Western Governor's Conference 1998
I knew that Rep. Jim Buck was going to be a LONELY VOICE at this Western Governors Conference - I just didn't realize HOW LONELY it was going to be. After reading this and several other news reports from other newspapers in Utah and Arizona I think this should have been called the Sierra Club Cheerleading School assembly.
I want to thank Rep. Buck for researching this issue and for speaking out against it right in the den of the leftist environmentalists. For those who have sent me Email complaining he didn't go far enough or he should have said more... understand he was only given a few minutes to make a presentation to this group. And that group, for the most part, didn't want to hear ANY opposition to their grand plan.
It takes a great deal of internal fortitude to do what Rep. Buck did, something that should be replicated by every 'conservative'. STAND UP against the left - Silence is taken for consent.... by the Left and by your conservative constituents.
Jackie Juntti
'Enlibra' seeks end to pattern of disputes
An environmental policy intends to resolve diverse issues faster, cheaper and with less antagonism.
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
PHOENIX -- To the Western governors who crafted it, the doctrine they call "enlibra" is a symbol that stands for speeding up the pace of environmental progress through "balance and stewardship."
But to many of the 400 environmentalists, state legislators, regulators, government officials and public lands users who convened at a resort this weekend to discuss it, the contrived Latin word could become another layer of bureaucracy that opens doors to environmental abuse. If taken far enough, some skeptics say, it would affect the constitutional cores and the democratic principles that have been adopted individually by the 18 states the Western Governors' Association represents.
"We've made some progress, but obviously not enough," said Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, one of the authors of the enlibra doctrine that the association approved -- with bipartisan support -- this summer at a meeting in Alaska.
"I think there is still distrust and skepticism for both sides," he said Saturday, the last day of the governors' environmental summit, held at The Point Hilton at Tapatio Cliffs. The governors returned to their states ready to attach a new mission statement to the enlibra doctrine, one that expresses the need for a streamlined system to resolve environmental problems.
The language, according to the association's leader, Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, will target public education and could lead to directions at the agency level on enhancing the environment while, at the same time, enhancing economic productivity and protecting public health.
The idea that there are "sides" -- ranchers, loggers and miners pitted against land preservation activists and groups devoted to protecting wildlife -- bothered some who said the laws, or "tools," that afford environmental protection already are in place.
The "balance," others say, is being achieved slowly and costly as the sides make their cases in the courts and regulatory arenas.
The result is that "stewardship" of America's lands and forests comes through enforcing the laws, compelling land users and polluters to comply.
But by adopting enlibra, the governors "are saying they're going to make policy," said Jim Buck, a Washington representative on the Council of State Governments. "Constitutionally, we make policy, the legislators in each of the states. It's in their constitutions. I take that real seriously," he said. "Without clarification, this threatens the fabric of our political system," Buck said.
Representatives of major environmental groups fear that if enlibra is instituted by the governors in the form of executive orders and language in legislative measures, "the devil will be in the details," according to Laura Hitchcock of the Environmental Support Center. The center is an umbrella, policy support organization with 54 state-based groups including Nevada's Citizen Alert.
Nevada was sparsely represented at the conference primarily because Gov. Bob Miller and Gov.-elect Kenny Guinn canceled their appearances late Thursday to accommodate Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's second visit in three months to Yucca Mountain. The mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied for entombing the nation's high-level nuclear waste, a feat that many scientists say is the ultimate environmental problem facing the country.
Nevertheless, two of the handful of Nevadans at the conference -- state Environmental Protection Division Administrator Allen Biaggi and David Donnelly, deputy director of the Southern Nevada Water Authority -- said that without attaching a label or the enlibra seal of approval to it, the state has in effect been practicing the doctrine the governors adopted. They cited innovative public-private programs launched to protect the desert tortoise and other threatened or endangered species.
Donnelly suggested that enlibra could be used to guide actions by the Lake Mead Water Quality Forum, a group of agencies and citizens concerned about the effects of urban runoff and industrial pollution on the lake, a drinking supply for millions of people in the Southwest.
Biaggi said, "The principles are common sense and should be inherent in the way we do things."
One skeptic of enlibra, the Sierra Club's Sandy Bahr, said, "We're hoping enlibra is not more political hot air."
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Republican, advocate and co-author of enlibra, said the doctrine's eight principles don't infringe on constitutional rights or override laws. Instead, they are "pathways that time has demonstrated lead to balance" in resolving environmental problems. The problems span a wide range of topics, from working out ways to restore wetlands to coexistence of livestock and endangered species on public lands.
"It's a symbol to rally around to increase the velocity of environmental progress," he said.
In Leavitt's view, that progress under the current system has crawled along during the past 25 years at a slow pace not unlike that of the threatened desert tortoise that the system was designed to protect.
The eight principles are really philosophies on problem-solving that Leavitt and other governors want to use as a framework for discussion between regulators and stakeholders.
Said Felicia Marcus, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, "I actually don't think this is about legislation. It's about attitude."
But in Buck's interpretation, while some of the principles have merit, others go against the grain of state constitutions and could result in measures that don't necessarily have the backing of the constituents in the states where the measures will be implemented. The enlibra policy, he said, substitutes "stakeholders" for constituents and "regions" for states.
He notes that one section of the governors' policy position states, "Based on extensive regional experience, the Western Governors commit to a new doctrine to guide natural resource and environmental policy development and decision-making in the West."
Buck said, "While no one will change a governor's ability to exercise leadership in solving a problem, it is clear in our constitution that the legislative branch makes the policy and the executive branch implements the policy. It is also clear that although the governor or legislature may lead, there is no requirement for the people to follow."
"We must remember the people are responsible for making the decisions that determine their quality of life," he said.
Attorney Karen Budd-Falen, who has represented ranchers in Southern Nevada in their attempts to keep grazing privileges in desert tortoise habitat, said environmental laws "really need to have more provisions for local solutions."
"I think you're going to have to have changes in statutes. In my view, national standards have to have goals, and implementation has to be at the local level," she said.
Just how enlibra will be implemented remains to be seen.
Leavitt offered hope over the long term.
"The whole idea of enlibra isn't going to change much overnight. But in time, 10, 12 or 15 years from now, we will have planted some seeds that will form a critical mass.
"Our purpose isn't to pick a fight, it's to solve problems. How do you preserve open space, but provide housing at the same time? Let's see if we can use these principles to write legislation," he said.
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