Strasbourg, 03/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - By 266 to 241 with 12 abstentions the Legal Committee decided on Wednesday to keep is powers over the Environmental Damage Directive, as the Conference of Presidents had decided, rejecting the challenge from the President of the Environment Committee, British Conservative Caroline Jackson. In a brief debate ahead of the vote in plenary (the first in a dispute of this nature) Forza Italia MEP Giuseppe Gargani, President of the Legal Committee, said that the Legal Committee had been working on the issue since March 2000 and had even organised a hearing over the issue, saying they had a rapporteur, Dutch Liberal Toine Manders. Jackson replied that it was an environmental issue over which the rapporteur was Mihail Papayannakis, making a sarcastic comment about the Van Lancker report that the plenary had just adopted by saying that if they wanted to give the report to another Committee, why not choose the Women's Rights Committee, which "is looking for things to do"?