NEWS: OREGON FIRES FUEL ANTI-BUSH PROTESTS!!!!
[ed: More and more Americans are waking up to the cholera of lying POS neoNAZI criminal Bush.]
msnbc.com
PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 21 — Fast-growing blazes in central Oregon serve as a backdrop for President Bush’s plan to thin forests of trees and underbrush — and as fuel for environmentalists who oppose the plan.
BUSH LEFT his Texas ranch Thursday on a two-day trip to the Pacific Northwest to polish his environmental record.
His first stop was at the University of Portland to raise $1 million for his re-election campaign at a $2,000-a-ticket campaign luncheon. A few thousand demonstrators gathered near the university, NBC affiliate KGW-TV reported, booing three buses believed to be carrying Bush supporters heading into the campus to attend the luncheon.
Three police special weapons and tactics team vans, more than 50 officers on bicycles and about 40 officers dressed in full riot gear converged to keep the protesters away from the entrance to the campus, where a tall chain-link fence and concrete barriers were installed overnight.
Bush was unfazed.
“Thanks for the warm welcome and the cool day,” he told his supporters. “We have set a record today, a record fund-raiser, which indicates the depth of support here in Oregon, for which I am most grateful.”
From Portland, Bush traveled to central Oregon to promote his wildfire prevention plan. Fast-growing blazes in the region scuttled plans for an on-the-ground tour of fire-ravaged areas in Deschutes National Forest.
Aides instead scheduled an aerial tour by helicopter of the Bear Butte and Booth fires. Smoke enveloped the president’s plane — blacking out any view out of the windows and filling the cabin with its acrid smell.
Later, he was speaking at Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond to tout what he called in Portland his efforts to “bring some sense to the forest policy of the United States of America.”
BUSH PUSHES POLICY
Bush has been pushing his forest-thinning initiative for months — in southeastern Arizona last week, on the radio Saturday and in the Rose Garden in May. The House has passed the administration’s proposal. A Senate version could be addressed by the full chamber as early as next month.
Environmental groups, including some expected to protest his visit, say the president’s forest policy allows timber companies to log large trees in the interest of thinning. They also are wary of streamlined environmental studies and limited appeals on proposed work to cut trees and brush on as many as 20 million acres of forest land.
The Wilderness Society says the administration’s proposal falls far short of protecting communities near forests. The society argues that the Bush proposal focuses on federal lands, while studies show that 85 percent of the land that surrounds communities most at risk from wildfires is private, state or tribal land — not federal.
“We’re worried that they’re using the fear of wildfires to promote logging in the backcountry — far away from homes and communities,” said society spokesman Chris Mehl.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president’s event in Oregon would “highlight the importance of conservation and the importance of personal stewardship, while making sure that we protect jobs at the same time.”
“I think that the environment is too important to be made into a divisive partisan issue,” he said Wednesday.
POLITICAL ANGLE
There also are political reasons for visiting the two states, which Bush failed to win in 2000.
The Bush campaign is eyeing Oregon’s seven electoral votes, which the president lost to Democrat Al Gore by only about 6,700 votes. Poll numbers show Democrats with a 2-to-1 advantage over Bush when people were asked whom they trusted to do the best job on the environment.
Gore won Washington with 50.2 percent of the vote, compared with Bush’s 44.6 percent. Bush’s schedule Friday includes another fund-raiser and a speech on saving salmon in Washington.
A topic in Oregon that the administration has sought to downplay involves the role of Bush’s political strategist, Karl Rove, in developing water policy in the Klamath River Basin, which was ravaged by drought in 2001.
A year and a half ago, Rove briefed dozens of political appointees at the Interior Department about diverting water in the Klamath to help farmers, a key group of Republican supporters. Environmentalists want a fuller explanation of the briefing, which the White House says was routine.
The Interior Department increased the water supply to drought-stricken farmland several months later despite complaints from environmentalists who argued that diverting the water would kill threatened fish. After irrigation was restored in 2002, 33,000 chinook salmon died while swimming up the Klamath.
The White House has said that Bush has set up a Cabinet-level group on the Klamath, which is committed to balancing the needs of farmers, people who need jobs, the quality of water and fish populations. |
