CompuServe Messages

Chris, I'm not clear, here: > I am an earth science teacher and I spend quite a lot of time collecting samples for my classes. > If you are not already aware, this is bill proposed in Congress that would prohibit all collecting > on public lands except to what amounts to an elite group of academics. My understanding is the above is the _current_ situation: Not a proposed situation. Rules stating the penalties for collecting are posted within ten miles of my home by the feds. > This month a new bill is > close to being introduced: Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of 1995. It would in effect, > permit teachers and students and anyone interested in rocks, fossils and minerals to do surface > collecting. The main reasoning is that weathering and erosion would destroy surface samples > anyway, and we all know how important amateurs are in discovering new samples. Ok, this is great – it contradicts what you said initially, though… two different bills? > The target date for this legislation is late January 1995, and letters to the Honorable Larry Craig > (R-ID) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) requesting their support as Senate Prime Sponsors of the Act > are urgently needed from the academic community. Um, this is for the second one, right? The one that _allows_ collecting, instead of _disallowing_ it? > If you support the new Act, please let your own Senate and House members know. I know that > for myself, my career in geology began as a little kid prospecting around picking bits and pieces of > the past that fueled my curiosity. I would absolutely support a bill to allow collecting by non professionals – the current situation is distressingly short-sighted, and for exactly the reason described above. I have personally seen huge bones erode out of the shore of Fort Peck Lake and be destroyed by the surf – smashed against the rocks – simply because there were "more important" collecting sites for the academics and we, lay people, were forbidden – on truly serious penalty – to save the specimens ourselves. Many other instances come to mind, but none as heart-rending. Ben Williams