Bush changing Regs under Clean Water Act - irreparable harm to wetlands

[papau]

Elizabeth Shogren of the Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-water6nov06000436,1,6605475.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

"If implemented, the change would represent one of the most consequential of the actions the Bush administration has taken to ease environmental regulations.".. streams and wetlands would be open to development. ….Clean Water Act protection would no longer be provided to "ephemeral washes or streams" that do not have groundwater as a source. Streams that flow for less than six months a year would also lose protection, as would many wetlands, according to the document.State and federal officials have estimated that up to 20 million acres of wetlands, 20% of the wetlands outside of Alaska, could lose protection under a new rule like the one in the draft. The effect would be greater in California and other parts of the arid West, where many streams flow only seasonally or after rain or snow melts.” (it goes well beyond the) 2001 Supreme Court ruling that limited federal jurisdiction over isolated, non-navigable, intrastate waters and wetlands. waters of the United States was prepared by officials at the Army Corps of Engineers …..Dr. Alan Wentz, Ducks Unlimited's senior group manager for conservation. "It represents a radical change of direction from 30 years of Clean Water Act implementation and judicial interpretation, and if this becomes the corps' interpretation of the law, it will create irreparable harm to those wetlands of greatest value to waterfowl, such as the prairie potholes of the northern Great Plains."

[papau]

1. Democrats.com has environ newsletter from League of Conservation Voters

Dear Democrats.com Subscriber,

Bush Administration polices are making our air and water dirtier, and they know the American people don't like it. So they're planning to use millions in TV ads to fool the public about their true environmental record.

They're also using deceptively named initiatives like "Healthy Forests" and "Clear Skies" to mask the real impact of Bush's anti-environment initiatives. It's all an attempt to get away with promoting corporate interests over the public health.

We are facing an urgent environmental crisis! If we want to protect thirty years worth of environmental protections, we need to support environmental groups that will work aggressively to elect a pro-environment president and Congress and hold all our elected officials accountable.

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the political voice of the national environmental movement and the only organization devoted full-time to shaping a pro-environment Congress and White House.

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Bob Fertik
Democrats.com


******************** Sample Insider ***************************
From: Weekly Insider
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 5:54 PM
Subject: 3-week spin cycle, Ethics in the Interior, Leavitt to Browner

LCV Weekly Insider -- August 20, 2003


THREE-WEEK SPIN CYCLE

Clearly Cutting

In the middle of his three-week tour to spin nearly three years of mishandling the nation's environmental policy, President Bush tried to polish his tarnished environmental record by playing the outdoorsman in the West. In the charred Coronado National Forest in Arizona, the President touted his forest clearing plan called "Healthy Forests" which cuts back on environmental reviews and public oversight, making it easier for timber interests to access public lands in the name of forest fire protection. Attempting to greenwash this policy, the President claimed in his weekly radio address "...litigation often delays projects, while some 190 million acres of forest remain at high risk of dangerous fires..."

However, a General Accounting Office report states that 95 percent of the cases they analyzed were ready for implementation within the standard review process. The GAO report also showed that less than one percent of timber projects designed to reduce the risk of fire were appealed by conservationists -- and none of these appeals made it to court. Betsy Loyless, LCV's policy guru, had this to say: "Bush's forest policy is one more example of this Administration placing special interests above the public interest."

Park Parlance

Against the backdrop of the Santa Monica Mountains in California, the President reiterated that the national parks are a priority to his Administration and reaffirmed his pledge to provide $5 billion in funding for a backlog of desperately needed parks maintenance projects. He pointed out that, so far, he has provided $2.9 billion to reduce the backlog.

However, it seems that the President's accounting is nothing more than Enron-like fuzzy math and spin doctoring. The nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association recently analyzed the President's numbers and found that they fall well short of real help for the national parks. According to NPCA (who recently gave the President a grade of D- for his commitment to national parks), the President has only provided $370 million in new funding to address the maintenance backlog. According to NPCA President Tom Kiernan, the President's California visit amounts to "little more than a photo opportunity, offering spin over substance, instead of real progress for our national parks."

