[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 120 (Friday, September 11, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1700-E1701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 LARRY WILLIAMS RETIRES AS DIRECTOR OF THE SIERRA CLUB'S INTERNATIONAL 
                                PROGRAM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 11, 1998

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my appreciation for 
and heartfelt thanks to Larry Williams, who is retiring from his post 
as Director of the Sierra Club's International Program. For the past 
seventeen years, Larry has taken a leadership role in promoting the 
protection of the environment on the international level and people 
around the world are the beneficiaries of his vision, his dedication 
and his unrelenting advocacy. Larry is a true champion of the global 
environment and, therefore, a champion for this world's children and 
for our future.
  One of Larry's major successes, on which we worked closely, was the 
development and passage of legislation requiring the multilateral 
development banks (MDBs) to do environmental impact assessments and to 
make those assessments publicly available for MDB-financed projects. 
With the implementation of this legislation, now known as the ``Pelosi 
Amendment,'' new environmental policies and standards have been set 
internationally.
  Ten years ago, MDB-financed projects like highways, dams, irrigation 
works and power plants, would largely be built without regard for their 
irreversible impacts on the environment and without the informed 
participation of affected communities. The prevailing approach to 
large-scale development projects was to build them first and worry 
about the consequences later. Local citizens were often the last to 
know that important wetlands would be drained, rivers diverted, forests 
cut down, or entire communities displaced by projects supported by US 
tax dollars. With Larry Williams' leadership, the Pelosi Amendment to 
the International Development and Finance Act of 1989 changed that. 
Now, citizens in communities from the Amazon River Basin to the 
Himalayas and all other points around the world have access to 
information about proposed MDB projects that will have major impacts on 
their lives.

[[Page E1701]]

  The Pelosi Amendment has been the Trojan horse for transparency, 
participation and accountability at the MDBs. For the first time, 
citizens were given the right to know in advance what projects their 
government and the Banks had planned. Knowledge is power. More citizens 
now know about, comment on, monitor or participate in Bank-financed 
projects than at any time in the past, with the hoped-for effect of 
improving projects and mitigating environmental impacts.
  Larry Williams, the tireless international campaigner for the Sierra 
Club, was one of the primary forces behind the MDB reform campaign that 
led to the development, passage, and implementation of the Pelosi 
Amendment. Larry's leadership brought changes to the World Bank which 
one observer said were the outcome of ``four years of congressional 
hearings and constant badgering by environmentalists.''
  Larry Williams has touched the lives of millions of people who will 
never know directly of his untiring efforts on their behalf. I commend 
him for his untiring efforts and am honored to have been able to work 
with him. We will miss him.

                          ____________________