Feds set meeting in Redding to get policy suggestions
By Dylan Darling, Record Searchlight
September 13, 2006
Federal environmental policymakers
will be in Redding today to lend an ear. • What: Public meeting
• When: 1 p.m. today
• Where: Cascade Theatre, 1733 Market St., Redding
• Agenda includes: "Listening session" for the
public to offer ideas about environmental incentives, programs and
regulations to senior federal officials The event will be "a great chance" for those who
care about the environment to voice their opinions to those who manage it for
the federal government, she said. The two-minute window is an attempt to let
all those who want to talk have a chance to do so, she said. Reporter Dylan Darling can be reached at 225-8266 or at ddarling@redding.com.
Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and other high-level administrators plan to have a
"listening session," in which the public is invited to voice
opinions on federal environmental incentives, programs and regulations.
"It provides the administration a chance to hear what the public has to
say," said Alexandra Pitts, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
While the event is attracting people concerned about environmental issues from
the Klamath River in the far north state to the San Francisco Bay area, not
all are taking the time to come to Redding.
"It seems like quite a bit of travel for two minutes of being
ignored," said Scott Greacen, public lands coordinator with the
Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville, on the North
Coast.
Members of the public who address the officials will have two minutes to do
so, he said.
"In two minutes, you can’t really say too much," Greacen said.
That’s not stopping Sarah Matsumoto, field director for the Endangered
Species Coalition, and others with conservation groups in the Bay Area from
making the trek today to Redding.
If you're going
"I understand why they are doing it, because there are so many people who
have something to say," Matsumoto said.
The session is set for 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cascade Theatre.
Along with Rey will be Jason Peltier, deputy assistant secretary of the
interior for water and science, Wayne Nastri, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency regional administrator, and Scott Rayder, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration chief of staff. The session is one of 24 being held
across the country in August and September. The last of the listening sessions
will be Sept. 28 in Colton, about an hour east of Los Angeles.
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has attended some of the sessions,
but he won’t be in Redding.
Greacen said the Bush administration is having the sessions to showcase
arguments for changes to the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act,
both of which have been targeted for overhaul by conservative lawmakers.
"What they are trying to do is create a body of complaints," he
said.
The meeting will be the second time Rey has been in Redding this year. In
February, he addressed about 240 people at the Forest Vegetation Management
Conference, put on by a nonprofit group of forestry professionals, at the
Holiday Inn.