11/11/14

Public lands at risk to earth haters


Wind Cave National Park is holding a series of meetings after results of midterm elections could put public ground on the block. Above photo was shot there. Seeing the nearly incomprehensible Interstellar was at least entertaining even as it doomed our planet at risk to the Republican Party.
Similar to former President Bill Clinton before him, President Barack Obama now faces a Republican-controlled Congress, one that will almost certainly be implacably hostile toward progressive governance and determined to put a conservative stamp on the statute books. Measures such as these pose a grave threat to the nation’s parks, forests, and other public lands. Moreover, they fly in the face of a broad national consensus that public lands should be managed for conservation and the enjoyment of the American people, not for short-term economic gain. To protect those values, President Obama needs to ready his veto pen and prepare to show the new Congress that he is willing and able to stand and fight for the nation’s public lands. [Tom Kenworthy, Center for American Progress]
The Republican Party uses the image of crushing national debt burdening our children and grandchildren as some bizarre inverse Marion 5960-M Power Shovel while simultaneously ensuring the planet will be uninhabitable for them.




More than 80 laws govern the Forest Service’s land management, but the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Forest Management Act (NFMA) are most often cited as the basis for litigation, according to a 2014 study published in the journal of the Society of American Foresters. The Farm Bill categorically excludes certain timber projects in forests heavily impacted by insects and disease from full analysis under NEPA, and includes other regulations that require fewer alternatives to speed up forestry work. [Tom Kuglin, Law of the land: How litigation has shaped the Forest Service]
A post at A New Century of Forest Planning scared the spit out of me because it signaled how at risk public lands are to the newly emboldened earth haters in Congress.

The post links to some GOP blog frightened by the a proposal by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to extend endangered species protection for the northern long-eared bat in the Black Hills.

ThinkProgress is concerned as this blog is that federal properties could go to red states:
In the run-up to Tuesday’s elections, each week seemed to bring a new Republican candidate for federal and state office advocating for America’s national forests, wildlife areas and other public lands to be seized by the states or auctioned off to the highest bidder. Even the Republican National Committee (RNC) passed a resolution endorsing these extreme proposals earlier this year. With the debate escalating over whether public lands should be seized or sold, candidates who dodged the issue but won on Tuesday will likely soon have to say whether they are with the party of Teddy Roosevelt or Cliven Bundy. [Claire Moser, Election Divides GOP On Whether To Seize And Sell America’s Public Lands]
President Obama, it's time to rewild the West: tear out the main stem dams, extend the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge to Oacoma, South Dakota along the Missouri River and to Yellowstone then to the Yukon.

Sir, please move the US Forest Service and its associated lands into the Park Service under tribal management and protect public properties from the destructive forces that just bought the recent midterm election.

It’s time for cougars to enjoy Endangered Species protection and for you, Mr. President, to dissolve the Black Hills National Forest; and, in cooperation with BIA Forestry and Wildfire Management and the US Park Service, rename it Okawita Paha National Monument then make it part of the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
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