THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501280222
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ATLANTIC BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The chairman of a panel that oversees development along the state's coast said Friday he is ``prepared to expend any amount of time and effort'' to uphold statutes designed to protect the waterfront from pollution.
``Protection of the coast should not be a partisan issue,'' Eugene B. Tomlinson Jr., a retired coastal engineer and chairman of the state Coastal Resources Commission, said Friday.
``I don't believe eliminating CAMA or weakening CAMA is in the best interest of the state.
``I would do anything I can to oppose that happening,'' he said.
Tomlinson's remarks were in response to question about recent signals by Republican leaders in the House to dramatically shift state environmental policy and by a statement from the new chairman of the House Health and Environment Committee that he would like to revise or repeal the Coastal Area Management Act.
On Thursday Rep. John M. Nichols, a two-term Republican from Craven County, was named head of the House committee that will control the fate of laws on environment and health issues that come before the House over the next two years.
Tomlinson said CAMA has been largely successful in balancing environmental concerns with coastal development over the last two decades, and that endangering the environment would not be in the state's economic interest.
``I think the General Assembly realizes what tourism means to the economy of eastern North Carolina,'' he said. ``That tourism is based on the preservation of the ecological bounty of the coast.''
In Raleigh, Bill Holman, the lobbyist for the state chapter of the Sierra Club, said he was ``disappointed in both the House and the Senate that the environment has been downgraded as an issue.''
In the House, environment was combined with health issues while Senate committees were realigned to combine environment and natural resources issues with agriculture issues.
Sen. Charlie Albertson, a Duplin County Democrat, will head the combined Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee. For the last two years, Albertson has chaired a legislative study committee on seafood and aquaculture. He is also a member of a study committee on fisheries issues.
Bret Kinsella, a spokesman for Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who established the committees and appointed their chairmen, said the move was not an attempt to downgrade the environment but to streamline Senate operations. by CNB