Water Wars and Courage

Mike Saccone has an excellent article in the Grand Junction Sentinel on water as a potential issue in the November contest between Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer. It essentially says that old news is...old news.

It does, however, reinforce a theme that we have often repeated here. Mark Udall is a coward when the interests of his favorite special interest, the environmentalist lobby, conflict with the interests of Coloradoans:

[ Josh ] Penry said an examination of [ Mark ] Udall’s voting record shows he also has made some bad decisions on water.

During a July 2000 vote on the House Resources Committee, [ Mark ] Udall voted “present” on a more than $343 million water storage project that drew from the Animas and La Plata rivers.

Penry, who worked for the bill’s sponsor, Congressman Scott McInnis, R-Colo., said everyone was stunned upon hearing Udall’s vote.

“Mark Udall didn’t vote yes, he didn’t vote no,” Penry said. “He voted present.”

Penry said that vote shows that Udall’s priorities on water storage are much closer to groups opposing all water storage than those of widely revered Congressman Wayne Aspinall, D-Colo.

We say that it was just another example of a lack of courage by Mark Udall. Does it remind anyone of Mark Udall's refusal to buck the environmentalists to authorize the needed forest roads to create fire breaks in our dead and dying pine forests, even when that refusal has already cost lives and will cost more?

Can anyone say "Mark Udall, (D-Sierra Club)?