Hugh Hewitt MEGA PING!
Posted on 10/31/2003 1:59:22 PM PST by RonDog
"...Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton would be well advised to launch an investigation by an independent panel not dominated by agenda activists into the role in creating the conditions for this disaster played by the ESA and other federal controls such as those administered by the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA..In the meantime, the agency ought to promulgate a nationwide "take" permit for fire protection activities impacting endangered species.
There is no need for a sequel." - Hugh Hewitt
(If you want OFF - or ON - my "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know)
Exactly. The whole environmental movement is a scheme to provide employment for homosexuals. The executives of the Sierra Club roost in plush offices in San Francisco, drive BMW's and drink fine wine. Their real business is extortion, both from business, government and especially private property. The only time they venture out into the "Wilderness", is to some forest resorts that cater to the "Fairy Wildlife". It's not the bears one needs to be on the lookout for in the forest, but the "Pixie Dust".
STEPHEN'S KANGAROO RAT
From www.enature.com:Cute little bugger, for a RAT. :O)
Stephen's Kangaroo Rat
Dipodomys stephensi
Posted at 6:25 AM, PacificWith at least 20 dead and 2,600 homes destroyed, the fires that have ravaged at least 625,000 acres in southern California may come much closer to containment today as the extraordinary efforts of 13,000 firefighters get an assist from the weather, including a very unusual chance of rain and even snow at the higher elevations tonight.
The media will move on as soon as the fires diminish in their immediate threat to life and property, but sane people can only hope that the clean-up and rebuilding process is accompanied by a searching and thorough inquiry into the causes of the disaster --an undertaking that environmental activists will resist at every turn because a genuine inquiry will result in an indictment of almost every nostrum they hold dear.
My WeeklyStandard.com article this morning, "Up in Smoke," is a first installment in what should be an outpouring of critiques of the federal policies which came to dominate Southern California land use during the Clinton years. One of the conclusions of any fair review of the past ten years: "The Bush administration, as in so many areas, inherited eight years of disastrous extremism dressed up as 'science'--described by Bruce Babbitt as 'walking lightly on the land.' Babbitt's tenure as Secretary of the Interior, seen through the smoke of California and the charred remains from Arizona, Colorado, and South Dakota, is clearly the most damaging to the environment in the history of the department."
The most outrageous action among political elites concerning the fires is the sudden abandonment of Democratic opposition to President Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative." Helen Dewar's article in the Washington Post states that the Senate was "[w]hipped into action by the deadly wildfires that are ravaging Southern California," but that is simply dishonest. Democratic obstructionism was once again revealed to have cost Americans dearly, and the Democrats leading the obstructionism --especially California's Barbara Boxer-- fled the field. The "Senate" didn't change course. The Senate Democrats did. Dianne Feinstein cobbled together some face-saving amendments, and the bill passed by a vote of 97 to 1 after a delay of many months.
If I was a burned out homeowner, or the family of a victim, I would be beyond outrage not only with the desperate hypocrisy of the left, but also with the media's willingness to allow the Senate Democrats to slip away without explaining why their opposition to forest thinning has evaporated this week.
The new bill addresses only part of the problem, and House Republicans should demand that the original bill be kept free of the wishful thinking and ideological posturing of the environmental lobby. How many disasters does it take, after all, to expose these people and their fraudulent theories?
The Endangered Species Act should be next up for thorough amendment --it is a disastrous and ineffective exercise in granting enormous power to incompetent federal bureaucrats that brings ever increasing hardships and little in the way of genuine conservation benefits. The GOP has got to realize that the public long ago woke up to the facts about the environmental movement's extremism on the issue of species protection.
The party of TR can recover the legacy of genuine conservation, but not by refusing to expose lousy science as lousy science, and bureaucratic ineptitude as just that. The Party fears getting labeled as anti-environmental, but the disasters of the past few years are the backdrop against which serious reforms can be demanded and explained.
Many in elite media will of course distort every attempt to recover a genuine conservation ethic that is now hostage to wild extremism of the left...
His criticisms appear to be fairly lucid. What he hasn't acknowledged (and may not understand) is the way these regulations are so often used to enrich the few and well connected. Further, he offers no plan to fix it other than going back to the same system that grew into the mess we have today, only "less of it."
It's government fix thyself, as if the politicians in charge could do anything about crooked courts and scads of NGO lawyers in cahoots with entrenched agency bureaucrats.
It is thus a well informed, but typically clueless Republican approach.
...It is thus a well informed, but typically clueless Republican approach.Well, you got THAT part right... :o)
From www.chapman.edu:
Hugh Hewitt Associate Professor of Law Areas of Expertise
Constitutional Law, Administrative LawEducation
A.B., cum laude, Harvard College; J.D., magna cum laude, University of Michigan Law SchoolExperience
Professor Hugh Hewitt is a major player nationally as an advocate for property owners and development interests subject to environmental regulation. He is a partner in Hewitt & McGuire, representing businesses and developers on endangered species, wetlands, and other environmental issues. He also served for several years as a Board Member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Professor Hewitt's involvement in public affairs is not limited to environmental matters. He advised President Ronald Reagan as Assistant White House Counsel, served as Deputy Director and General Counsel of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, was Director of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, and clerked for the Honorable George MacKinnon, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Hewitt is currently co-host of the television news and public affairs show "Life and Times" on PBS Los Angeles affiliate KCET-TV, and is a member of the California Arts Council.
`Some democrat today told me that California had requested federal funding for clearing out the brush and they were turned down by Bush administration. I know there has to be more to this story. Anybody know anything about this? Thanks in advance.See also:
CBS NEWS, Dan Rather:
BUSH ADMIN., FEMA TO BLAME FOR CA WILDFIRES
CBS NEWS | 10/31/2003 | SELF
Posted on 10/31/2003 4:09 PM PST by Swanks
CBS (2nd) lead story: Bush and FEMA resp. for CA fires.
* Per Dan the Newz-man: Seems Grey Davis put a request in to Washington for $413M to clear a row of Beatle infested, dead trees six months ago.
* Request was ignored six months, recently turned down.
* Grey-out raising the issue today in soundbites.
* "Adminstration response" (therefore insinuation o guilt) was FEMA is the wrong Gov't Agency to make request to.
* Barbara Boxer pounding a podium - declaring we warned this Admin. of the pending disaster; situation deamnds answers, etc.CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
That was my take.
A typical radio personality is bombarded with 300 books a month. So, there's no way he'll listen to me as the author. Unfortunately, I can't afford a publicist so the only way to interest him is if other people tell him and more than once. That's just how it is.
Humans must continue to push eastward and leave the western states that under draconian environmental control.
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