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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pezz who wrote (90)	8/28/2000 7:18:07 AM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Sunday August 27 1:03 PM ET Wildfires Converge in 'Perfect Storm' BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - Uncontrolled blazes roaring across the U.S. West converged to form even larger fires on Sunday, causing what one senior U.S. official called ``a perfect storm'' of tinderbox conditions, high winds, and forests thick with fuel. ``It is tragic what's happened out there,'' Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman told Fox News Sunday as fire officials reported a total of more than 1.6 million acres ablaze in 13 western states.(cont) dailynews.yahoo.com

To: pezz who wrote (90)	8/28/2000 8:49:05 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 10042

In fifty years do you think we will give back any of what we have taken?........I dare say we will have taken more! Well, you certainly have a point there. But then again, I would probably say that the amount of national monument land that has been set aside, especially over the past 8 years, probably makes it a quid pro quo. Of course, we'd have to subtract that parcel of land that our wheeler-dealer Vice President arranged to have sold to his "Big Oil" friends over at Occidental Petroleum. Only if they can do it without destructive road building and their selectivity be monitored and they pay what the trees are worth..... How can you log without roads? Building a road is no more destructive or irreversible than cutting a firebreak to prevent the spread of a fire. In fact, roads ACT as firebreaks. And I certainly agree that they should pay for the priviledge. However, realizing that it can be prohibitively expensive to selectively cut certain trees out of an overgrown section, I have no problem if they clearcut in a patchwork fashion and rotate ever 10/20 years. Whether to allow small fires to burn themselves out thus using up the fuel for these larger ones is a desirable method or not of preventing large fires is best left to those who have more knowledge than myself. Well since it has been the government and any variety of environmentalist and ecological groups who have been the primary managers/advisors of the national forests for the past 100 years, it would seem that even the "experts" are not as wise as they once thought. Loggers are no different than hunters. They manage their particular natural resource ensuring that the resource does not become extinct, either from over exploitation or from conditions that create the resources destruction, like disease, fire, or outright starvation. And you're right... we probably have exhausted the subject. But the point has been to show the government does not have a monopoly on expertise. And we can't make econo-enviromental decisions from the top down by imposing regulations on developing nations. Rather we have to provide the conditions where they voluntarily reduce the stress on the ecology.

To: pezz who wrote (90)	9/1/2000 6:57:28 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 10042

Environmental laws curb firefighting By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES Environmental regulations meant to protect plants, streams and fish are restricting the use of fire retardant and bulldozers to fight Western fires, according to residents and firefighters alike. Top Stories • Bush asks Clinton not to cut ties • New RNC ad hits Gore • Clinton vetoes estate-tax measure • Pentagon sees woes in two-war strategy • Former Internet worker arrested in Emulex hoax Firefighters say the use of bulldozers to draw fire lines is being severely restricted and they are forced to chop trees by hand. The use of fire retardant is prohibited near Montana streams containing Bull trout, which are listed as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. "Once the fire starts and you have all these criteria, it just throws out every fire plan and training about how to address wild-land fires," said Cy Jamison, former director of the Bureau of Land Management. "If you put all these caveats on what fire bosses can do and what equipment is used you just tie the hands of the professionals whose job it is to put the fire out," said Mr. Jamison, who served under President Bush. Westerners, who are accustomed to assertive firefighting policies under previous administrations, say environmental policies of the Clinton-Gore administration are crippling efforts to extinguish fires (cont) washtimes.com