And the spin cycle is not over yet. This week the President travels to Oregon and Washington to continue painting his brown record green -- not to mention rake in the green at several campaign fundraisers. In the meantime, head on over to our Web site to get the real story.

See how President Bush earned an F on LCV's 2003 Presidential Report Card:
http://www.lcv.org/alerts/AlertsMain.cfm?AlertID=22

Read more in our Newsroom:
http://www.lcv.org/News/News.cfm?ID=1763&c=27


ETHICS IN THE INTERIOR

The Department of Interior has a lot of officials in high places with ties to mining, grazing, and other environmentally harmful industries. With these backgrounds, you would think it would be hard for them to dodge conflicts of interest in dealing with key issues concerning the nation's public lands -- and you'd be right.

Last week, the agency's inspector general opened its third investigation into a top Interior official. The focus of the latest probe is chief legal advisor William Myers, a former official for the National Cattleman's Beef Association, the former head of the Public Lands Council (a group of farmers that use public land for grazing), a one-time lawyer for grazing interests, and currently a Bush Administration nominee for a circuit court judgeship for the Western states.

Myers allegedly broke a 2001 pledge to recuse himself from issues having to do with former clients for one year. Environmental groups contend that Myers' own calendars show that he met with cattle representatives and attended several internal meetings on grazing issues during the pledge period. Coincidentally, the Department of Interior has proposals on the table to ease grazing limitations on public lands that include provisions that Myers fought for in his previous career. "

With Mr. Myers running the Solicitor's Office, not only is the fox guarding the henhouse, the fox is also in charge of counting the eggs," said Dan Meyer, general counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the groups that pushed for the investigation.

Other top "foxes" currently under ethics investigations at the Department of Interior include, Deputy Secretary Steven Griles, a former oil industry lobbyist, and Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke, a former director of Natural Resources for the state of Utah. Among other things, Griles allegedly met with former clients about oil and gas leases off the coasts of Florida and California. Clarke allegedly violated her recusal promise by participating in a land deal with the state of Utah, which would have benefited state business interests.

Read more in our Newsroom:
http://www.lcv.org/News/News.cfm?ID=1764&c=27


LEAVITT TO BROWNER

Utah Governor and EPA Administrator nominee Mike Leavitt placed a call last week to Carol Browner to see if he could use her as a reference. Browner, head of the agency under President Clinton, said that she would, but she wouldn't hold back on his down sides. Among the positives, Browner pointed to how well they worked together during her tenure, and that "he's a really nice guy."

But she also pointed out that she doesn't support his view on cost-benefit analyses and shifting more power to the states on environmental enforcement. Cost-benefit analyses often overestimate the costs to industry while understating the benefits to the environment, according to Browner. And, she adds, shifting the burden of regulation to the states results in lower and often uneven environmental standards.

Leavitt is hard pressed to find support among environmental organizations as well. Most see him as a capable spin-doctor who will fit in well with the anti-environment, pro-industry Bush Administration, pointing to his controversial backroom land deal with the Department of Interior that removed wilderness protections from millions of acres in Utah's red rock desert and his plan to build a highway through sensitive wetlands in his state.

In the end, if Leavitt gets confirmed by the Senate, expect no big changes in the Bush Administration's ever worsening environmental policy -- the only way to enact real change is for the American public to "confirm" a new President in 2004.

******************** End Sample Insider ***************************

[blindpig]

2. why are the dems not hammering on this?

if 80+% of americans identify themselves as environmentalist, as my LCV newsletter assures me, it would seem to be a slamdunk.
i mean, we've got so much shit on those evil bastards that it seems a no brainer, but sometimes, in the wee hours, the Fear of four more years overwhelms and returns me to my least charitable estimation of humanity