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Does it seem ironic to anyone that for eight years in America, there was
never even a hint of an energy crisis, yet two months after George W. Bush
takes office he says we are headed for the most serious energy crisis since
1970 (Tribune, March 20)? Surprising how nicely that fits his agenda.
In the past two months, Bush has loosened environmental restrictions on
industry, focused heavily on producing more oil and gas, tried to scale
back protected lands, relaxed pollution standards, tried to lift bans on
logging in forest areas, promised incentives to oil and coal industries,
made Europe and Japan angry by rejecting an international treaty to combat
global warming, and said he won't support energy price controls even when
companies in the West have been accused of price-gouging.
A few weeks ago The Tribune reported that global warming was accelerating
much more quickly than scientists had predicted. How much money would you
be willing to pay for your life? If there is no clean air and global
warming continues to increase at alarming rates, how long do you think
we'll have air to breathe?
An American Indian once said, "We did not inherit the Earth from our
ancestors, we are borrowing it from our children." We have two oil men,
Bush and Dick Cheney, who made fortunes in the petroleum industry and who
had millions of dollars poured into their campaigns by businesses and
industries, drilling America. They are doing this without regard to its
impact on you, me, the nation or the world.
LILY MORGAN Bush Trying To Cut Heart Of Law On Endangered Species, Critics Say
Source: Buffalo News - Financial Edition
In a move that critics say would undermine a landmark environmental law,
the Bush administration is quietly trying to wrest from the courts control
over the listing of endangered species and the designation of protected
habitat for them.
The proposal, buried in the voluminous budget President Bush sent to
Congress on Monday, would give Interior Secretary Gale Norton broad authority to
decide which plants and animals should be protected under the 1973
Endangered Species Act.
Bush administration officials describe the proposal as an effort to
break a logjam that has hindered the law's effectiveness. But environmentalists
warned that the proposed action would gut the part of the law that has
proven most effective at gaining protection for animals and plants on the verge
of extinction.
If the proposal is approved by Congress, Norton would have the power to
waive a provision that enables environmental groups and others to sue her
department to get rare plants and animals listed and their critical
habitats designated.
For three decades, the act has been the primary vehicle for safeguarding
threatened animals and plants. But the powerful environmental tool has
repeatedly stirred up fierce controversies, especially when developers,
politicians, loggers and others are stymied by its implementation.
Many of the species that have been protected by the act, such as the
northern spotted owl, won that designation only after environmentalists sued for
it in court. More than 90 percent of the species listed as endangered or
threatened in California over the last nine years gained that protection as the
result of a citizens' petition, court action or both, according to statistics
compiled by an environmental group.
But the Bush administration complains that the proliferation of lawsuits
is hampering its efforts to protect plants and animals. Most of the pending
lawsuits call on the agency to designate critical habitats, areas set
aside to ensure that the threatened species recover. Currently, 36 lawsuits
are pending that seek habitat designations for 354 species, and the Interior
Department has received notices of intent to sue on 34 additional cases,
according to Stephanie Hanna, a department spokeswoman.
The department's resources are so taxed by these legal efforts and by
implementing courts' orders that the agency cannot take care of its own
priority cases, she said.
Department officials compared the situation to a hospital emergency room
where triage is performed by a judge rather than a doctor and too often
broken arms get treated before heart attacks.
Already Democrats invoked the threat of a filibuster Wednesday to defeat
the legislation sought by Bush.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said "any and all" legislative tactics are
being considered to thwart the proposal outlined in Bush's budget submitted to
Congress on Monday. Thank you Arnfin for this submit - I missed this one.
President Bush Rates Poorly in 100 Day Review By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC,
April 30, 2001 (ENS) - If there were any lingering doubts about President George
W. Bush's political leanings, his first 100 days in office have laid them soundly
to rest: Bush is a conservative. Environmentalists, public interest groups and
most Democrats are giving the president a thorough tongue lashing for the host
of environmental rollbacks Bush has made in his first weeks in office. The Sierra
Club has launched "W. watch," a website highlighting President Bush's environmental
record, available at: GREENLines, Monday, May 7, 2001, Issue #1375 BUSH LOOKS TO DISMANTLE ROADLESS RULE ONE STEP AT A TIME: The
President has decided to allow the new roadless area protection rules
to be considered on a forest-by-forest basis while they are being
revised through a lengthy formal rule-making process says the
Washington Post 5/4. The administration plans to "grant logging, oil
and gas exploration interests and local officials and residents far mor
say in revising the rules" which must now include an additional public
comment period. According to Earthjustice LDF the White House has
decided to "dress up an environmentally destructive policy" in order to
make it look like "they're protecting the environment."
Norton offers olive branch to critic Redford Monday, May 07, 2001 - WASHINGTON - Robert Redford may be no fan of Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
But that hasn't stopped the former Colorado attorney general from extending an olive branch to her Hollywood critic.
