Bush opens up 60 million acres for commercial use

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/op_edito...758068,00.html

Editorial: Richardson right to oppose Bush's forest plan May 7, 2005

Other Western governors would do well to follow the bold conservation lead of Gov. Bill Richardson this week. He is directly opposing President Bush's decision to open up 58.6 million acres of national forest land to new road construction. Included in the Bush shameless bid to commercialize some of the last remaining remote national forest roadless areas are some 1.6 million acres in New Mexico's Carson, Gila and Santa Fe national forests.

While Bush gave the nation's governors 18 months to respond to this forest flip-flop, Richardson lost no time in criticizing the unwise and unpopular Bush decision.

Within hours he announced his intention to file a formal petition with the U.S. Forest Service to stop the Bush reversal and sustain the original wildland protections.

Additionally, Richardson is encouraging other Western governors to sign that petition and said he expects at least nine will do so and as soon as next week. If so, the White House already is facing powerful political opposition.

And it should. The White House is at odds with one of the most compelling conservation measures in U.S. history.

Bush's decision not only reverses the protection conferred on these lands by former President Clinton but the clear wishes of millions of Americans - including thousands of New Mexicans - who in an astonishing 2.5 million public comments last decade overwhelmingly favored the original roadless rule.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, another 1.7 million public comments were filed last year with the U.S. Forest Service opposing the proposed Bush roadless reversal.

But unlike the enormous Forest Service effort last decade to involve the public in the process - some 600 local and national hearings were held before Clinton acted - Bush and the Forest Service have not conducted public hearings nor countered the strong science supporting preservation of the nation's remaining wildlands.

The original roadless rule continues to be challenged legally in the federal courts, with district courts in Idaho and Wyoming overturning it, but with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sustaining it on appeal. The 10th Circuit in Denver heard another batch of arguments Wednesday.

The Bush administration's Justice Department has chosen not to defend the rule against the incredulous claims that the public process, scientific and environmental reviews in originally adopting it were inadequate.

In contrast, conservation organizations describe that process as precedent-setting in its openness, public involvement and science.

It certainly is in marked contrast to the Bush administration's secretive approach to setting national energy policy. The administration refuses even to this day to reveal the names of people and companies that met with Vice President Dick Cheney in developing an energy plan that remains the basis for a national energy policy that almost wholly relies on drilling for more oil and natural gas and burning more coal.

One impact of that policy is the vigorous push on U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands, including New Mexico's Otero Mesa, for accelerated drilling. Likewise, opening up the long-protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been single-minded and unbalanced in its environmental, energy and conservation policy with one card trumping all others: the commercialization of public lands no matter the cost or lack of public support.

This is not in the best interests of the land, the people who own it - all American citizens - or future generations of Americans, in whose conservation interests we should presume to act conservatively.

Very surprising news indeed...oh wait...I forgot - God would approve (roll eyes)

I can't wait until the day there's no trees left to profit from and the fat-cats devise a plan to re-forest the barren wasteland with Dollar seedlings.

"All right...maybe, just maybe...if we plant some dollars under the surface, our much-desired dream of money growing on trees will be a reality!!"

Mother Nature, I beg of you, bring the precision, pre-emptive lightning strikes down on these men of destruction before it's too late. The threat is clear and every country is in danger. Stage One - Washington, D.C.(like the Saddam-targeted 1st night of Baghdad bombing), every day after that - various upper-floor, lavish corporate offices these scum conduct their madness from.(or maybe just a few fires burning on the lower levels which will lead to an eventual building collapse)

We're doomed!

Bush would sell his mother to make a buck, think she is proud of that?

Bush will destroy our children's future along with his own to take pay offs from big business.

My real question is when will America wake up and get rid of this fascist slime?