Posted on 11/07/2003 7:17:55 PM PST by Jean S
"You can't point to a specific project that was appealed," he said, "but because so many of these projects are appealed, the Forest Service has stopped proposing them in areas where there is a lot of resistance."
? - Should said same groups who stand in the way of these fuel reduction projects not also be subject to legal recourse, etc?
Or, is that option of legal action agianst such orgs no longer available due to legislation that Clinton signed in the 90s that provided certain "environmental" orgs immunity from prosecution?
Just curious. Thanks
It was Clinton EO 12986 that indemnified both environmental groups and government resource agencies from civil liability as members of the IUCN.
This is the mentality we are up against.
How could you get a judgement against enviro groups when they were just exercising their right to bring a suit and some hairball judge agreed with them? The best thing to do, IMO, is to point out that donating money to these groups results in poor forest management, i.e. if you donate to enviro groups then you are responsible for forest fires.
Fine as far as you go, randog, but I'm sure you realize that we the taxpayers also "donate" to these tax-exempt lobbying organizations.
That needs to stop, whether or not they can be held responsible for the fires.
The President's "healthy forests initiative" calls for thinning 2.5 million acres of federal forests a year for 10 years. (Run this timber through sawmills and the Canadian dollar would sink like a lead weight.)
Anybody want to guess how many acres the fedgov has in forested land (and we can leave out Alaska, just to make it fair)?
Randal O'Toole is another critic of the Forest Service's record in managing the natural resources it is entrusted with. In a Cato Institute paper from last year, he observed:
The real problem with forest fire fighting is not a shortage of funds, but too much money. Congress has given the Forest Service a virtual blank check to put out fire and is now giving it a near-blank check to thin forestlands. When you have a blank check to do something, that becomes the only thing you want to do even if something else would work better at a far lower cost.The enviros want to keep everything untouched by humans, everyplace, at all all times, an any cost in lives and property.Similar perverse incentives can be found in the Forest Service timber program. Federal programs indirectly reward forest managers for losing money on timber sales while penalizing them for making money or doing good things for the environment. As long as these perverse incentives are in place, we can't trust the Forest Service to sell timber without the environmental safeguards that President Bush wants to remove.
No hard-and-fast rules can apply to all 600 million highly diverse acres of federal land. Commercial timber sales could improve forest health in some areas. Complete fire suppression may make sense in other areas. Yet the current incentives push the Forest Service to make the wrong decisions in most places.
Bush (and presumably Pombo) want to thin it all so it won't burn.
Seems to me there is a middle ground, and O'Toole is occupying it at the moment.
Yup.
Someone with some clout needs to bring this to the attention of Bush/Cheney.
How many Clinton EOs ahs Bush rescinded?
Don't hold your breath.
Under Clinton, Federal agencies were also members of the IUCN, thus exempting the Federill grubbamint from liability as well. Bush promised to let those memberships lapse, but I don't know if in fact this has been done.
Either that, or he is in the pocket of big business. Not in the way the liberals think, but in the way that Carry_Okie proposes. Lock up the land to make his franchise worth more.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
For real time political chat - Radio Free Republic chat room
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.