Gallegly Should Dump Hefley Bill

* Congressman Elton Gallegly supports the Hefley Bill (HR 260), which opens the door to selling the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and the Channel Islands National Park. His support of this bill makes it impossible for him to give honest assurances that these parks are protected. He can’t have it both ways.

For the first time, Gallegly refuses to support funding for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and the Channel Islands in the upcoming park appropriations. It appears he has changed his position on our parks.

Although his office explains his lack of support by saying this is a budget problem, we know the real truth. The source of the monies for our parks is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This parkland money is oil company mitigation money, which is required as an offset for environmental damages caused by oil companies. This separate fund consists of legally mandated payments from the oil companies, to be spent on our park needs. In addition to this mandated special-use park fund, the oil companies pay the Feds more than $3 billion each year for appropriated general use. The sad truth is that the specially mandated park funds are being illegally misused for other purposes.

I hope Gallegly will think this through and put his constituents’ needs first. We ask him to withdraw his support of the Hefley Bill, which makes it possible for our parks to be among those which Congress intends to sell. We ask him also to support park funding for the Channel Islands and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, where willing sellers have been long waiting in line.

Mary E. Wiesbrock

Agoura Hills

Mary Wiesbrock is director of Save Open Space.