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Science, Society, Solutions
 Invasive Species:  Threatening Our Economy and Our Biological Heritage

Fourth in a series of Congressional Briefings

	Thursday, July 19, 2001 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Rayburn Building Room 2247 Washington, DC Refreshments will be served		Speakers:   (Speaker Biographies) Jeffrey E. Lovich U.S. Geological Survey Lee Otteni Bureau of Land Management This link leaves the USGS site. Allegra Cangelosi Northeast Midwest Institute This link leaves the USGS site.

Hosted by: The following links leave the USGS site. The National Audubon Society

National Cattlemen's Beef Association

Public Lands Council

Congressional Sponsors: The following links leave the USGS site.

Representative Tom Davis (VA)

Senator Daniel Akaka (HI)

Representative Wayne Gilchrest (MD)

Representative Joel Hefley (CO)

Directions to Rayburn House Office Building:
East on Rt.66 over the Roosevelt Bridge; right on Independence Avenue. Follow Independence past the construction of the Botanic Gardens; right on Canal Street (2 blocks); left on D Street. Pay parking is on the right between D Street and Canal Street.

Invasive Species Briefing Invitation - (PDF File 13.2 KB)

Plants and animals are arriving in America in growing numbers. Many are introduced deliberately for useful purposes; others arrive as hitchhikers in human travel and trade. Some of these new arrivals escape into our lands and waters, where a small percentage cause great harm by displacing native species, degrading natural and agricultural landscapes, and reducing economic productivity. Learn how the USGS is working with its partners to address the complex and increasing problem of invasive species.

		Photo: © Jack Jeffrey Photography
Zebra mussels, introduced to the United States in ballast water, clog industrial water intake pipes.		Introduced mosquitoes transmit invasive avian diseases, causing significant declines in Hawaii's native birds.

Purple loosestrife, an escaped ornamental plant, is transforming wetlands throughout the continental United States.

Everyone is welcome to attend this briefing. Presentations will illustrate how earth and biological science information from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is helping decisionmakers effectively address societal, environmental, and economic needs.

Allegra Cangelosi

Allegra Cangelosi is a Senior Policy Analyst for Ecosystem Projects at the Northeast-Midwest Institute in Washington, DC. She specializes in ecosystem protection issues, with particular relevance to the Great Lakes. She builds and maintains links between the Washington and Great Lakes regional policy communities and bipartisan Great Lakes Task Forces. In this role, she assisted Senator John Glenn in developing and gaining enactment of the National Invasive Species Acts of 1990 and 1996. Allegra is also co-principal investigator of the Great Lakes Ballast Technology Demonstration Project, and a member of the U.S. delegation to the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation. She is a member of the Invasive Species Advisory Committee to the Invasive Species Council and organizes national support for National Invasive Species appropriations.

Jeff Lovich

Jeff Lovich is a Research Manager with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center. Jeff received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology from George Mason University, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia, Institute of Ecology. He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals and was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the California Exotic Pest Plant Council. Jeff has published over 70 scientific papers including several on the biology and impacts of exotic species. He is coauthor of "Turtles of the United States and Canada," published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, and co-editor of, and contributor to, "Biological Diversity: Problems and Challenges," published by the Pennsylvania Academy of Science. He served as Acting Chair of the Department of the Interior Weed Control Committee in 1996 and also served on the Steering Committee for the National Program Review of the USGS invasive species program in 2000.

Lee C. Otteni

Lee Otteni has been Farmington Field Manager in the Bureau of Land Management since May 1997, with oversight of 1.5 million surface acres and 3 million subsurface acres of public land and Indian minerals trust responsibilities. He administers a range of programs including biological resources, lands and realty activities, recreation, wilderness, cultural resources, and minerals resources. Before coming to Farmington, he spent 4 years at the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC, as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. Before joining Interior, Lee was Assistant Commissioner for the New Mexico State Land Office, where he managed numerous resource programs including grazing, right-of-ways, land exchanges, and the field operations on 9 million acres of trust land. His Federal career began with the U.S. Forest Service, where he was a District Ranger, natural resource planner, range conservationist and wildlife biologist. He is a member of the Wildlife Society and Weeds Science Society of America.