Once again, in the dark of night -- in fact the Night Before Christmas Eve -- the Grinch Administration has struck once again in its ongoing
"Stealth War on the Environment."
This time, it's the forests again -- "the biggest change in forest-use policies in nearly three decades," according to the Washington Post.
Under the new rules, which take effect next week (also when almost nobody's paying attention, of course), "economic activity" gets equal priority with "preserving the ecological health of the forests" in deciding how much timber can be logged in a national forest. In addition, the government "will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysiswith each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife."
According to Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM), quoted in the Post article, "not even Scrooge would unveil these regulations" right before Christmas." Udall, of course, is well aware that there's good reason the Bush Administration does things this way -- because these radical anti-environmentalist ReTHUGlicans know the American public does not approve of what Udall calls its "radical overhaul of forest policy."
Udall's right: over the years, Americans have said consistently -- by about a two-thirds majority -- that protection of the environment should take priority over economic growth. In fact, in a November 2002 CBS News/New York Times poll, 57 percent of Americans agreed with the statement: "Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high and continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of the cost."
Simply stated, Bush is far "out of the mainstream" (a phrase he loves hurling at his opponents, by the way -- takes one to know one!) on environmental issues, and at some level he must realize it. Hence, the "dark of night" strategy on trashing the environment.
Of course, Bush's war on the environment, and his attempt to cover it up by stealth and the prodigious use of Orwellian language ("Clear Skies," "Healthy Forests," "No Child Left Behind") are not exactly shocking given Bush's radical right-wing, extremist pro-big-business and anti-environment philosophy in general. Bush the Grinch's ongoing "stealth war on the environment" is also not exactly unexpected given his heavy indebtedness to the powerful mining, oil, timber, real estate, and other big-time anti-environmental special interests that helped get him (and keep him) in the White House.
So how bad is this latest move by President Grinch? Well, just to put the announced changes into perspective, the new Bush Administration forest rules ditch some environmental protections that "date to Ronald Reagan's administration" and represent "the biggest change in forest use policies in nearly three decades."
Sound familiar? It should, because on issue after issue (environment, labor, abortion rights, progressive taxation, the social safety net, civil liberties, business regulation -- or lack thereof) this Administration's goal is nothing less than to role this country back to the 1920s. Let's be blunt: these guys want to undo FDR's New Deal, nothing less. First, though, they have to finish destroying the progress made during the 1960s and 1970s on women's rights, the environment, and many other areas. In other words, first undo the Great Society, then the New Deal. Pretty soon, we're back to the roaring '20s - happy days are here again!!
Getting back to the new environmental rules, it's important to point out the importance of these forests -- "one-quarter of U.S. species at risk of extinction -- including more than 25 species of trout and salmon -- live in national forests," where "Large animals such as grizzly bears, wolves and elk depend on the forests' large, undisturbed swaths of land for habitat."
According to Mike Leahy of Defenders of Wildlife, "The end result of all this is there will be more logging and less conservation of wildlife...They're not going to provide enough land for these species to hang on."
But at least someobody's happy -- the timber industry. According to Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council (representing lumber and paer companies "as well as landowners in 13 western states"), the new rules represent "'a step in the right direction' that will allow forest managers to make 'better, more informed and quicker decisions' about timber sales." West adds, reassuringly, that the new rules "will get the Forest Service caring about the land and caring about the people, instead of caring about the process and serving the bureaucracy."
I don't know about you, but having Bush and Cheney operating in the dark of night -- trashing the environment, authorizing and justifying torture, infringing on civil liberties, devising new schemes to destroy Social Security, plotting which country to invade next -- gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over. How about you? Merry Christmas!!