarely agree on anything --
California's George Miller, a Democrat and staunch
conservationist, and Alaska's Don Young, a Republican
who has been fighting environmentalists for most of his
career but who, on the verge of retirement, has done a
surprising about-face.
A similar burst of bipartisan harmony will be
necessary to get the bill through the Senate before the
political campaign swings into high gear and makes
meaningful legislation all but impossible. If they can
reconcile their differences, senators as diverse in
philosophy as Frank Murkowski of Alaska, who often
tangles with environmentalists, and the more liberal
Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico can both emerge as heroes.
The bill will not impose new taxes. For its financing
it relies on the same mechanism that has underwritten
the government's main land acquisition program, the Land
and Water Conservation Fund, for 35 years -- royalties
from offshore oil production, mainly in the Gulf of
Mexico. These royalties now amount to about $4 billion
annually, of which three-fourths would be applied to
this bill. There is an interesting symmetry here --
dollars raised by depleting one natural resource would
be used to protect others.
Among other things, the bill would help cities
develop parks and recreation areas, compensate state and
local governments for lost tax revenue when they buy
land from private owners, and offer incentives for
improving habitat for endangered wildlife. But it is the
two main sections of the bill that most concern the
administration, which generally supports the measure,
and are most at issue in the Senate. One section would
beef up the Land and Water Conservation Fund by dividing
$900 million between the federal government and the
states to buy ecologically valuable land. The other
section would provide $1 billion in aid to states like
Louisiana and Alaska, ostensibly to restore coastal
areas damaged by offshore drilling operations.
Both sections need work.
As presently written, neither the House nor Senate
version guarantees funding for federal purchases under
the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is the only
part of the bill where funding is not guaranteed,
reflecting the bias of many Western senators and
property rights advocates against further enlargement of
public lands. This must be fixed. Some of the most
important public purchases in recent years -- protecting
Yellowstone National Park and buying up the Headwaters
redwood forest, for example -- have been federal
projects.
The coastal provision, meanwhile, is flawed by loose
language that could actually allow states to build the
kind of infrastructure projects like roads and port
facilities that ruined the coastlines in the first
place. This is exactly what the bill should not allow.
In Louisiana, for example, the roads, pipelines and
navigation channels built by the offshore oil industry
have created havoc in the Mississippi Delta, where
fisheries are declining and wetlands are disappearing at
a rate of 20,000 acres a year. The language must be
tightened to insure that the money is earmarked
exclusively for restoration purposes with strict federal
accountability.
These fixes would turn what is now an ambitious bill
into a measure of lasting consequence.
LAND PLAN: WORTHWHILE CONSERVATION ACT STUCK IN
COMMITTEE
Detroit Free Press
June 27, 2000
The country's best chance in a century to commit to
conservation is staring it in the face, and yet the
means to make it happen may not survive the U.S. Senate.
The Conservation and Reinvestment Act, which provides
hundreds of millions of dollars for land acquisition and
recreation projects nationwide, sits in committee, where
it landed after the House passed it by a 3-1 margin. The
full Senate seems likely to approve CARA, if it gets
sprung from the committee.
The act does not require any new money to fund it.
Rather it is the revival of a decades-old promise that
royalties from oil and gas drilling on federal property
would go toward land preservation. In the meantime, the
money has been used to help mask the country's
deficit-spending habit, a maneuver that's no longer
needed and ripe for Congress to fix.
Some Western-state senators in key positions see CARA
as a federal land grab, although only a sixth of the
money would go toward federal purchases, and
acquisitions would require the consent of both the owner
and Congress. Far more would get funneled to the states,
to set their own balance between buying land and
improving existing public spaces.
One of CARA's most exciting aspects, in fact, is the
ability to focus on smaller projects than the federal
government normally would, including urban green spaces,
walkways and small slices of important habitat. For
those with visions of a walkable riverfront in Detroit,
or selective preservation of natural spots in the path
of development, CARA is a dream come true -- if the
senators controlling its fate will set it free.
ON CARLESS NATIONAL PARKS
June 5, 2000
Santa Barbara News-Press,
Zion National Park in southern Utah recently banned
almost all motorized vehicles - a breath of fresh air
for nature and nature lovers. Now Yosemite National Park
is taking a tentative step closer to a similar
arrangement.
The Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System has
begun a two-year demonstration program that involves
busing visitors into the park from surrounding
communities.
The shuttle operation started for the Memorial Day
weekend, and was an instant success.
The summer season brings 15,000 visitors a day to
Yosemite, in as many as 7,000 cars, trucks and RVs. All
too often, those vehicles are competing for the
available 1,600 parking spaces. The bus system is
expected to cut that traffic by 60 percent or more, as
visitors get accustomed to leaving their own vehicles on
the park's periphery.
Such pilot projects should demonstrate to park
officials that less is more, when it comes to allowing
vehicular traffic into some of America's most treasured
parkland. Idling car engines, blaring horns and short
tempers do nothing to enhance the outdoor experience.
We hope the Yosemite and Zion experiments work.
Federal government continues to be
irresponsible in rubble at Los Alamos
Source: The Item, Sumpter, SC
There's the outrage? Out west, in New Mexico, a gigantic
fire with an 89-mile perimeter continues to burn over
44,000 acres. The town of Los Alamos has lost 260 homes.
