Copyright 2000 The Seattle Times Company
The
Seattle Times
May 9, 2000, Tuesday Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B6
LENGTH: 423 words
HEADLINE:
Money tied to vision
BODY:
THE Conservation
and Reinvestment Act has the magic to get through Congress in an
election year: money for lots of states, creative compromises and an odd-couple
pair of sponsors from the right and left.
The full House is expected to
vote tomorrow on landmark legislation that uses money from offshore oil and gas
leases to pay for land, wildlife, marine, coastal, historic and cultural
conservation. This sweeping measure deserves support.
Part of what makes CARA so attractive is the knowledge the U.S. treasury
has sucked up the lease proceeds for decades. Congress blithely turned a blind
eye, never bothering to spend the money as intended.
Two cantankerous
partisan foes had the political muscle to push for change, Reps. Don Young,
R-Alaska, and George Miller, D-Calif. They are polar opposites on most issues,
but they could see billions slipping away from their states.
Young
chairs the House Resources Committee and Miller is the committee's senior
Democrat. They were essential to creation and promotion of the bill.
The
feds still receive 40 percent of the lease payments, but the states would share
roughly $2.8 billion a year for the next 15 years. Share is a
euphemism because six coastal states with the offshore deposits benefit
mightily.
The state of Washington would receive more than
$5 billion dollars over time for spending under eight different
titles for coastal ecosystems, federal and state land purchases for
conservation and preservation, urban parks and recreation,
historic preservation and Indian lands restoration.
Young and Miller
play key roles. Young's support is supposed to help inoculate the bill against
property-rights advocates who see a land grab. In the past, Young has been among
the most vitriolic on the topic; he mellowed for big gains.
Miller can
hold the hands of greens worried the bill creates incentives for even more
offshore drilling to increase revenues. The explanation is that sensitive lands
in moratorium areas remain protected.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton,
weighed in with an influential endorsement from his Interior appropriations
perch.
One of the successes of the CARA bill has been an extraordinary
grassroots campaign to win support. States like California and Alaska are big
winners, but the money seeps into programs elsewhere for greenways, urban
recreation and parks and open space.
Congress has hoarded this money for
years and tapped it for purposes no one can recall. This bill puts the money to
work in creative, tangible ways.
LOAD-DATE: May
10, 2000 
