[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO JOE EDMISTON

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HOWARD L. BERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, December 8, 2006

  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to my close 
friend of more than 30 years, Joe Edmiston, recipient of he 
Environmentalist of the Year Award at the Coalition on the Environment 
and Jewish Life of Southern California (COEJLSC)'s 7th Annual Awards 
Reception. COEJLSC could not have chosen a more deserving person to 
receive this honor.
  Joe is a remarkable man whose accomplishments are legion and whose 
passion and commitment to the environment is unparalleled. He has 
literally and figuratively transformed the landscape of southern 
California for the better. He has also, through his infectious 
enthusiasm, his innovative work with professional associations and his 
formal academic teachings, helped change the way we think about 
environmental protection and stewardship. He epitomizes COEJLSC's 
guiding principles and his work is perfectly aligned with COEJLSC's 
mission and purpose.
  I first met Joe in December 1976 when he interviewed for the position 
of executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Comprehensive 
Planning Commission, a State agency created by legislation that I 
authored as majority leader of the California State Assembly. He was 
then a young member of the conservation staff of the Sierra Club, but 
his ideas impressed everyone and ultimately Governor Edmund G. Brown, 
Jr., appointed him to the commission directorship.
  His decision to implement the plan through the establishment of the 
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy was an insightful--but risky--
decision to forego traditional approaches. I carried the legislation, 
and it was a tough fight. Looking back, it was pretty audacious of Joe 
to think that market forces could be used to control the market, and 
more audacious still to think that his band of planners and ecologists 
would be the ones to do it. But the gamble paid off. Now, 26 years 
later the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has expended close to 
$550,000,000 and acquired and preserved more than 55,000 acres of park 
and open space lands--much of it accessible and regularly enjoyed by 
the urban population that surrounds it.
  Serving his fifth Governor, Joe is close to being the longest serving 
State agency head in modern history. For a plodding bureaucrat that 
would not be so remarkable an accomplishment, but he is anything but 
that. Dynamic, sometimes controversial, he has taken the Santa Monica 
Mountains Conservancy to the forefront of conservation leadership in 
California and the Nation by his innovative approaches and his impact 
has even been felt in other countries that are attempting to model his 
success.
  I am proud to know Joe. He and his wife Pepper are great friends and 
they have a wonderful family. I ask my colleagues to join me in 
honoring Joe Edmiston and congratulating him for receiving COEJLSC's 
Environmentalist of the Year Award.