A few days after Redford, a longtime environmental activist, blasted her appointment as "a cynical one," the Bush appointee invited the actor to join her the next time her department releases another California condor into the wild.
"You and I have never met, but we do have a common interest," Norton wrote to Redford, citing their mutual interest in the endangered bird.
In 1985 Redford narrated a film on the California condor recovery effort. That was about the same time Norton worked on the breeding project as an Interior lawyer.
On April 5, Norton returned to the California coast to help release five of the big birds near Big Sur, saying the government had saved the birds from extinction.
Her letter to Redford was part of the administration's effort not to challenge its critics with harsh rhetoric, but to set "a new tone" in Washington, said Norton spokesman Mark Pfeifle.
In a Washington Post interview, Redford issued a stinging attack on Norton's selection, saying her appointment was the most cynical since President Ronald Reagan named James Watt to head Interior.
"It's like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop," Redford told the Washington Post. "The one hope I have in all this is I don't think that the public is going to stand for it anymore."
Ever the loyal team player, Norton couldn't resist plugging the Bush administration's environmental policies in her letter to Redford. She said not only was Redford "misinformed about by commitment to conserving our country's natural resources," but he didn't appreciate the administration's environmental programs.
If the two meet, Norton said: "Perhaps we can also discuss the best way to conserve America's unspoiled landscapes and the wild creatures who inhabit them."
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E30650,00.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0508-02.htm
Published on Tuesday, May 8, 2001 in the Philadelphia Inquirer Forests on the Road to Ruin by Jim Scarantino Those who care about saving the last wild places in America's national forests were left puzzled and worried over Friday's announcement by the Bush administration on how it would treat a U.S. Forest Service rule that protects these areas. Did the President give us half a loaf, a crumb or perhaps a crust covered with toxic mold?
The administration, although uttering words of praise and saying it would temporarily uphold the policy - titled the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" - will try to revise the rule beginning next month. It seems that record-breaking public input, including over 600 public hearings and 1.6 million comments, isn't enough for them. And instead of national protection for national treasures, the Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, apparently wants to treat these forests more like county parks.
The debate isn't new. As Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth noted last week, "I've been with the Forest Service 35 years, and we've been struggling with the roadless rule for that whole time." In fact, it was President Nixon back in 1971, not Bill Clinton, who first proposed ending the road-building mania that has been gouging taxpayers and destroying our last wild places.
I was able to attend four of those 600 local meetings, including two in old Western logging and mining towns. I may have heard people say very clearly they didn't like Bill Clinton, but I never heard anyone say they wanted more roads in their national forests. Even in the West, the majority of people favor increased forest protections.
It seems not to matter that over 90 percent of those commenting nationwide, and overwhelming majorities in poll after poll (including 64 percent of Republicans), want their forests protected. The Bush administration says it wants to repeat the process all over again, to allow more "local input."
Oddly enough, it sounds like the President is demanding a recount.
Perhaps the administration has its fingers crossed, hoping the American people are too worn out to again demand what they said they wanted the first time around. Or perhaps it hopes that reopening the rule-making process will weaken forest protection by applying the mantra of "local control" that we hear so much in the West, primarily from the allies of logging, mining and drilling industries. And mantra it is. The Agriculture Department's press release contained the word national only twice (these are national forests we're talking about) but the word local was repeated seven times. There was no talk of national interests, but plenty about "local input," "local communities," and "local expertise."
Local control sounds nice, but in decisions about public lands it is used primarily to divide and exclude Americans. On the national level, the argument is used to negate the voices of millions who care about their national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and forests, yet live far from them. Even in the West itself, the argument is used to exclude the opinions of the majority of Westerners who live in or around cities such as Albuquerque, Denver and Phoenix although these people account for most of the use of the nearby national forests.
Somehow "local control" always finds room for the influence of logging, mining and drilling interests, even if their headquarters are in faraway cities.
Meanwhile, one never hears local-control advocates calling for higher local taxes to pay for the consequences of their poor decisions. The Forest Service is running a maintenance backlog of over $8 billion in keeping up the 386,000 miles of roads already built in national forests - roads used for profit by industry. For American taxpayers who pay the bills, local control is not much different from taxation without representation.
During the decades that lobbyists and lawyers have tied up efforts to protect our last wild places, the destruction of our forests has continued. A wild forest cannot be manufactured or legislated; it can only be protected and cherished. When bulldozers tear roads through our ancient forests, what is lost is gone forever. Naturally the administration praised an enormously popular policy. But in the end, actions - not words - will determine how President Bush responds to this truly national interest.
Jim Scarantino (repenviro@thuntek.net), a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney, is executive director of REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection.
BUSH RENEGES ON DESERT TORTOISE PROTECTION: (May 15,2001)
 
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