Re: Nat'l Advisory Board On Environmental Restoration (NABER)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

To respond quickly to Rick Warner's thoughtful comments, Aimee
and I put forward NABER as a way to respond to the constant
stream of national policy decisions that are made with only the
marginal involvement of public stakeholders, despite the
existence of a visible, interested constituency. We did not
suggest it as a way of resolving local communications or
responsiveness problems.

Aimee and I are in an unusual situation. We do have the
opportunity to influence such policies, often before they're out
for public comment, because we communicate frequently with
decision-makers in many agencies. We believe such channels
should be much broader.

Many of the problems that Rick and others describe are
essentially political. I know that political decisions -
including deals made by state officeholders - have been a major
part of the problem at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. I don't
expect the bureaucracies at the Defense Department or
Environment Protection Agency to accomplish changes that we can
only achieve through aggressive, coordinated national
organizing.

Lenny Siegel
Director, SFSU CAREER/PRO (and Pacific Studies Center)
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org