Sybert Ignorant of Park Predicament

* Re: “Park Agency Financing Threatens Investments,” Feb. 25.

For a board member of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and candidate hoping to represent Santa Monica Mountains communities in Congress, Rich Sybert is astonishingly ignorant of the real reason the National Park Service currently has no money to purchase properties along the Backbone Trail. Either that or he is deliberately portraying the situation falsely to hide the role his own Republican party has had in this matter.

Mr. Sybert blames the Clinton Administration for the fact that the National Park Service has no funding for land purchases in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, accusing President Clinton of “holding the Santa Monica Mountains hostage to his political ambitions.”

The truth is, last year President Clinton asked Congress to provide $3 million for land purchases in the Santa Monicas for this year, along with $1.3 million to compensate for the park’s acquisition money that was borrowed for firefighting purposes. To date, neither amount has been appropriated by the Republican-led Congress.

In fact, the Republicans in the House of Representatives initially called for a five-year moratorium on all National Park Service land purchases, but later relented and agreed to provide a relatively modest amount this year to take care of emergencies and hardship cases.

Unfortunately, that funding was contained in a bill that would have reversed the California Desert Protection Act, expanded logging in the Tongass National Forest, stopped the listing of new endangered species and imposed environmentally damaging policies--a bill that President Clinton rightly vetoed in December. Ever since, the Republicans in Congress have refused to pass anew any funds for park purchases.

Funding for parkland acquisition is indeed being held hostage; it has been snared in the unpopular anti-environmental agenda the Republicans in Congress are trying to foist on the American people. Since these are the very Republicans Mr. Sybert would further empower if he is elected, it is not surprising that his own political ambitions would cause him to point the blame in a different direction.

ANTHONY C. BEILENSON

Washington, D.C.

Beilenson is a Democratic member of Congress, representing the 24th Congressional District. He is not seeking reelection this year.