Today's Topics:
Federal Timber Legislation
State Law Promotes Wasting
UNEP's Global Environment Outlook-1 on-line
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Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 14:01:24, -0500
From: david_reynolds@prodigy.com ( DAVID B REYNOLDS)
Subject: Federal Timber Legislation
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the Senate's natural resources
panel plans to rewrite the main law protecting America's forests in a
way that environmental activists say would turn them into tree farms.
<p> Critics charge that many changes proposed by Sen. Larry Craig,
R-Idaho, echo a timber lobbyist's testimony before a House
subcommittee last March. <p> His draft rewrite of the National
Forest Management Act "is a bald attempt to turn our national forests
into tree farms," charged Kevin Kirchner, a lawyer for the Sierra
Club Legal Defense Fund. <p> Craig said he's trying to bring order
to the chaos of the Forest Service. His proposal would restrict
citizen appeals and lawsuits meant to block logging and scale back
environmental reviews and consultation with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service. <p> "I want
to try to bring a dysfuncti
nal agency into an effectively operating operation. I'm convinced
that cannot happen without changes in public policy," said Craig,
chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on
forests. <p> Of conservationists' charges he is too close to the
timber industry, Craig responded, "Some of these groups, if I had
presented them with 127 blank pages, we would have gotten the same
reaction." <p> Much of the draft bill does reflect positions taken
by Steven Quarles of the American Forest & Paper Association last
March before a House resources subcommittee. Twenty-three of
Quarles's 28 recommendations appear in Craig's bill using
substantially identical language. <p> For example, Quarles
testified the government's resource management plans for determining
which parts of a forest to log should maintain to the maximum extent
feasible the communities economically dependent on national forest or
Bureau of Land Management lands. <p> Craig's proposal reads: <p>
"In preparing, amending, revis
ng or implementing a resource management plan, the secretary shall
consider if, and explain whether, the plan maintains to the maximum
extent feasible under the Act and other applicable law the stability
of any community economically dependent on the resources of the
federal lands to which the plan applies." <p> Quarles also asked
Congress to allow only two levels of planning -- for multiple-use
resources and for management activity. <p> So does Craig's proposal.
<p> The staff director of Craig's committee, Mark Rey, rejected
the charge that the draft bill was tilted toward the logging industry.
<p> Quarles provided Congress "with a lot of quality ideas"
supported by a broad range of other groups as well, said Rey, a
Quarles predecessor as executive director of the American Forest &
Paper Association. <p> "The fact we responded favorably to a
developing consensus that there should be time limits and
simplification of the planning process does not make this an industry
bill," he said. <p> Rey sai
the industry's top priorities are not in Craig's bill. They include
minimum logging levels for national forests and abrogation of the
requirement that the Forest Service maintain a viable population of
every creature found in each national forest. <p> Furthermore, many
changes endorsed by the industry also are supported by the Western
Governor's Association, the White House Office on Technology and the
Forest Service itself, he said. <p> Chris West, vice president of
the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland, Ore., said the
current system "is broke." <p> "Right now, for a whole host of
reasons -- the law, the courts, the administration -- we're in
gridlock," West said. "While the environmentalists like gridlock ...,
it is (not) in the public's best interest." <p> But Tim Hermach,
executive director of the Native Forest Council in Eugene, Ore., said
Craig's proposals demonstrate "his servitude to the timber industry."
<p> Craig said he reached out to conservation groups for ideas, but
so far
hey have offered little constructive criticism. "It's amazing for one
interest group to to say another interest group doesn't have a right
to be part of process," he said. <p><p> <p><center><ADDRESS><font
size=-1>News or information from AP may not be published, broadcast
or redistributed without the prior authorization of AP.<br>Copyright
1997 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 97 13:14:27 PST
From: jennie.alvernaz@sfsierra.sierraclub.org
Subject: State Law Promotes Wasting
[Forwarded by Bill Sheehan]
Report from Michigan:
The Wasting Industry's Version of a Free Market
For all of you folks interested in and affected by solid waste landfills,
incinerators and waste burning devices, Rep. Mick Middaugh (R-Paw Paw)
has just the thing for you!!!
It is HB 4037, introduced on the first legislative session day on
January 8, 1997 and forwarded to the House Conservation Environment
and Recreation Committee (which Middaugh chaired last
session)
This is dangerous proposed legislation, obviously introduced at the
behest of the the solid waste industry. The bill wipes out existing
ordinances, laws, rules, regulations, solid waste management plans
and policies of all local units of government.
It also prevents municipalities from enacting laws that direct
or restrict the flow of solid waste. Say good bye to mandatory
recycling.
Wipes out most existing provisions of state law governing the
writing and promulgation of solid waste management plans and
requires new plans to be adopted pursuant to provisions of
HB 4037.
...
Deregulates electric utility ash disposal from requirements of solid
waste planning.
You can get a copy of any legislation free by calling the Legislative Document
Room (517) 373 0169.
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Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 09:17:39 GMT+1
From: "Sindre Langaas" <sindre@system.ecology.su.se>
Subject: UNEP's Global Environment Outlook-1 on-line
(Please, forward and re-distribute as appropriate)
News Release:
============================================
Global Environment Outlook-1 (GEO-1)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Global State of the Environment Report 1997
============================================
JAPAN
http://www-cger.nies.go.jp/geo1/
KENYA
http://www.unep.org/unep/eia/geo1/
MEXICO
http://www.rolac.unep.mx/geo1/
NORWAY
http://www.grida.no/geo1/
SWITZERLAND
http://www.grid.unep.ch/geo1/
USA
http://grid2.cr.usgs.gov/geo1/
GEO-1 is the first output in UNEP's biennial GEO report series
GEO-1 is based on an international participatory assessment process
involving -
- a global network of 20 collaborating centres of scientific excellence,
- regional policy consultations,
- four scientific working groups,
- UN participation through the UN
systemwide Earthwatch
GEO-1 provides a comprehensive overview of regional environmental
concerns, an initial evaluation of policy responses that address
regional concerns, and a first glimpse at a possible future using
modelling techniques
GEO-1 is published simultaneously on Internet via six UNEP Web servers
in Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland and USA to ensure
convenient access to this report
The Web version of GEO-1 provides
access to the entire GEO-1 report including -
- around 70 environmental global and regional graphics provided in
quick-look and full size versions in GIF format for direct viewing and
downloading
- around 30 tables showing global and regional overviews
of environmental issues provided as directly viewable HTML-tables and
downloadable Excel files
describes the participatory GEO process and the 20 collaborating
centres central to GEO-1, and the planned successors provides on-line
feedback opportunities, and at some GEO-1 sites also search tools
An invaluable on-line environmental reference resource for decision
and policy-makers, environmentalists, journalists, scientists, and
educators worldwide,
**************************************************************
* Dr. Sindre Langaas * Phone: +46-8-161737 *
* Project Manager * *
* Nordic/Baltic Region * Fax: +46-8-158417 *
* UNEP/GRID-Arendal * *
* c/o Dept. of Systems Ecology * E-mail: langaas@grida.no *
* Stockholm University * *
* S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden * URL http://www.grida.no/ *
**************************************************************
**************************************************************
* Dr. Sindre Langaas * Phone: +46-8-161737 *
* Project Manager * *
* Nordic/Baltic Region * Fax: +46-8-158417 *
* UNEP/GRID-Arendal * *
* c/o Dept. of Systems Ecology * E-mail: langaas@grida.no *
* Stockholm University * *
* S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden * URL http://www.grida.no/ *
**************************************************************
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End of GreenYes Digest V97 #17
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