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The United States Forest Service, nominally an agency of the Department of Agriculture, nevertheless was directed by Babbitt’s former head of the BLM, Michael Dombeck. Despite the dire warnings of fire in neglected forests, Dombeck had argued that economic losses in the timber industry would be offset by $100 billion in mysteriously-collected recreation revenues by 2001. At the same time, he announced plans to halt all road construction and eliminate existing roads on 40 to 60 million acres of the national forests.

Dombeck’s Deputy Chief for Forest Management, Jim Furnish, told RANGE in 1999 that, “If the choice is to allow more harvest or to allow it to burn, then it’s burn.” Following the summer fires, Babbitt and Dombeck said it would require more than $1.7 billion to begin restoration of the devastated areas, including $117 million to clear dead trees and brush. Environmental groups publicly objected to the funding for clearing debris.

Once Bruce Babbitt had established his “Babe Ruth” position on behalf of environmentalists in the Department of Interior, he soon brought in others dedicated to the movement, including George Frampton, former president of the Wilderness Society, who rose to become President Clinton’s chief environmental advisor.

Frampton and others given positions in federal authority by Babbitt and Vice President Gore, were well aware of the most radical proposal put forward by environmentalists in these last 10 years. Attributed to “Earth First!” extremist David Foreman, but actually the work of a consortium of organizations including the never-touched Nature Conservancy, the “Wildlands Project” proposes to control and restrict human activity on no less than 50 percent of the United States land mass, virtually all of it west of the Rockies. It is an almost unbelievable scheme to favor wildlife over human habitation and predatory domination over any domestic use.

If you can find things to actually DOCUMENT this stuff, will you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to http://www.hughhewitt.com and send it to him? He WILL jump on this, on the air. And the guy's got a huge audience. Everyone stay safe out there and thanks for all the time and effort.

Wow you certainly know your stuff. I knew babbitt was an idiot, but now you have engraved it in stone. That explains all the last minute monuments. What is strange, however, is how he was so slow to respond to any wildfires--the worst record of any admin.