"the beauty of this country is that excesses have a way of correcting themselves."
Politically, portage, you may be right. I fear that once the environment is destroyed it can NOT be reclaimed.
The damage is irreversible, and one thing's for certain The Toxic Texan and Noxious Norton
are intent on the destruction of the
environment -----while the country watches the war, they carve up
America The Beautiful piece by piece.
The following is an excerpt from the article,
Some See Nature as a War Victim Policy: Since Sept. 11, the White House is
tipping the balance to business, environmentalists say.
(FULL STORY AT: siliconinvestor.com
Los Angeles Times
December 26, 2001
E-mail story
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
"The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management this fall sold multiple
leases for oil development at two of the 16 places that environmental groups
had been highlighting as too scenic and wild to drill.
Two of the leases were in Utah's Lockhart Basin, an area of red rock
formations just outside Canyonlands National Park. Some members of
Congress have introduced legislation to protect this region from development,
and conservation groups have been negotiating with the Interior Department to
declare it a wilderness area.
Environmentalists are suing the administration over these and 10 other leases
in southern Utah, arguing that the agency failed to fulfill its legal responsibility
to assess the environmental effect of developing the areas before it granted the
leases.
"We are talking about leases in lands that are among the wildest, most scenic
or most remote in southern Utah, in an area internationally known for
wildness, remoteness and beauty," said Johanna Wald, a project director for
the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The administration also recently sold leases in Colorado's Vermillion Basin, a
desert canyon region that conservation groups have long been trying to save
from oil development.
The BLM ruled that vehicles could be driven through national monuments on
any track, wash or trail where any vehicle has been before. The CLINTON
administration had restricted them to designated roads and trails.
And the Forest Service last week removed hurdles erected by the CLINTON
administration to road building in large backwoods areas of the national
forests. Many of these areas, which are not included on the official inventory
of roadless areas, provide key habitat for wildlife.
The administration also backed away from a commitment by the first President
Bush not to allow wetland acreage to decline. An Oct. 31 letter from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to its 31 district offices says that developers may
use dry land to partially offset wetland losses if they can show that the dry land
helps protect remaining wetlands. For instance, a developer who builds a
buffer of trees near a wetland can count that as making up for filling in a
wetland elsewhere.
"Even though we've never achieved the goal of no net loss of wetlands, the
rate of loss has dropped dramatically," said Joan Mulhern, legislative council
for Earthjustice, an environmental law group. "This [letter] will speed up the
process of loss again."
Congressional aides, state regulators and environmentalists say that the
administration's bluntest blow to the environment will be the planned changes
to the "new source review" provision of the Clean Air Act. Although the policy
has yet to be announced, EPA officials have described it to interested parties.
"The kinds of changes that the administration is seeking are ones that could
have a significantly detrimental impact on the environment," said S. William
Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program
Administrators and Assn. of Local Air Pollution Control Officials.
The administration intends to be generous in granting waivers to requirements
that new pollution control devices accompany plant renovations, according to
those who have been briefed by administration officials.
"It's going to mean terrible news for the breathing public," said Frank
O'Donnell, executive director of Clean Air Trust, a nonprofit group. "I think
Sept. 11 has strengthened the forces at the White House and Energy
Department and the business groups that are anti-clean air."
Industry leaders complain that the new source review provision is bureaucratic
and costly, and discourages them from renovating plants to make them more
efficient.
Meanwhile, the administration has delayed introducing its proposal to reduce
pollution from power plants, one of the president's few environmental
campaign promises.
EPA officials had told the Senate it would produce a plan in August but now
say that the policy has been delayed because of the White House
preoccupation with the war on terrorism. "
latimes.com
(FULL STORY AT: Message 16836373
………………………………………………………………………………………………
[ (unless shrubbo is impeached first, heh heh. But then we might have to suffer Cheney)
Shrubbo could be impeached. It is not impossible. The problem is that Cheney is technically
a lame duck. He spends a good deal of his time duck-hunting.
It has turned out that the press discovered that when Cheney was at an undisclosed destination he
wasn't there for security but for hunting. Perhaps his problem is his health.
The rumor is that the next ticket will feature Bush/Powell.
Like you, I believe that we had to destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan, but former Afghan warlords may
destroy the present government. In particular, the newly appointed defense minister,
General Dostum could undermine the peace process. Have you read about his past?
He is a vicious man and a power monger.
The following is an excerpt from the book, Taliban Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism
in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid, published in the United States by Yale University Press.
Copyright 2000 by Ahmed
Rashid.
B4 the Taliban chased General Dostum into Iran Rashid reported Dotsom:
"wielded power ruthlessly. The first time I arrived at the fort to meet Dotsom there
were bloodstains and pieces of flesh in the muddy courtyard. I innocently asked the guards if
a goat had been slaughtered. They told me that an hour earlier Dostum had punished a soldier
for stealing.
The man had been tied to the tracks of a Russian-made tank, which then
Drove around the courtyard crushing his body into mincemeat as the garrison and Dostum
watched. The Uzbeks, the roughest and toughest of All the Central Asian nationalities are noted
for their love of marauding and pillaging."
p. 56
Apart from the Afghan problem, I fear the US will pursue war and the excuse of terrorism to
bolster and maintain Bush's ratings with the public. - Mephisto |
