Copyright 2000 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
April 29, 2000 Saturday 2D EDITION
SECTION: DENVER & THE WEST; Pg. B-07
LENGTH: 700 words
HEADLINE:
Protecting our environment
BYLINE: By Charles Kerr,
GUEST COMMENTARY,
BODY:
GRAND JUNCTION - Sen. Ben
Nighthorse Campbell persistently presents himself as a fair-minded,
well-informed legislator who seeks to balance contentious, national
forest management issues.
In a recent Post column, Campbell wrote:
'Hopefully it (the extended review process for the White River
National Forest Plan) will give everyone an opportunity to step back,
tone down the innuendo and rhetoric and find ways to build consensus
on a forest-management plan that respects and addresses the
biological needs as equally as the needs of those who responsibly use
the resources of our national forests.'
Unfortunately for
Coloradans, this reasonable approach to forest conservation seems to
be little more than a congenial mask that Campbell wears to deceive
the public while he casts his vote in the Senate to promote timber,
mining and other development of public lands.
When the
Department of Interior last year attempted to
limit mine-waste dumping on BLM lands to one 20-acre
millsite per claim (a reasonable compromise between biological and
commercial needs), Campbell voted in support of an amendment to an
appropriations bill that allowed unlimited
mine-waste dumping. Also in 1999, Campbell voted for
an amendment that would have exempted coal-mining operations from the
Clean Water Act and from the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation
Act. While purporting to support a balanced approach to managing
the resources of our national forests, Campbell voted against
an amendment which would have cut timber subsidies and
better protected biological needs by transferring $ 23 million out
of Forest Service timber road building programs into programs
to protect fish and wildlife. Worse yet, Campbell added an earmark
to an appropriations bill that required the Forest Service to
spend an additional $ 2 million to clear-cut aspen in the White River
and GMUG National Forests.
Adding insult to environmental
injury, Campbell supported a rider that would allow Forest Service
and BLM officials to ignore requirements to consider environmental
impacts before permitting logging and other industrial uses of public
lands. Regarding the use of public lands, Campbell has
consistently voted in favor of business interests and against funding
to protect the environment.
In 1998, for example, Campbell voted to
block BLM-proposed hard-rock mining reforms, and he voted in favor of
maintaining tax subsidies for mining companies. Campbell voted
against appropriations for the Clean Water Action Plan; the Land,
Water and Facility Restoration Initiative (for our national
parks, forest and other public lands); the Drinking Water and Clean
Water State Revolving Loan funds; and a funding increase to
accelerate toxic-waste cleanups at Superfund sites.
When
Campbell does act on behalf of the environment, as in his Canyons of
the Ancients Bill, his efforts seem half-hearted. While the bill
honors the archaeological heritage and the biological integrity of
the Four Corners, it contains few specific provisions to protect
these things, and no designation of wilderness for the Cross, Cahone,
and Squaw/Papoose Wilderness Study Areas.
What it does do is ensure that
no management activities interfere with expanded oil and gas
production in that area. Basically the bill is a continuation of the
area's current management and, after various groups criticized the
bill, Campbell withdrew it.
These are not the actions of a
senator who 'respects and addresses the biological needs as equally
as the needs of those who responsibly use the resources of our
national lands.'
Clearly Sen. Campbell is not interested in consensus or
in protecting the environment. To discover Campbell's intent,
one must look beyond his words to the legislative actions that
he takes on behalf of those who exploit our public lands.
Charles Kerr is a retired teacher living in Grand Junction,
and is a member of the Western Colorado Congress and
Concerned Citizens Resource Association, a Mesa County
grassroots organization.
LOAD-DATE: May 01,
2000 
