Environment on Bilderberg Agenda

• At this year's Bilderberg meeting, formulating global environmental policy is high on its agenda.

Minutes before this edition of The SPOTLIGHT went to press, sources revealed that Bilderberg will be meeting June 1-4 at the Chateau du Lac, a fabulous resort approximately 20 miles outside of Brussels, Belgium.

High on their agenda will be promoting a global environmental agency as a building block for the emerging world government.

The SPOTLIGHT investigative team has learned of even more extraordinary security measures being undertaken by Bilderberg, even beyond its usual procedure of sealing off the location and deploying guards and the military.

"Bilderberg is terrified that there would be a demonstration such as in Seattle and Washington and has hired an international security company and have totally changed security procedures. And they have changed their name for the meeting."

Bilderberg participants themselves do not know precisely where they are going, another source said. He said the letter inviting Bilderberg participants reads:

"We will have a secure facility adjacent the airport, with a reception committee in attendance to greet you. Limousines will be standing by to speed all guests to the meeting place."

The Bilderberg agenda was laid out at a private meeting of the Aspen Institute -- one of the many arms of Bilderberg -- Feb. 18-20 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Details of the meeting were provided to The SPOTLIGHT by a high State Department official who has been a reliable Bilderberg source for more than 10 years.

Steve Charnovitz of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering law firm stated the goal clearly by citing, approvingly, Renato Ruggiero, former head of the World Trade Organi zation, who "raised the question in several speeches of whether a World Envi ron ment Organization should be created."

Charnovitz said "moving ahead with good international economic and environmental policies will require a lot more coordination in the future than was ever needed in the past."

The meeting, which included 23 members of Congress, was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foun dation. Both have close ties to Bilderberg and its brother group, the Trilateral Commission.

While holding forth on the subject "International Environmental Treaties and Institutions," Richard Benedick, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, said that "no matter how compelling the issue" negotiating a treaty is difficult.

"One hundred and 80 countries or more may be involved -- each with its sovereign interests, each proud of its culture and history...." implying that such barriers should be overcome.

"No one should underestimate the challenge of securing U.S. support for international treaties and institutions," Benedick said. "Support in Congress is not always widespread or certain [be cause of] ideology, isolationism, moral convictions, politics and questions of sovereignty.

"All these and more have gotten in the way recently and will continue to hinder Congress' ability to deal with a range of environmental and population problems, especially family planning assistance," he said

After denouncing the problems of "ideology, moral convictions" and "questions of sovereignty," Benedick saw hope in the World Trade Organization: "In one in stance involving a gasoline additive, a WTO panel ruled against the United States, causing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to change a regulation intended to protect air quality."

Global peace and prosperity are in the interests of America but cannot be achieved "in isolation, independently of what is going on in the outside world" and are dependent on events beyond its shores."

"Ecological interdependence is even more pervasive than economic interdependence," Benedick said, and denounced nations that "defend their sovereign right to fell their forests, to excavate their minerals, to harvest their fisheries...."

Among legislators attending were Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Tom Allen (D-Me.), Eva Clayton (D-N.C.), Julian Dixon (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Tillie Fowler (R-Fla.), Gene Green (D-Tex.), James Greenwood (R-Pa.), Edward Mar key (D-Mass.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Connie Morella (R-Md.), David Obey (D-Wis.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), John Porter (R-Ill.), Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), Tom Sawyer (D-Ohio), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) Pete Stark (D-Calif.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska).