[SEDXC] More on Navassa/Desecheo

[BLamboley at aol.com]

Forwarded with N4AA's Permission!


Hello DXers:

Late  breaking news late yesterday.  If you need KP1 and/or KP5 you will  be
interested in the following from Garry Ritchie, W8OI.  It is  somewhat
lengthy but I want to give you as much of the story as I can within  space
limitations..

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (Democrat of WV), ranking  member of the U.S. House
Committee on Resources, has agreed to sponsor a bill  that in effect would
force the Fish and Wildlife service to allow occasional  DXpeditions to
these island DXCC entities.  Even better, it's a  bipartisan bill because
the committee chairman, Richard Pombo (Republican of  California) has agreed
to cosponsor it.

F&WS has heretofore turned  down every recent DXpedition effort to these
places based on what the bill's  sponsors believe to be erroneous
interpretation of the law governing wildlife  refuges.

Rep. Rahall has been wonderful in this struggle pushing F&WS  to okay the
latest attempted DXpedition and when that failed, he agreed to  introduce
the bill.  It will be introduced today (November 16) as Bill #  H.R. 5361.

No one really thinks there's enough time to pass it in this  lame duck
congress, but Rep. Rahall feels it's important to start lobbying  now to
soften things up, and then he will reintroduce it next year and  thinks
there's a good shot at passage.

Here's what we need to  do:

DXers all over the U.S. need to contact your respective  representatives
(Congressmen) and ask for their support of Bill # HR  5361.  Thank you
letters to Rep. Rahall and Rep. Pombo would be good  too.

Our group effort has been led by attorney/DXer Brad Farrell, K4RT,  and
Michael Thomas, NA5U.  A group of us will make a presentation to  the
committee and/or its staffers in January, but what we need is lots of  grass
roots support.

If you want further information I suggest you  contact Garry,
W8OI  (W8OI at aol.com) or one of the others mentioned  above.  A copy of the
bill, background information on the islands  (KP1/KP5), as well as the
speech delivered by Congressman Rahall were  provided.  Due to the length of
those documents I will not include them  with this message, but they are
available to anyone interested, either from  Garry or myself.


Remember that this coming weekend is the ARRL  Sweepstakes contest on SSB.

Until next week, enjoy the chase and HAVE  FUN!

73,
Carl, N4AA

Lets do what we can - draft a letter from  the club?
 
Wes - W3WL