Land Study on Grazing Denounced; Two retired specialists say Interior excised their warnings on the effects on wildlife and water, the
LA Times reports.
The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study.
Once again, Bush's political appointees put corporate special interests and right wing politics above the facts. Never mind that they are charged with making public policy based on scientific investigation. In their hands, the facts are what they say they are. More below the fold.
Update: Because
georgia's diary was in the right, I have deleted the bulk of this diary entry. But I'm keeping the title just because it's fussy and pedantic. Also I'm keeping the links in case someone (even me) might want the references.
Another book-length resource on this issue is
Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West, available
here.
The credit for inspiring this diary goes to Karen Dawn of DawnWatch, an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at this link.