Posted on 07/24/2002 9:29:40 AM PDT by purplegirl
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:38:39 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle quietly slipped into a spending bill language exempting his home state of South Dakota from environmental regulations and lawsuits, in order to allow logging in an effort to prevent forest fires.
The move discovered yesterday by fellow lawmakers angered Western legislators whose states were forced to obey those same rules as they battled catastrophic wildfires.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Tally Ho!! Tiny Twinkletoes Stealth D'Asshole sighting!
Above and beyond Dasshole's obvious hypocrisy, IMO the existing lawsuits would still have legal standing.
The hand is quicker than the eye?
Not this time Mr. Daschle.
Sac
I have known and worked with Larry Craig for twenty years. He is one of the good guys in the Congress. Daschle deserves to be slammed for sneaking this in. But all the states who are subject to forest fires -- not just the ones with fires currently burning -- and certainly not just South Dakota -- should get the benefits of this provision.
And, as I have repeatedly said concerning the "In God We Trust" cases, this provision would end litigation by WITHDRAWING THE JURISDICTION OF THE FEDERAL COURTS TO RULE IN A SPECIFIC AREA. Congress can do this any time it wants, on any subject. Only it should not sneak around like a thief in the night and do it for just one state -- South Dakota -- it should do it boldly and clearly as needed.
Congressman Billybob
Dems don't care if they are hypocrites. Being a hypocrite for the good of the party is probably considered a good thing and admired by fellow Dems.
As long as western states vote Republican, Dems won't do anything to help their forests. Perhaps this exposure will help in Washington state and Oregon.
With all due respect, since when is a Democrat behaving with rank hypocrisy "unbelievable?" That is a dog bites man story. Now if Daschole had stood up to the eco-freaks and proposed this policy for the entire West, then that would be a man bites dog story...
The last time Congress passed a law withdrawing jurisdiction for the federal courts concerning the building of the Alaska pipeline. A federal court in San Francisco (naturally) had issued an injunction against the project at the behest of tree-huggers (of course). Congress stripped the courts of jurisdiction over the project, and the case immediately died.
When courts find that they have no jurisdiction, at any point in a case, their power to act ends on the spot. Think of it this way: even if the suit is over and the environmentalists have, at that point, prevailed, if the court loses its jurisdiction, because Congress says so, even if the decision somehow survives, the court is powerless to issue any order to enforce it. A decision that is totally unenforceable is indistinguishable from no decision, or a decision that the environmentalists lose rather than win.
Congressman Billybob
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