Who's Watching?

PEER is watching, that's who. Here's a press release from them regarding the recent gag order by EPA officials instructing employees to speak to no one -- not the GAO, not the EPA inspector general, and certainly not the press. All questions are to be referred to official spokespeople.

So much for the 'fishbowl' policy set forth by William Ruckelshaus back in 1983 I guess.

Break Time

Two years now I've been here on the 'net. Two years and about four hundred posts between my own blogs and the occasional post over at Montana Netroots. I need a break. I need to recharge. I need to talk to some real mountains and rivers and stuff, so I'm taking a much needed breather.

You've maybe noticed the green fist I've recently begun to post under. It's an attitude thing, and it's getting worse the older I get. Good gawd, I don't know how my kid can stand to live with me. Who knows? Maybe she can't. In case you haven't seen it, here it is -- big and bold, front and center -- and here it will stand until I get back to posting again. See you soon.

"American wilderness -- love it or leave it alone!"
Edward Abbey

Will They Do It?

GW did his thing today. He lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling, tossed the ball over to Congress, and challenged them to do the same. Lifting the ban requires both executive action and congressional action -- either one alone is meaningless. If Congress will stick to it's guns the ban won't be lifted. Will they do it?

What It Looks Like

There Are Voices We Never Hear

From Green Party Watch

The Real Deal?

The recent deal that will transfer roughly 500 square miles of former Plum Creek lands into the hands of land trusts has caused considerable buzz lately. Is it a bad thing? No. It's not a bad thing. Just the opposite, but there seems to be some misunderstanding about what the deal really represents. It's not a plan to preserve wilderness. It's a land deal. Provisions will be in place that are perhaps more conservation and recreation minded, which is good, but these lands are not, nor will they be wilderness.

The Environment News Service has a video about the deal, and I think the headline is misleading. It reads:

500 Square Miles Of Prime Montana Wilderness Acquired By Environmental Groups.

These are not prime wilderness lands. No no -- they are not, and they won't be now. They are a small piece of the land that was given away as part of the railroad land grants of the 19th century. To tout it as a major step in wilderness protection can give us all the illusion that we've taken a great step in protecting our wild lands, but that isn't really true.

It's a small step, though probably a good one given the political climate these days, but we need to enact some real wilderness protection while we still have a chance to do so. The traditional patchwork approach to wilderness isn't going to be good enough. A few scattered acres here and there isn't going to cut it. We need to go big. We need far-reaching forward-looking visionary wilderness bills that protect large areas of wild lands and connecting corridors and complex and diverse ecosystems. We need bills along the lines of -- I'll say it again -- NREPA.

I'm not going to bad-mouth the Plum Creek deal. Not right now anyway. Maybe later. I think for now it's a solid step toward reversing the rape-and-run land policies of the past decades. But I think we do need to see it for what it is. Just as importantly, we need to see it for what it isn't. Here's the video from ENS:

Update: As always, with BushCo and the corporados entering their last six months and doing their damndest to implement as much of their corporatist agenda as they can hammer through, it's best to cut through the smokescreens and watch what's going on behind the scenes. A hearty thanks to them that's doing that.

What's The Deal Here?

I don't know -- I tend to be a suspicious old bird sometimes. Like when I start hearing that a whole slew of new wilderness bills are suddenly getting passed out of the blue. The flags go up in my little brain and I get uneasy. Something's up.

There's much ado about the Crown of the Continent deal recently agreed to between The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and Plum Creek, brokered in large part by Max Baucus. Yes, it's good that this land is in the hands of land trusts now rather than Plum Creek, but one thing is clear. This is a multiple-use agreement. Public trusts are buying back part of the original public domain that was given to industry a century and a half ago and has been exploited for all it's worth ever since. It's not a wilderness bill. A good thing maybe, but not a wilderness bill.

The other recent ones are -- in much of the west, and in a couple of areas in the Appalachians. But what's really protected? A few more areas of 'island wilderness' but little else. Areas that would have been protected by their very nature and lack of commercial worth. Several hundred thousand acres total. No real gutsy bills. Nothing like, say, NREPA. What was given away? Much land that could have provided connecting corridors. Much land that would have great value if given protection. And in most cases, areas that were previously included in wilderness study areas will be removed from consideration. For good. They will be up for grabs. Are these more cases of local citizen/industry councils, so-called 'partnerships', that are determining what, if anything, will be sent to Congress? I don't know. Probably.

The sudden spate of bills that have been recently signed, and that are still upcoming, strike me as fancy wrapping to cover what could amount to a massive giveaway of public land. Congress and the President can say that they have passed more wilderness bills than any administration and Congress in recent decades, but remove the lion's share of potential wilderness from future consideration and leave it open to private industry. That's my suspicion anyway. Any thoughts? If anyone has any info on what's happening behind the scenes with these bills, please, by all means, pass it along.