NOON, TUESDAY JULY 10 DEMO at Congressman RICHARD POMBO's office, STOCKTON

DEMONSTRATION CALLS FOR ETHICS PROBE OF REP. POMBO

**** Congressman took Money from MAXXAM; tried to Shut down Savings and
Loan Trial in Case Similar to Keating Five ****

************* Contact: ****************

Darryl Cherney, Environmentally Sound Promotions: 707/923-4949; Mandeep
Gill, Redwood Action Team at Stanford 650/327-0742

Activists are holding a press conference and small demonstration on
Tuesday, July 10th at 12 noon at the office of Congressman Richard Pombo:

********************** Location: **********************
STOCKTON OFFICE
2495 West March Lane, Suite 104
Stockton, CA 95207
Ph: (209) 951-3091 / Fax: (209) 951-1910
*******************************************************

The event will call attention to Pombo\'s complicity in interfering with the
very last of the Savings and Loan trials left over from the debacles of the
1980\'s. MAXXAM, Inc. and Charles Hurwitz, who controlled United Savings
Association of Texas (along with Michael Milken of Drexel Brokerage), used
the S&L\'s funds to finance the takeover of Pacific Lumber Company and
Kaiser Aluminum. Attorneys at the FDIC and Office of Thrift Supervision
initiated court proceedings in 1995 to collect over $1 billion they jointly
claim should be returned to the taxpayers.

Rep. Pombo and others, after receiving contributions from MAXXAM/Pacific
Lumber Company, initiated a Congressional Task force to probe into whether
the banking agencies filed their claims at the behest of environmentalists
who wanted a \"debt-for-nature\" swap in order to trade any liability United
Savings may have for Pacific Lumber\'s ancient redwoods and Douglas fir.
Activists claim Pombo\'s task force is just a ruse to cover for MAXXAM, a
mega-donor to the Republican Party. MAXXAM contributed $100,000 to the
Bush Inaugural, tens of thousands to the Republican National Committee, and
made campaign contributions to members of the House Banking Committee and
Majority Whip Tom Delay. Many of those Congressmen including Rep. Delay,
Rep. Peter King (R-NY), and others wrote scathing letters to the FDIC and
OTS. Those letter were followed by what activists call a \"dog and pony\"
show in December of last year in the form of a Resources Committee task
force. Activists believe the Resource Committee, under its former Chair
Don Young and members like Pombo and Rep. Radanovich, was chosen because it
was more corrupt and ideoligically right-wing than the House Banking
committee.

In an even more extreme ethical breach, Pombo then released the task
force\'s findings after the task force that created it and the Resources
Committee itself had dissolved to make way for the new Congress. Rep.
Pombo did this by sneaking the \"report\" into the Congressional Record,
rather than calling for a Committee vote, as it the normal procedure.
Pombo and MAXXAM, Inc. then attempted to deliberately mislead the media
into thinking this was an official Congressional report. \"In fact,\" said
Darryl Cherney of Environmentally Sound Promotions and the initiator of
the debt-for-nature swap campaign, \"releasing the report was the unilateral
act of a rogue Congressman Pombo, doing the bidding of MAXXAM, a Republican
corporate mega-donor.\"

The Redwood Action Team of Stanford University, Earth First!, the Bay Area
Coalition for Headwaters, and Environmentally Sound Promotions are all
calling for the Senate Banking Committee, under its new Democratic
leadership to investigate Pombo\'s and MAXXAM\'s activities in the
interference with ongoing banking litigation. Those organizations are also
asking members of the House Ethics Committee to consider probing
whether Pombo violated House rules by releasing the report. \"With
the $821M OTS case completed and waiting on a Judge\'s ruling, MAXXAM is
engaging in a campaign of intimidation to squirm out of their debt to the
taxpayers. They should pay that debt in their forestland holdings, if they
choose, or cold hard cash, if they prefer,\" said Cherney. \"It\'s pathetic
watching the last corrupt flailings of a dying corporate beast.\"


Environmentally Sound Promotions
\"Music, Arts, and Media for the Earth\"
PO Box 2254
Redway, CA 95560

a non-profit organization
email: ensopro [at] asis.com
fax: 707/923-4368

********************************************************

websites to check out:
$50,000 Reward for info leading to incarceration of Charles Hurwitz:
http://www.jailhurwitz.com/
On the bombing and attempted frame up by FBI of Judi Bari and Darryl
Cherney: http://www.judibari.org
For Humboldt County Earth First! activities: http://www.humboldt1.com/~ncef/
Darryl Cherney\'s music homepage: http://www.darrylcherney.com/