Re: NANFA-- not a chick flick...

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Sun, 20 Feb 2000 14:26:47 EST

Ray, your choice of example for regulation, salmon, isn't a good one for
your argument. Because salmon are anadromous, they often involve several
states and always involve international negotiations, making them a federal
concern on two levels (the beauty of the compromise promoted by the
Federalist Papers in 1788/1789 leading to the modern Constitution).

Other issues are dodgier. For instance, Alabama and Georgia have been
holding talks on allocating the flow of rivers that originate in Georgia and
run through Alabama (the Coosa/Tallapoosa/Alabama River system). Georgia
wants to impound more of the flow for a variety of silly reasons, while
Alabama doesn't want to see decreased flow. Talks just collapsed; this means
it goes to a federal court, who threw it back to the states to settle 5
years ago. Important environmental issues are rarely local to a given state,
even the bigger states.

Activities that may benefit one area can easily adversely affect someone
else (i.e., burning coal in a power plant benefits Kentucky but causes acid
deposition in NY and New England). How do you solve this to everyone's
satisfaction?

And I don't even want to touch the issues of navigable waters, i.e. what are
legitimate uses in tidal or major fresh water ways. On an e-list we'd
quickly get into "does so, does not" in a pointless way.

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville "Constitution Village" Alabama

>No offense Jay, but would you prefer a radical veiwpoint of the other
>extreme, like vice-president Al Gore? I believe if George W. Bush were
>elected, he would let state agencies handle environmental issues, as it
>should be. I don't think that it is the Presidents place to dictate ( pun
>intended) what all agencies should do, especially those at State levels.
>Whats good for Virginia isn't neccasarily good for Wisconsin, and whats
>good
>for Wisconsin isn't necassarily good for Washington. Let's say for the
>sake
>of arguement that the new President was from the great lakes area. His
>veiws on Salmon would reflect ( in most cases) what salmon are here, sport
>fish and alewife control. Would you want this guy telling Washington state
>whats good for its salmon? The reliance of Federal government to take
>care of state issues is a hot topic now, for reasons that are easily read
>about in publications. I have not heard what Bill Bradley or John McCains
>veiws on this subject are, but have heard Bill Bradleys are in line with Al
>Gores.
>Ray

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