Posted on 03/04/2003 7:58:41 AM PST by countrydummy
(CNSNews.com) - Environmental groups and conservationists say the Bush administration has launched an "assault" on the nation's public lands.
"We are simply witnessing the most sweeping attempt to weaken or eliminate environmental protections for these lands in the history of modern environmental policy," said Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earth Justice at a recent Washington press conference. A coalition of green groups participated in a briefing titled "Full Scope of Bush Assaults on U.S. Public Lands."
Hayden said the Bush administration's land use policy seems to be: "leave no forest behind" and "leave no oil and gas well un-drilled."
But a property rights group fired back at the environmentalists saying they should take responsibility for any loss of forests.
Chuck Cushman, the executive director of the American Land Rights Association, (ALRA) told CNSNews.com, "The environmental groups already left no forest behind, they set all the forests up to burn, they locked them up and locked the people out and wouldn't let the professional managers take care of them."
"The legacy of these guys is burning our national forests," Cushman added.
The environmental groups alleged that "anti conservation interests" are now in charge at the White House.
Craig Obey, vice president for government affairs at the National Parks and Conservation Association said, "Decision after decision by this administration is putting parks at risk, along with other public lands and we feel the need to raise the alarm."
Mike Leahy, the natural resource council for the Defenders of Wildlife, believes that since the end of the Clinton administration, there has been a "systematic dismantling" of regulations that protect national forests and public lands.
"They are going back and trying to reverse about 20-25 years of forest policy and fundamentally redoing how public forests in this country are managed," Leahy explained.
Another participant also drew a negative comparison between Bush's policies and those of President Ronald Reagan.
"I hope we are not getting to a point with the Bush administration here that we are going to be looking fondly at the Reagan administration for their environmental initiatives, but that seems to be the direction we are heading," said David Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society. Alberswerth worked at the Department of Interior during the Clinton administration.
The Bush administration also received low marks from the environmentalists for allowing the continued use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.
"Yellowstone should be preserved for present and future generations, not used as a thrill ride for this generation and destroyed for the next," Obey said.
But Cushman dismissed the environmentalists' snowmobile concerns, saying, "they never saw a snowmobile they didn't' hate."
"Yellowstone is two million acres and there are so few snowmobiles, and they are so limited in where they go, and they are virtually almost all on roads," Cushman noted.
'Too Many Oil and Gas Resources'
Alberswerth chastised the administration for focusing on the search for domestic sources of oil and gas reserves.
"The question instead should be - Are too many oil and gas resources available for development?" Alberswerth asked.
"In this rush to develop all this oil and gas on the public lands in the West, have we adequately protected the scenic, ecological, environmental, air and water resource values out there?" Alberswerth asked.
Cushman believes the green groups would prefer the U.S. to rely on foreign sources of oil.
"I guess when it comes to meeting with the oil and gas-rich nations of the Middle East, they are in favor of our dependence there and having less resources here," Cushman said.
'Just Whining'
Cushman believes the greens "are just whining now because their guy (Democrat Al Gore) didn't get elected."
"The government already owns 40 percent of the land. These people are in the business --and they are a green business -- they are in the business of land grabbing. During the Clinton administration, they grabbed huge amounts of lands," Cushman said.
Cushman dismissed what he called alarmist rhetoric over national parkland disappearing.
"Does anyone keep track of how many times these guys say the sky is falling?" he asked.
Cushman believes the opposition of environmental groups to the recreational use of national parklands is part of "a cultural war" in which the green activists refuse to see "people as legitimate participants" in the natural world.
"If we listen to these guys we are going to burn our forests, lock up our public lands, force people to live in cities in high densities and zone low to medium-income families from ever owning a home and a part of the American dream," Cushman said.
Like I said in my comments, the whole thing was geared to strip landowners of their lands, and local governments form having any say so in their states and communites....I wish I knew how to find a full transcript of the whole press conference, anyone got any ideas?
I hope environmetlalists find more issues to give Bush more low marks.
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