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Show Politician file suit agointf .ill Two Utah state senators and a Nevada state assemblyman as-semblyman filed a lawsuit against United States government officials stating that the process by ' which MX missile basing mode decisions de-cisions were made Is illegal. ille-gal. The Complaint asks that a new decision making process pro-cess be started which will comply with federal law. Joining the legislators as plaintiffs in the suit are the Great Basin MX Alliance Legal Defense Fund, a co-. co-. alltion of . Nevada arid Utah citizens' organizations and Citizen Alert, A Nevada citizen's citi-zen's organization. Utah State Senator Frances Fran-ces Fariey(D-SL),UtahSen-ate Majority Leader, Karl Snow (R-Provo) and Nevada State Assemblyman Paul Prengaman (R-Reno) said that they had decided to file suit because basic decisions on the MX were made by the UJS. without complying with environmental requirements re-quirements or c6nsulting state officials, as reaulred by law. They concluded that immediate legal challenge was essential because of the present MX decision making process should consider the defects of those earlier decisions. The lawsuit challenges decisions de-cisions that were made, primarily pri-marily by the Carter Administration Admin-istration beginning before 1978. The central complaint Is that, without required environmental en-vironmental analysis, the government made the fundamental funda-mental decision to deploy the MX missiles under a 'multiple aimpoint' strategy. Adoption of that 'shell game' strategy made It Inevitable that massive environmental consequences would result froiT) Its deployment regardless regard-less of the region or particular parti-cular type of shelter ultimately ulti-mately used to implement the shell game strategy. Full development of Information to assist those decisions is required by the National Environment En-vironment Policy Act (NEPA) and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The legal action is against t the main governmental agen-ciez agen-ciez responsible for the MX program .and their chief administrators. ad-ministrators. These Include the, Department of Defense and Caspar Weinburger, Secretary of Defense; the Department of the Interior and James Watt, Secretary of the Interior; the Interior Department's BLM andRob-ert andRob-ert Burford, Director of the BLM; the UJS. Air Force and Vera Orr, Secretary of the Air Force; and Ronald Reagan as the present oc-. oc-. cupint of the office of President Presi-dent of the United States. William J, Lockhart and Wayne McCormack, bothSalf 'Lake, City attorneys rep. I resent the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. |