Meeting
on Bush enviro proposal draws disparate views
08/10/2006
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
/ Associated Press
Well, it was
billed as a “listening session.”
More than
180 people signed up to speak at the first public hearing on the Bush
administration’s “cooperative conservation” plan, which is
seeking ideas on how groups with radically different goals can work together to
protect the environment.
“I
don’t believe Washington, D.C., has all the answers. Neither does the
president,” said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in opening the first
of at least 24 planned public meetings.
The Bush
administration, which held a conference on the topic last year, defines
cooperative conservation as the efforts of landowners, communities,
conservation groups, industry and government to work together to preserve the
environment.
Many of the
speakers applauded the concept, and some pointed to examples where groups had
already cooperated to protect the environment. But many people were skeptical.
Washington state Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, said
it was paramount that private property rights be protected from bureaucrats and
special interests.
“Only
the private property owner has anything tangible on the table,” Kretz
said.
Kretz noted
that forests in his district were on fire, in part, he contended, because of
restrictions on logging. He also noted that efforts to open a gold mine in
Okanogan County had bogged down for years because of
environmental concerns.
He saved his
harshest criticism for efforts to save Columbia River salmon runs, noting that millions of
dollars are spent on salmon recovery each year. Several salmon runs on the
Columbia system are listed under the Endangered
Species Act, and there have long been battles over whether to breach four dams
on the Snake
River to make it easier for
the fish to reach spawning grounds.
Kretz said
salmon are now returning in large numbers.
“We
have developed a salmon recovery industry,” Kretz contended, fueled by
electricity ratepayers and “the urban ignorant.”
Other
speakers called for reforms of the Endangered Species Act and other
long-standing environmental laws they said are inefficient.
Robin
Meenach, vice president of the Washington Farm Bureau, said cooperation will
only work if it is voluntary and if property owners are compensated for any
land lost to environmental protection.
She noted
that a Farm Bureau-backed initiative on the November ballot in Washington would require state and local government
agencies to either compensate private landowners for regulations that harm the
value of private property, or waive the requirements.
“Capitalism has served us well, not
socialism,” Meenach said.
Meenach also
took shots at salmon recovery efforts that seek to divert more water to fish
passage and less to other uses, like farming.
Others had
high hopes for the president’s proposal.
Keith
Phillips, from Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office, said a recent deal
on allocating water from the Columbia River required the cooperation of many
parties.
“Competition for water had led to gridlock on the
river,” Phillips said.
Mike
Petersen of The Lands Council, a Spokane-based environmental group, said
cooperation helped facilitate a recent landmark agreement to improve the
Spokane River.
But he
warned that cooperation requires lots of time commitment, and all parties must
be at the table.
“We
need to stay with existing bedrock environmental laws,” Petersen added.
Rob Masonis,
Northwest director of American Rivers, urged the panel to make sure that
independent scientific and economic analysis of issues is used.
“When
you have competing science and economics, it is inefficient,” he said.
There were
183 people who signed up to speak at the meeting, along with seven people
invited by the panel and members of the panel itself. In addition to
Kempthorne, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Steve Johnson, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall and Ron Kreizenbeck, regional
director of the EPA in Seattle, attended the meeting.
Johnson
noted that one piece of proposed legislation under the concept would help
volunteers begin cleaning up some of the 500,000 abandoned mines in the nation
by removing legal liability for the cleanup work.
“President Bush is engaging our eager army of
citizen conservationists,” Johnson said.
Comments
from the 24 meetings will be studied and the best proposals will be considered,
Kempthorne said.