When the moderate and conservative "hook and bullet" crowd begins hating the Bush administration, the GOP is in very big trouble.
Rod and gun in hand, and backing the Second Amendment right to own firearms, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have won the hearts of America's sportsmen. Yet the two men have failed to protect outdoor sports on the nation's public lands. With deep ties to the oil and gas industry, Bush and Cheney have unleashed a national energy plan that has begun to destroy hunting and fishing on millions of federal acres throughout the West, setting back effective wildlife management for decades to come.
This critique is from Field and Stream, hardly a far left "tree hugger" publication.
They continue...
The Invasion Begins
In his second week in office, President Bush convened a National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Vice President Cheney. Meeting with representatives of the energy industry behind closed doors, it eventually released a National Energy Policy, the goal of which was to "expedite permits and coordinate federal, state, and local actions necessary for energy-related project approvals on a national basis."
Put into practice through a series of executive orders, the policy has prioritized drilling over other uses on federal lands, while relegating long-standing conservation mandates from the 1960s and '70s to the back burner. For example, in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management has approved over 75 percent of the energy industry's applications for exemptions to work in critical winter range, heretofore closed to protect wildlife--sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorns, in particular (the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 gave agencies the means to close critical habitat). The BLM has also continued to issue drilling leases while in the process of writing new resource management plans that still await public comment. In addition, the Bush administration is working hard to eliminate Wilderness Study areas--set aside for their scenic value as well as their importance to wildlife. Most disturbingly, Congress is now debating a national energy bill that would codify the policy, making it the law of the land rather than an executive order. Subsequent administrations--be they Republican or Democratic--would be unable to institute a more balanced management plan for our western lands without resorting to new congressional legislation.
The backwoods character that Mr. Cheney and his pals and many hard core Republicans love to retreat to for hunting and fishing is being rampaged by a Bush admin policy that views energy extraction as 'highest and best use' of public lands. The environmental impacts of this policy are huge, including the pollution of some of the nation's Blue Ribbon fly-fishing streams.
Roads and pipelines aren't the only way energy development is making wildlife more vulnerable. Wherever there are coal seams, CBM is trapped on the surface of the coal by water pressure. Pumping out the groundwater releases the methane, which rises to the surface, where it's collected. However, each well discharges about 16,000 gallons of salinized water per day--43 million gallons per month for the Powder River Basin alone. Not only are underground aquifers being rapidly depleted, but the discharged water must be put someplace. It's been spread over the landscape; it's emptied into rivers; it's collected in infiltration pits. The salinized water kills forage for wildlife and livestock, and it pollutes waterways. Art Hayes Jr., whose family has ranched on the Tongue River since 1884, told me that the salinity level in the Tongue has gone up fivefold seasonally since a CBM company, Fidelity Exploration, began dumping water directly into the river. Both a tailwater fishery for rainbow and brown trout and a warmwater fishery for smallmouth bass and walleyes have been jeopardized. As president of the Tongue River Water Users Association, Hayes says that he's spent countless days trying to get CBM development done "halfway sanely"--to no avail.
Read the entire piece at Field and Stream
Why this matters
The Bush agenda of tapping into every square acre of public land for resource extraction is really pissing off some of the most stalwart supporters of the GOP agenda.
Democrats who make a campaign pledge to protect special places for hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing will make inroads with a massive swing voting population.
Don't miss this chance to let the American people know that some places are just too precious to be ravaged by special interests and private industry.