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Some radical leftists:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2...eagle.0825.html
Mike Beagle is a Republican and chairman of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. He lives in the Rogue River basin in Southwestern Oregon.
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August 25, 2004
Guest Viewpoint: Hunters, anglers: Beware of the GOP
By Mike Beagle
"Looks like snow," my 61-year-old father said to me ominously as I set up my tent. Snow in the high Cascades during the third week of October is nothing new. Nor is listening to forecasts that predict balmy weather for the next few days.
But backpacking into Oregon's gorgeous and rugged 58,000-acre Mount Thielsen Wilderness requires more than high-tech predictions, space-age toys and speculation. The physical and mental stamina required to make this backpack to 7,100 feet, just below the craggy 9,178-foot pinnacle, is both rewarding and unforgiving.
It is an age-old, mentally and physically challenging part of the natural history of the American West that indigenous people sought and enjoyed, as did such great historical figures as Lewis and Clark, James Clyman, Jim Bridger, Theodore Roosevelt and Oregon's own Republican hunter-conservationist, Judge John Waldo.
Sharing the experience with my father was beyond precious. It was the epitome of America's outdoor expe- rience.
Now it seems as if the "strenuous life," as Theodore Roosevelt once put it, is under attack by the very party to which he belonged. Yes folks, the Grand Old Party - the Republicans - is inadvertently supporting the soft breakdown of our society. This is the party built on "rugged individualism" and toughness. Or so it was. This attack is not overt in the way that we see things in our daily lives, but it is happening much like the slow and steady demise of the Northwest's legendary wild salmon heritage.
Because of the proliferation of fast-food "value" meals, an over-reliance on technological advancements and motorized equipment and a presidential administration that cozies up to extractive industries, our nation's health continues to deteriorate. With the exception of the U.S. Armed Forces and people who hunt, fish and hike in America's backcountry, the strenuous life that Roosevelt highlighted is being replaced by an obese, diabetes-ravaged and technologically dependent group of people who have no appreciation for the peace and solitude of the natural world. They want things the easy way, rather than earning them with their own sweat equity.
The list of public lands abuses by the current administration is long. It ranges from trying to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (designated by GOP President Dwight Eisenhower) to clear-cutting the Tongass National Forest in Alaska to opening of public lands along the Rocky Mountain front to oil and gas development, to stopping the reintroduction of the grizzly bear in central Idaho to the dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service roadless rule. Hunters and anglers are taking note of a party leadership and president who have absolutely no idea what wild, public land means to the American sports- man.
Take, for example, the Forest Service's roadless rule. After countless town hall meetings and accepting a record 2.5 million public comments over a three-year period, 90 percent of which favored protection, the current presidential administration has gutted this popular and fiscally conservative administrative rule. Promoting the "strenuous life'' in the tradition of Roosevelt? Absolutely not. Ignoring direct democracy? No question.
Under the mantra of allowing "input" from the states, the current administration has given the management responsibilities of more than 58 million acres of our publicly owned and roadless heritage to the states for their retention. All Americans own these lands, not just the residents in which these lands are located.
The current $10 billion backlog of maintenance on Forest Service roads is fiscally irresponsible and an environmental nightmare. It is not conservative. In the current situation, building more roads at taxpayer expense is beyond clueless.
More roads equal more taxpayer dollars flushed down the drain and less acceptable habitat for America's wonderful public asset: fish and wildlife. As a result, we have less terrain to hunt and fish without hearing the buzzing of off-road vehicles and, quite literally, stealthy contributions to our already pathetically soft society, which can't get past seeing the natural world from beyond a computer monitor, television screen or the soft, padded seat of a motorized vehicle.
I don't know where all hunters and anglers are when it comes to weighing in on these direct frontal assaults on our natural heritage. It is quite obvious that the GOP doesn't know or care. The only thing I can say is that the cherished moment that I shared with my father three years ago in the alpine forest beneath the looming spire of Mount Thielsen will not be forgotten come November. |
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS...environment.ap/
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0720-01.htm
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Published on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 by the Associated Press
Republicans Blast President Bush on Environment
by Erik Stetson
CONCORD, New Hampshire - One of the Environmental Protection Agency’s earliest leaders, flanked by Republican state politicians, blasted the president’s record on the environment Monday during a news conference organized by an anti-Bush environmental group.
Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA’s second chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. But he said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.
"It’s almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find this deeply disturbing."
Former EPA Agency Administrator Russell E. Train
Bush supporters defended the president’s record. Tom Thomson, owner of Thomson Family Tree Farm in Orford, praised the Healthy Forests Initiative as good legislation that protects loggers as well as forests. He predicted current policies would have positive long-term effects.
Bush "has made progress over the last four years giving us cleaner air, water and land," Thomson said in a statement.
Officials with the state’s Bush-Cheney campaign said sulfur dioxide emissions are down 9 percent, while nitrogen oxide emissions are down 13 percent. They added that the 2002 Farm Bill set aside more than $40 billion in conservation funding.
Environment2004, the environmental group, released a report Monday titled "Damaging the Granite State." It criticizes presidential policies on energy, global warming, toxic waste and air and water pollution.
"It is the worst record in modern history, unfortunately," said Aimee Christensen, the group’s executive director. "They are systematically weakening our keystone public health protections and undermining decades of bipartisan leadership on the environment."
The report faults Bush’s energy policy, for example, for slashing renewable energy funding. According to the report, the cuts are holding back New Hampshire, which could produce 43 percent of its energy from wind power. The report also claims the state could add 5,000 jobs by 2020 with more renewable energy and efficiency investments.
The report cites such sources as federal and state agency reports as well as newspaper articles and advocacy-group studies.
The two Republican state politicians who spoke - Rep. Jim Pilliod, a pediatrician, and former Sen. Rick Russman, who once headed the Senate Environmental Committee, did not endorse Kerry. They said they participated to stress the importance of environmental issues.
Russman said funding was cut for cleanup work at two of the state’s 19 Superfund sites. He also said the administration’s standards would delay mercury emissions cleanup until at least 2018. Pilliod added that mothers and children are particularly vulnerable to mercury pollution.
Train also accused Bush of letting weakening the Clean Air Act. The record, he added, falls short of those set by former Republican presidents ranging from Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated creating national parks and forests, to George H.W. Bush, who supported new anti-air-pollution standards.
The Bush record is "appalling, with very, very few exceptions," Train said. He described presidential policies as "geared to rolling back environmental protections."
Environment2004 has been actively campaigning against Bush policies and has released a national report on its Web site criticizing them. |
Last edited by DaveSZ on Aug-26-2004 at 08:24
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