Re: Czech Law Status

[RLGent1@aol...]

Hi Jan,
         This is really big news.  To our knowledge, the Czech Republic is 
the very first nation to pass a law through elected houses of government and 
be signed by the president.  You are the FIRST!  Congratulations on this 
outstanding achievement.  At a minimum, we need to issue a press release and 
cover this in our next newsletter.  

       Here are a few questions for a press release.  If you could write just 
a short sentence or two to answer each question, it would be greatly 
appreciated:

1. What date was it signed by your president?  What was the final vote count 
in the House and Senate?  

2.  Does it apply to all of the Czech Republic?

3.  Does it apply to commercial and government lighting?

4.  Does it control illumination levels, shielding or glare?

        I am working in Tucson for the annual meeting, and am very busy right 
now.  When I return to Europe, there is much to do.  We will begin hosting 
IDA meetings in various locations, in addition to the 2nd European Symposium 
on Protecting the Night Sky in Switzerland.  Will be in touch.

       Once again, CONGRATULATIONS on this monumental and historic event!  

Cheers from IDA in Tucson, Arizona,

Bob Gent 

In a message dated 3/1/2002, jhollan@amper....muni.cz writes:

<< Hi Bob,
 
 >        Thanks for sharing this exciting and wonderful news.  A few weeks 
ago, 
 > I thought I saw a message that the Czech Senate rejected your proposed 
law.  
 > Is this a different version that passed?
 
 No, the same: 
 
 Representatives did not accept the restricted version as proposed them by
 the Senate (proposed changes concerned other parts of the law as well). To
 accept the Senate version, just a majority of Representatives present by
 the voting would suffice. Fortunately, the Representatives were brave
 enough to negotiate a absolute majority (101 votes from 200 existing
 representatives) and after rejecting the Senate version, they voted 121:26
 for their original version. Negotiation was necessary, if there would not
 be over 101 votes for the law, the law proposal would die and the whole
 work on another ``clean air act'' would start not sooner than perhaps two
 years later.  I could write that good news a fortnight ago already, but it
 could be premature, as the law had to be signed by the president yet.
 
 Unlike Pataki, Havel has not followed the advocates of the contemporary
 lighting practice. Of course, there is a difference, the Czech law itself
 contains just a few sentences on the LP issue, it is a huge law concerning
 all emissions to the atmosphere, much needed for us to be able to join the
 EU.
 
 >        The Wildlife and Lighting conference at the University of 
California 
 > Los Angeles was excellent.   We should have a good summary very soon about 
 > the importance of controlling light pollution to protect nocturnal 
wildlife.  
 > I am now in Tucson, Arizona for the IDA annual meeting.  I will return to 
 > Italy on March 21.   
 
 I am looking forward to it, as I have to write an LP article to a little
 Czech analogy of Scientific American, just biased more to biosciences. So,
 it should be an important part of the article.
 
 Hope that Tuscon-like (or Ketchum-like) lighting will spread in Czechia
 soon, at least in pilot areas around a couple of observatories. We have
 some isolated examples of good lighting even now, as documented by my
 colleagues, I'll ask them to make alternative English captions for the
 pictures.
 
 clear skies with the C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang)
 
 jenik >>