Amendment to Bill Allows Gulf Drilling (area w/ highest protection level)

[DeepModem Mom]

Los Angeles Times:
Amendment to Bill Allows Gulf Drilling
By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer


GULFPORT, Miss. — Tucked away in the 96-page emergency military spending bill signed by President Bush this month are four paragraphs that give energy companies the right to explore for oil and gas inside a sprawling national park.

The amendment written by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) codifies Mississippi's claim to mineral rights under federal lands and allows drilling for natural gas under the Gulf Islands National Seashore — a thin necklace of barrier islands that drapes the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.

As a preliminary step to drilling, the rider permits seismic testing, which involves detonating sound-wave explosions to locate oil and gas deposits in the park. Two of the five Mississippi islands are wilderness areas, and the environs are home to federally protected fish and birds, a large array of sea turtles and the gulf's largest concentration of bottlenose dolphins.

The legislation marks the first time the federal government has sanctioned seismic exploration on national park property designated as wilderness — which carries with it the highest level of protection.

Energy exploration has been allowed on rare occasions in other parts of national parks over the last decade. Since taking office, the Bush administration has been pushing aggressively for oil and gas drilling in traditionally protected areas. Moreover, administration officials have been whittling away at a long-standing policy aimed at sheltering parks from the ill effects of oil and gas exploration initiated outside park borders....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gulf31may31,0,3792210.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[merwin]

1. Tell me how that is emergency defense spending?

[depakid]

2. Riders are possibly the most pernicious devices

in America's so called representational democracy.

[Robert Oak]

3. no kidding

They should make it illegal period.

How much BS has been passed that should not be in this manner?

in that sausage they could certainly pull out a lot of rat turds
by changing the rules of bills.

[ixion]

4. yep, the fascists used the same cheap ploy for the bogus 'Real-ID'

I would be fine with unrelated riders like that being banned from spending bills. :grr:

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. my god

How do we stop them?

[DeepModem Mom]

6. See this I just posted re. the Forest Service --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1512023

You're right -- how in the name of God do we stop these people?

[DemoTex]

7. Gulf Coast red-fish get the old one-two punch ..

Punch #1: Chef Paul Prudhomme's "Blackened red-fish" recipe made the red-fish (aka red drum and channel bass) a prime target of commercial fishing in the 80s. The red-fish population dwindled to alarmingly low levels, especially along the Gulf Islands National Seashore, as per pound price for the red-fish soared.

Between the punches: Back then, there was some shreds of environmental responsibility left. Conservation laws (with respect to fishing limits) were enacted and the red-fish population again flourished.

Punch #2: Thad Cochran and Bu$hco are so beholden to the oil industry that they will offer up the red-fish (and other species of flora and fauna), again, to the possible fate of total annihilation for more Drilling-for-Dollar$ (under the thin guise of what? National security?).

These rapacious bastards are sick, sick, sick. They must be stopped.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Demo Tex...

about this example of the consequences of these dangerous and deplorable policies.

[Zorra]

9. I hope everyone realizes that republicans really are going to kill off all

life on this planet in the relatively near future.