"We All Live in Pombo's District" -
kid oakland
What follows is a cacophony of reasons why Richard Pombo (R, CA-11) must be sent back to private life. He'll keep his crap up until then:
- More than a dozen attempts to open ANWR to drilling? Pombo's the House point man.
- Over a decade trying to bring down the Endangered Species Act? Pombo's personal grail.
- Wholesale giveaways of public lands? Pombo again.
- Curtailing opportunities for public input on government actions? Pombo, of course.
- Blocking all attempts at House hearings and legislation to improve the lot of grievously exploited immigrant "guest" workers in the Marianas Islands? That's Pombo barricading the door.
- And so much more
Taking Richard Pombo down is very serious and urgent business. Please read the following before voting for anyone other than Jerry McNerney in the
Map Changers internet fundraising challenge. Please think big picture in casting your vote.
The Great Pombo Public Lands Giveaway (#1)
All That Glitters (#3)
How did Richard Pombo become House Resources Chair (#12)
Squanto's Abramoff Connection (#16)
Money Isn't Everything. Or Is It? (#23)
Also worth a look is Devilstower's recent How Richard Pombo Saved the World. And dengre's got the Marianas Islands connection covered pretty well in DoJ Subpoena ties Pombo to Abramoff and Pombo: On Abramoff's dime, protecting sweatshops and killing Dolphins.
Larger version
Sacramento Bee
Here's a bizarre thought: If we don't drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we have to sell off national parks to help balance the national budget.
That grotesque notion has slithered full-grown from the dim recesses of Rep. Richard Pombo's brain. The Tracy Republican is chairman of the House Resources Committee, the most important House committee on public lands issues.
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The whirring sound you hear is Theodore Roosevelt, the founder of our national parks and national wildlife refuge system and a Republican of a different sort, spinning in his grave.
Los Angeles Times
A budget bill that the House of Representatives is expected to vote on this week would force the federal government to put "For Sale" signs on public recreation lands in California and the West, including national forest holdings throughout the Sierra Nevada and remote parts of the Mojave Desert.
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Slipped into a massive budget-cutting bill late last month by the House Resources Committee, headed by Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy), the provision has been eclipsed by higher-profile battles over two other controversial plans that would expand oil drilling offshore and allow it in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Those proposals have been dropped for now, but the land-sale provision remains.
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In a rewrite of an 1872 mining law that reverses long-standing federal policy that the government keep public lands, the proposal also orders the Interior Department to sell land adjacent to mining claims for "economic development." Under the provision, legal experts say anyone would be able to stake a new claim on those neighboring parcels, do some survey work and, without having to prove a valuable mineral discovery, purchase the land for as little as $1,000 an acre.
George W. Bush knows Pombo well enough to have given him a nickname - he calls him "Marlboro Man". And yes, this picture's had help from Photoshop (the only one in this diary that has.)
Salt Lake Tribune
Public Land Giveaway: Mining law changes mask a horrible idea
Dig a little deeper into something called "Miscellaneous Amendments Related to Mining" and you'll strike a mother lode of really bad ideas.
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The proposal, from Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would amend an 1872 mining law in a way that would bring back the very worst of the Wild, Wild West and pretend that the enlightenment of the conservation movement never happened.
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The bill is supposed to be a step toward balancing the federal budget. But, with the Pombo measure included, it would actually deprive the United States of wealth beyond measure.
A sensible Congress would bury it forever.
John Leschy, Clinton Administration Forest Service chief wrote an editorial for Knight Ridder News Service:
Not satisfied with this liberalization of the discredited 1872 law, Pombo would also let private interests buy federal lands for purposes that have nothing to do with mining, such as building ski resorts, gaming casinos and strip malls on areas owned by the American public.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that "the federal mining law surely was not intended to be a general real estate law." Pombo's bill would change all that, and the first open house could be held inside Death Valley National Park.
The Star-Tribune of Casper (Wyoming!!) took Leschy's words and ran with `em:
"This could be the biggest privatization in the last 75 years of federal land," said John Leshy, the Interior Department's top lawyer during the Clinton administration.
A big concern for many people is loss of access to public lands if companies go in and file claims, said Mat Millenbach of Billings, Mont., a former manager of the state Bureau of Land Management office and avid outdoorsman. Contained in the 184 pages of the House budget reconciliation bill, which is intended to save money and cut the deficit, are provisions making it easier for anybody to stake claims and buy the land, said Leshy and Roger Flynn, director and managing attorney with the Colorado nonprofit law firm Western Mining Action Project and a mining law professor at the University of Colorado and University of Wyoming.
"This essentially goes back to the robber baron era. As long as you have a big enough checkbook, you can get as much of the land as you want," Flynn said.
Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the bill has loopholes "big enough to fly a C-130 through."
It's time to sit up and take notice when a hardcore conservative Republican from another time zone garners negative editorials in Utah and Wyoming, for chrissakes!! Papers throughout small cities in the west either through editorials, or in how they treated it as regular news, weighed in.
Santa Fe New Mexican on that same land grab, this time from the editorial page:
And here they are, in black suits and stovepipe hats, curling their mustaches and saying if you don't give us the deed to your ranch, we're tying you to the train tracks -- and I think I hear a whistle.
Denver Post editorial mentioned another Pombos ally, Tom Tancredo (C)-06):
Unlike existing law, the proposal would let the Bush administration sell off federal lands without public hearings or environmental studies.
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Colorado's congressional delegation should be outraged by the assault on our public spaces, but Tom Tancredo of Littleton actually voted for it in committee. The House should remove the misleadingly titled Miscellaneous Amendments Related to Mining when it votes today on the budget reconciliation bill.
The amendments really aren't about mining; they're about real estate speculation. They're a step backwards even from the existing problem-filled 1872 Mining Law, which lets companies purchase or "patent" mining claims on federal land for a pitiful $2.50 to $5 per acre if they plan to produce hard-rock minerals like gold or silver. Abuses have been egregious, especially because hard-rock mines don't pay federal royalties. In 1995, a company bought $3 billion worth of federal minerals in Arizona for just $1,745. Congress has repeatedly failed to reform the 1872 law, but in the 1990s lawmakers did manage to impose a moratorium on mine patents.
Then there's the little matter of oil drilling, whether offshore in the lower 48 or at ANWR, something Pombo's tried to put through repeatedly. And he ain't gonna quit till he loses an election or gets sent to jail.
New York Times, letter to the editor from Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL):
Your Oct. 30 editorial "Pombo Time" addressed many of Representative Richard W. Pombo's assaults on America's natural resources. But as a United States senator from Florida, I'm particularly concerned about the effect his oil-drilling bill will have on my state's tourist-driven economy and fragile environment. Mr. Pombo and his oil-industry friends are trying to change longstanding bipartisan bans on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico without good cause.
His bill also places our nation's military readiness at risk, as additional drilling will curb military testing and training in the Gulf and threaten national security. Only the oil industry will benefit from this proposal, and it is already experiencing record profits.
Sen. Nelson, one of those "moderate" Democrats may not be pleased with Pombo, but he's got Grover Norquist's Seal of Approval:
Another pal of Pombo's is Nelson's Repulican rival for the Senate, none other than Katherine Harris. Recently, Pombo's webmaster realized Harris is no longer on the GOP A-List. As surely as Winston "corrected" the records in Orwell's 1984, this picture (below) has vanished from Pombo's Congressional website. Good thing I downloaded it first!
St. Petersburg Times editorializes on lifting the drilling ban:
"Nuts" to gulf drilling
The oil industry's errand boy in the U.S. House, Richard Pombo, R-Calif, is still scheming to open Florida's coast to offshoer drilling. That's not surprising, considering Pombo's disdain for environmental protection. What is unforgiveable is that some Florida repersentatives appear to be in league with Pombo and are more attuned to the politics of Washington that the realities of Florida....If Floridians value their beautiful beaches, clean coastal waters and tourism economy, then the time to give in to the hysteria to drill is never.
On the Pacific coast, from San Jose Mercury News:
Another place where Pombo could find inspiration for wiser energy policies is the Senate, where a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would raise fuel-economy standards by 10 miles per gallon in 10 years. It would do far more to bring down high gas prices and to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, not to mention reducing pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Maybe Pombo missed it, but those are some of the nastiest side effects of America's energy addiction -- the sorts of things that make it imperative we kick the habit rather than struggle to feed it.
From a TruthOut.org editorial on last fall's efforts:
Arctic natives and caribou got a reprieve last week when some House Republicans refused to go along with adding Arctic Refuge oil drilling to the budget reconciliation bill. Conservationists are jubilant, though the feeling is tempered somewhat by knowing that Arctic drilling may be re-inserted when the final bill is worked out with the Senate. Still, this is a victory and a sign that the hard-core drill and spill crowd is not polling well these days. Republicans who want to save their political hides will continue to reject any budget bill that opens the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. Fear of political backlash prompted the Republican leadership to also drop a provision ending the moratorium on off-shore oil drilling.
But removal of the Arctic Refuge and offshore drilling provisions should not clear the House budget bill for passage. Outrageous environmental poison pills remain. They are mostly the work of the Chair of the House Resources Committee, Mr. Richard Pombo, a real estate developer from Tracy, California.
