Former President Bill Clinton will return to Lake Tahoe for the 10th anniversary of the Lake Tahoe Forum.
The 10th Anniversary Forum will recognize the work completed in the last 10 years that has improved the lake's clarity, increased environmental restoration around the lake, improved transportation and its impacts on the lake, and promoted a collaborative effort to protect Lake Tahoe. The forum will also provide an opportunity to review the efforts at preventing wildfires, reducing the fuel load in the basin and wildfire restoration.
The Tahoe Forum has been an annual event since 1997, when the first forum was organized by Sen. Harry Reid. Each gathering brings together environmental and government leaders from around the country, representatives of the federal government, business organizations and environmental groups in an effort to improve upon or create cooperative initiatives to maintain the beauty and integrity of the basin.
The first Forum, which was also attended by President Clinton as well as Vice President Al Gore and four Cabinet Secretaries, established the Lake Tahoe Federal Advisory Committee to oversee restoration at the Lake. This year the forum will welcome back President Clinton as we celebrate 10 years of progress.
The 1997 Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum resulted in a pledge of $50 million in federal spending for the basin's troubled environment by President Clinton. In a ceremony on an Incline Village beach, Clinton signed an executive order that declared Lake Tahoe an area of national concern, citing the basin's extraordinary natural, recreational and ecological resources. Clinton's pledge was the kick-start to funding for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's Environmental Improvement Program, which eventually resulted in the federal government, California and Nevada committed to each paying a share of the $900 million environmental plan.
The Summit is open to the public.
