FW: [NFPA] 2 Washington Post pieces - 6/21/04

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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
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Sent: June 23, 2004 12:04 PM
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Subject: [NFPA] 2 Washington Post pieces - 6/21/04


Votes for Forests; Washington Post Editorial 6/21 washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A18

IT'S JUST ONE VOTE, on one amendment, to one House of Representatives
appropriations bill. It will probably disappear from the final version
of the bill, which the Senate has not yet debated. But last week's
surprisingly decisive, bipartisan House show of approval for a measure
that would block further taxpayer subsidies for road-building in the
Tongass National Forest should send an important signal to the Senate
and its powerful appropriations chairman, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Apart
from the environmental issues -- the Tongass is the largest national
forest remaining, and by some measures the most pristine -- the subsidy
is indefensible on fiscal grounds, because it effectively props up the
unprofitable logging industry. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense,
the Forest Service spent $36 million on subsidizing logging in the
Tongass in fiscal 2002, yet received $1.2 million in revenue; $750
million has been lost on Tongass logging over the past 20 years. For too
long, Alaskan special interests, operating through Alaska's
congressional delegations, have kept this unnecessary industry going.
	

The White House would also do well do heed the lessons of this amendment
vote, which was supported by 48 Republicans and sponsored by Rep. Steve
Chabot (R-Ohio) as well as Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.). In the near
future, the administration is due to finalize the status of the
"roadless" areas of both the Tongass and the Chugach forests, which
Alaskan logging interests have lobbied to keep open, making them an
exception to national policy. This vote should shed some doubt on the
wisdom of that unpopular change, as well as on the general thrust of the
administration's Alaskan environmental policy.

Earlier this week, the House leadership was also forced to cancel, for
lack of support, a scheduled vote on an amendment that would have
permitted oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. At the
very least, these changes should remind the White House that many in
their own party also believe that national forests and national wildlife
refuges are meant to be run for the benefit of the nation and not only
for the benefit of the people who want to profit from them. C 2004 The
Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56756-2004Jun20.html

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What You Don't See at Olympic Park
Report Criticizing Bush Administration for Funding Shortage Has Not Been
Released to Public

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A17

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, Wash. -- A federal report says that a shortage of
operating funds from the Bush administration is crippling this park,
where 3.2 million people last year visited rain forests, alpine trails
and one of the nation's longest wild coastlines.
	
"Core operations of the park are not funded sufficiently to meet the
basic goals and mission of the park as defined by Congress," says the
report, called the Olympic National Park Business Plan. It says the park
receives only about half the money it needs.

But the business plan -- a detailed enumeration of the kind of chronic
budget shortfalls that are forcing cutbacks in national parks across the
United States -- has not been released to the public. Handsomely printed
copies are gathering dust here at park headquarters.

A National Park Service official, who asked not to be identified out of
fear of retaliation, said the report has not been released because the
Bush administration "doesn't like bad news. They don't like to see or
hear about it or fix it. And they punish the messenger."

No order has been issued to withhold the report, according to William
"Bill" Laitner, superintendent at Olympic.

In Washington, D.C., Elaine Sevy, a spokeswoman for the Park Service,
said the report is based on outdated information and probably needs to
be rewritten. "It's not a matter of anybody putting the clamps on and
saying don't release it," she added.

But the principal partner with the Park Service in creating business
plans for Olympic and many other national parks strongly disagrees.

"We are worried that some superintendents are not releasing the business
plans for fear of retribution or criticism by the administration," said
Tom Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association
(NPCA), a nonprofit advocacy group that monitors the nation's parks.

The superintendent at Gettysburg National Military Park was ordered by
the Washington office of the Park Service to cancel a news conference
that had been scheduled in the fall of 2002 to announce the park's
business plan, which showed budget shortfalls. The plan was later made
public on the park's Web site.

The Park Service canceled that news conference "not to hide the business
plan," Sevy said, but because it believed that the NPCA might "go out
there and say a lot of things that our superintendents aren't
comfortable saying."

Until last August, NPCA had collaborated with the Park Service in a
project that since 1998 has produced 64 business plans for national
parks across the country. Twelve plans are being rewritten this year
with new data. With funding from Congress, the project recruits graduate
students from the country's best business schools and asks them to
identify funding problems and management solutions for the parks.

Taken together, the business plans -- most of which have been made
public -- have provided detailed documentation showing that the parks
are chronically short of money. The reports show that most parks have
annual operating budget shortfalls of about 30 percent.

For the business plans that are being redone this summer, Park Service
headquarters is cautioning students and park superintendents not to
write "overzealous" descriptions of budget needs that were often
contained in previous reports, said Bruce Sheaffer, comptroller for the
Park Service.

"Being realistic is key," Sheaffer said. "We told them this year to
focus on those things that they can defend effectively, as opposed to
writing a huge long unsubstantiated wish list."

The Park Service in August canceled its partnership with the NPCA on the
business plans. "We were not seen as a friendly voice," said Ron Tipton,
an NPCA senior vice president. Park Service officials declined to
comment on why the partnership ended.

Although most of the reports have been made public, a senior manager in
the business plan program says that in the past two years -- as the Bush
administration has become increasingly stung by outside criticism about
funding for the parks -- release of the plans has been subject to
unexplained delays.

"The National Park Service has played a cagey game on this," said the
manager, who helped create the program. "No one is being told absolutely
they can't release the reports. But there certainly have been instances
that make you wonder, why, after so long, the plans haven't come out."

This manager noted that park superintendents across the country are very
much aware of what happened to Teresa C. Chambers, the chief of the U.S.
Park Police who was suspended last year after saying that her force was
underfunded and overstretched by new guard duties on the Mall.

"There is clearly a ripple effect from that," the manager said. "Park
superintendents who have an eye for a bigger park or becoming a regional
director are noting that they are better advised to hold their tongues
on everything."

C 2004 The Washington Post Company















*
-- 

Christina Wulf
Virginia Forest Watch
Charlottesville, VA
434-971-7678

PROTECT VIRGINIA'S FORESTS
http://www.VirginiaForestWatch.org
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Even after all this time
the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.  - Hafiz of Shiraz






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