Pombo is a Republican in the DeLay mold. Oil and gas interests keep his campaign cash barrel topped up; he pays his relatives inflated salaries from those funds; he is deeply involved in the gambling-industry / Indian-casino money machine; he took thousands of dollars from DeLay's buddy, indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Actually, over $30k just from the Mashpee Wampanoags and their backer. The Abramoff-associated funds are likely wll over $100k all told.
Pombo, Delay's protegé, has been playing "Hammer", willing to be ruthless to enforce his will. Pombo's not just another "bad" vote on the other side of the aisle in the House. Truth Out continues:
Pombo will be a busy man this week as the Republican leadership tries to rescue its budget bill. Late last week, he met with a group of hard-liners and let House Leader Blunt know that this group would withhold votes from any budget bill that did not include a significant oil measure like opening the Arctic Refuge or the coasts to drilling. "Picking up four or five votes by pulling [arctic drilling] doesn't make up for the 25 or 30 votes you're going to lose," Pombo said, and he asked that Blunt and House Speaker Dennis Hastert promise him that "some American energy production" will be included in the final version approved by the House and Senate.
Pombo's efforts last fall failed, but like some monster in a B horror movie, he'll be ba-a-ack!! - last week's repeal of the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling being but the latest example. Pombo's gonna keep this stuff up until he gets sent back to the family's California feed lot.
Benefits aren't just for big money, but also for the Pombo family. Apparently, worried about public scrutiny, Pombo's wife and brother aren't on the campaign payroll this time around. In recent years, they got over a quarter of all campaign donations, over $300k in all. Pombo personally intervened with the Interior Dept. to waive rules on migratory birds in wind farms - at a location where his parents take in $125,000 annually in lease payments. Then there's a "highway study", for an area where he and relatives own land, and stand to make a fortune just because a study's underway. Not unlike the deal that's gotten Denny Hastert in hot water lately. San Jose Mercury News on the highway deal, but without having checked the real estate records:
Earth Needs Protection from Pombo
Environmental blindness is a Pombo specialty. He's pushing for a highway from the Central Valley over Mount Hamilton into East San Jose. There's only one reason to build it. A river of concrete through an unspoiled landscape would be a symbol of the swath of destruction Pombo is cutting through environmental protections.
With the Republicans out of power in the House, or even with Republicans hanging onto a slim majority but Pombo gone, Pombo's initiatives will end. Just as under Pombo, the cesspool of corruption, worker exploitation, forced abortions and sexual slavery in the Marianas Islands (CNMI) has never gotten a hearing of any kind in the House, even while protective legislation passed the Senate almost unanimously . Pombo, as Chairman of House Resources, has been able - single-handedly - to stop any efforts in this regard in their tracks. To my knowledge, this story reported in Marianas Variety reported earlier this year hasn't been reported by stateside news outlets:
GOVERNOR Juan N. Babauta has waived any and all exemptions from disclosure, including attorney-client privilege, concerning e-mails and correspondence between local government officials and Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff while the CNMI was still his client.
The e-mails that have been subpoenaed by the U.S. District Court of the District of Colombia through Abramoff's former employer, Greenberg Traurig, included that of garment magnate Willie Tan, former Gov. Froilan C. Tenorio, Gov.-elect Benigno R. Fitial, former Vice Speaker Alejo Mendiola, Rep. Norman Palacios, U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-California, the CNMI, Travel Subgroup, the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association, the Western Pacific Economic Council and Enron.
You got that? Pombo's is connected with DoJ investigations into the ugliness in the Marianas Islands. Pombo visited the Marianas (courtesy of Abramoff) in 1997, then again at taxpayer expense in 2003. This from the latter trip:
On foreign affairs, about which Pombo hasn't shown much interest, he appears perfectly willing to rubber-stamp the NeoCon agenda in exchange for power in areas he's engaged on. About all he's got to say on Iraq is Cheney redux: "We were attacked." But his lack of interest or knowledge in foreign affairs didn't stop him from taking a junket to Jerusalem:
Perhaps on the same trip, there was this photo op with King Abdullah of Jordan. This one is begging for little balloons that satirize what these people are thinking as the picture was snapped:
Pombo's been doing well as a pay-or-play kind of guy, willing to use every trick and bend every rule to further his own agenda, and that of his backers. He's widely acknowledged as a very hard worker, one who doesn't give up easily. And he's in a position to cause a lot of harm.
There's much else worthy of coverage, but this diary is already preposterously long. So Pombo's plans for curtailing public participation in government decisions (NEPA "improvement", the Endangered Species Act, and many other topics are omitted.)
See profiles of Pombo's challenger Jerry McNerney at ActBlue, Feingold's Progressive Patriots, and DFA's Grassroots All-Stars.
Please, Vote for McNerney in the Map Changers!!
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