Some 25,000 people from the town and surrounding area
had to be evacuated while 1,500 firefighters fought
the blaze. North of Los Alamos, firefighters are attempting
to keep the fire from spreading farther into the Santa
Clara Indian Pueblo or onto the Baca Ranch, a majestic
95,000-acre volcanic area being purchased by the U.S.
Forest Service. More than 6,000 acres of the Pueblo
reservation have been consumed by the blaze. It is a
catastrophic event that could have been prevented. Its
cause was not carelessness by campers or tourists but
a conscious decision by National Park Service officials,
who instigated a "controlled burn" to clear brush and
deadwood at Bandelier National Monument. This brilliant
move came in spite of warnings from the weather service
that unfavorable weather conditions were present in
the form of high winds. Read
the whole editorial.
A
Sequoia Monument
Source: Washington Post Editorial
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S decision to create a 327,000-acre
Giant Sequoia National Monument in central California
won't change the rules regarding the remaining trees
as much as some of the surrounding publicity suggested,
but it was a welcome act nonetheless. Read
the whole editorial.
The case for land and water conservation
Source: Environmental News Network - Your leading
news source on the environment by Andrew Falender
Andrew Falender is executive director of the Appalachian
Mountain Club, an 87,000-member organization devoted
to the protection, enjoyment and wise use of the mountains,
rivers and trails of the Northeast. If you get outside
this spring, whether in city or country, chances are
you'll use open space and recreational facilities that
are the direct result of LWCF. LWCF is not a luxury
< not in a country whose population is slated to increase
by 125 million in the next 50 years. Not when the outdoor
resources we already have are being loved to death.
And certainly not where Sprawl is eating up open space
in urban, suburban and rural America. In fact, LWCF
is the antidote to sprawl, giving communities the tools
they need to protect their most special places. It's
a great development that Congress is coming together
on a conservation bill as historic as CARA. Teddy Roosevelt
would be proud.
Read the whole editorial.
Yosemite:
Embrace the Sublime
Source: Los Angeles Times
Yosemite Valley may be the most wondrous natural feature
in a nation blessed by nature's bounty, but there are
times when heavy traffic and jammed parking lots seem
to overpower the grandeur. Secretary of the Interior
Bruce Babbitt had it just right on Monday when he declared:
"We must restore a semblance of nature to this most
sublime place in our country." Now the debate begins.
Read
the whole editorial.
Environment
is "Sleeper" issue of 2000 Campaign
By Deb Callahan, President of the League of Conservation
Voters
Source: Environmental News Network - Your leading
news source on the environment
In fact, a recent national poll conducted by Greenberg
Quinlan Research Inc. found that 86 percent of likely
voters feel environmental issues are important when
deciding how to vote. Eighty-three percent believe it
is important for presidential candidates to make environmental
protection a top priority. Despite the polls, many elected
officials are failing to address the mounting environmental
problems that concern every American. In 1999, more
than one-third of the Senate received scores of zero
on the League of Conservation Voters' annual National
Environmental Scorecard, failing to vote on behalf of
the environment even a single time. Read
the whole editorial.
Yes
on Props. 12 and 13
Source: Los Angeles Times
Two of the most important matters before California
voters on March 7 are proposed parks and water bond
issues totaling $4 billion. Proposition 12 would provide
$2.1 billion for state and urban parks, recreation facilities,
wild lands and wildlife projects. Proposition 13 would
finance water development and flood control projects
totaling $1.97 billion. The combined total is big but
well below the $9 billion of the school bond issue approved
two years ago. The outlays would be well worth the costs.
California has not passed a parks bond issue since 1988.
The state has also failed to develop the water systems
needed to keep up with present demands and to meet those
of the near future in a rapidly growing state. Read
the whole editorial.
Make
2000 a Year for Parkland
Source: Los Angeles Times
Measures are moving quickly through the Legislature
to put more than $20 billion in proposed bond issues
before California voters to finance infrastructure projects
ranging from new police crime laboratories to high-way
and transit work and water projects. All are worthy
to some degree, but Gov. Gray Davis and legislative
leaders will have to decide soon which will actually
go on the ballot in 2000. There isn't room for all.
Having too many issues on the ballot might stretch the
state's debt limit or invite voter opposition. In terms
of California's needs, a parks bond issue rates near
the top. Read
the whole editorial.
Farsighted
Leaders, Environmentalists Put 20th Century On Track
With Nature
By Penelope Purdy
Source: Denver Post
Our own century, too, will bequeath a complex legacy
of problems and victories. The inheritance includes
several ideas that fundamentally changed how the nation,
and ultimately industrialized societies worldwide, think
about the environment. Based on conversations with dozens
of environmental leaders, in Colorado and internationally,
here are a few of the 20th century's best efforts. Read
the whole editorial.
Environmental
Panel's New Look
Source:
Los Angeles Times
Senator John H Chafee (R-RI) was a Republican environmentalist
in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. As chairman of
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he
was instrumental in achieving bipartisan support for
a strong Safe Drinking Water Act and other effective
regulatory efforts. His death last week was a loss to
many causes. Today, the committee has a new chairman
with a decidedly different record on the environment.
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