May
18, 2006
PRESS RELEASE
SURPRISE! POMBO CAMPAIGN TV AD DISTORTS TRUTH
PLEASANTON, CA -- Rep. Richard Pombo's newest television campaign ad is packed with distortions and half-truths about efforts to protect some of
California's endangered birds and the effect those efforts had on military training, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund said today.
The ad claims that when federal bureaucrats "were closing 57 percent of Camp Pendleton"
to protect the California gnatcatcher, compromising military training, he stopped them. But a cursory glance at the public record tells a different story:
- Fifty-seven (57%) percent of Camp Pendleton was never proposed to be "closed." Limitations on use were considered, but this was way back in 1999 and 2000. At that time, operating under the previous presidential administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) actually excluded all but a small portion of Camp Pendleton from the critical habitat designation to ensure that
"mission critical military training activities" could continue. (Federal Register, Vol. 65, No. 206, 10/24/2000, Page 63690)
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- In the end, the FWS reduced the acreage in Camp Pendleton that was designated as habitat to only 3700 acres in response to military concerns
"because the benefits of excluding these lands outweigh the benefits of including them as critical
habitat." None of this was training land; most of it was land leased to the state parks. (Federal Register, Vol. 65, No. 206, 10/24/2000, Page 63691).
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- A military general actually praised the FWS' relationship with Camp Pendleton in 2002 testimony on Capitol Hill. General Michael J. Williams said of federal environmental agencies that
"our relations with those agencies are good relations. And the compromises that we've worked out over time have been reasonable. It was the Fish and Wildlife Service compromise that enabled us to continue training at Camp Pendleton when there was a proposal to make over 50,000 acres, which is half the base, protected
habitat." (Gen. Michael J. Williams, testimony, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, 7/9/02)
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- And a GAO report said that the Department of Defense had failed to produce any evidence showing that environmental laws or other
"encroachments" significantly affected military readiness. (GAO, Military Training: DOD Lacks a Comprehensive Plan To Manage Encroachment on Training Ranges, GAO-02-614 (June 2, 2002).
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"Rep. Pombo has a history of distorting the truth to promote his efforts to undermine the Endangered Species Act. Now
he's doing it to promote his re-election," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.
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Affiliated with Defenders of Wildlife, the Defenders Action Fund is 501(c)(4) organization created to provide the wildlife conservation community with a stronger voice in the political process. For more information, see www.defendersactionfund.org.
Contact: Cindy Hoffman 202.772.3255
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