Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504250031
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``Today I can tell you what the largest threat to our environment is, and it's right behind me - the U.S. Congress,'' Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told a rally on the National Mall. ``They're literally dismantling 25 years of environmental progress.''
Congress has passed 28 major environmental laws, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, since the first Earth Day in 1970.
But environmentalists say the new Republican-led Congress is quickly - and stealthily - revoking that protection, and spent the 25th Earth Day urging Americans to fight back. Organizers hoped to collect millions of signatures on an ``Environmental Bill of Rights'' petition to present to Congress on July 4.
``Let them know up there that we still care,'' actor LeVar Burton of ``Star Trek: The Next Generation'' told the cheering crowd, estimated by U.S. Park Police at 125,000. ``Don't turn back the clock on the environment.''
That message reverberated at Earth Day events nationwide.
``The joke around here is that the 25th anniversary should be more of a wake than a celebration,'' said Rudy Lukez, chairman of Utah's Sierra Club.
But in Tumwater, Wash., more than 100 timber workers spent Earth Day asking lawmakers to cut the Endangered Species Act, which restricts logging on lands that are home to certain protected species of plants and animals.
``It is a cruel, vicious and unrelenting law,'' said Barbara Mossman of Forks, Wash., who said the decline in timber production killed her family's log trucking business.
The act is ``broken and needs to be fixed,'' agreed U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., who held the ``timber family'' hearing with fellow Republicans Sen. Slade Gorton and Rep. Linda Smith.
Elsewhere, more than 3,000 volunteers spent the day cleaning up illegal dumps in Oregon and hundreds of Californians picked up trash in Malibu, which was devastated by winter storms that caused flooding and mudslides.
Of concern to environmentalists are House-passed bills that would reimburse industry for the cost of certain environmental regulations and require the benefits of new protections to outweigh the costs. Also, landowners would be paid for property value losses resulting from environmental laws.
Business leaders say environmental laws are too restrictive and that the congressional proposals mark a long overdue move away from extremism. The property-rights bill in particular was prompted by landowners who said such laws as the Endangered Species Act limit the use of their land.
``We want the right to clean air, which is our property, and the right to clean water, which is our property,'' countered Kennedy. ``They're talking about the right to pollute.''
Such legislation would end vital government efforts to clean up water, added Janet Drews of Hartland, Wis. Her teen-age daughter died in 1993 when she drank water contaminated with cryptosporidia, a bacterium.
Although President Clinton has pledged to veto anti-environmental legislation, Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson said he's prepared for some setbacks.
``We may get some short-term losses here, but they will be short-term,'' he said at the Washington rally. ``I continue to be optimistic in the long pull - we're going to protect the environment because we have to.''
by CNB