In a bid to find a feasible way out of the stalemate in the National Congress over the legislative proposal that seeks to create a National Park at Loma Miranda, experts and institutions are proposing the formation of a joint commission of senators and deputies to study the bill. They are also calling on the public to support the conservation of this natural resource. Academy of Sciences president Milciades Mejia, environmentalist Luis Carvajal and Justice and Transparency Foundation president Trajano Potentini are all expressing fears that the use of legislative technicalities might cause the proposal to expire in the Congress.
Mejia is proposing that Senate president Reinaldo Pared Perez and Chamber of Deputies president Abel Martinez meet and set up a joint commission with the aim of reaching a consensus within a reasonable timeframe. He said that the decision by the deputies surprised them given the fact that the proposal that was sent by the Senate was practically identical, as only a few articles had been added that did not alter the original proposal. This situation, he says, goes from the technical to the political with the PLD now in charge of handling the issues. “There was no intention of passing this bill in the Chamber of Deputies, as they did not even read it, to the extent that the PRSC and PRD spokesmen came out and said that what the Senate had done was a ruse, without having read the proposal.” Environmentalist Luis Carvajal also supports the formation of a joint commission that will present an agreed-upon proposal within a 10-day timeframe and it is approved after being declared to be urgent. “The deputies probably discussed the proposal without reading it. Some of them seemed to be speaking about another law; it is not true that there was a total change,” he said. Carvajal believes that unless the Congress members reach a consensus, the bill to declare Loma Miranda a National Park “will not be passed, it will fail.”