A Well Known Environmentalist Puppet

One of the problems with the Federal system of government is that Congressmen who have never been to an area can feel qualified to make policy, or force policy to be made about that area when the residents disagree.

That very complaint came up again this week when 93 members of Congress sent a letter to BLM trying to have 3 million acres of land put off limits to off road vehicles.

The letter comes at a pivotal time for eastern Utah public lands because the BLM in Moab is now taking public comment on a plan that would confine off-roaders to designated routes on public land just over the state line from Mesa County.

When the Moab BLM held a public meeting about its proposed management plan in Grand Junction last month, more than 100 people showed up, many to express their concerns about the potential for having their favorite places for unrestrained riding rendered inaccessible to motorized vehicles...

John Martin of the Western Slope ATV Association blasted the Congress members’ letter.

“Less than four of those people have ever been to Utah,” he said. “Three of them from Colorado [ Democrats Mark Udall, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter ] are very well-known puppets of the environmental community, and we’re certainly not surprised by that kind of silliness by people who have never been out here.”

We find it interesting that John Salazar, whom we consider more of a "puppet" (if that is the right word) than Perlmutter, didn't sign the letter. Do you suppose he thought it might cost him votes? At this point in his Senatorial campaign, Mark Udall is far more interested in collecting out of state environmentalist money than he is fearful of losing ATV owner's votes.

Topic of the Day: Forest Fires-Part 1

Last night, 60 minutes had a story about the rise in intensity of forest fires in the US in the last decade. Missing from the story was any mention of the part that the Sierra Club and other organizations that claim to be interested in the environment have played in this disaster.

No mention was made of any of those organization's efforts to convert as many acres of forest as possible to roadless wilderness where fire fighting and insect mitigation are difficult to impossible.

No mention was made of the part politicians like Mark Udall have played in an effort to ensure that the forest service can not easily approve thinning even in areas that can be managed. His support, along with Diana DeGette, and John Salazar of roadless wilderness areas that can't be managed in any way wasn't mentioned, either.

In short, unlike most stories where 60 minutes is quick to assign blame, these forest fires are a natural phenomena that can be blamed on "global warming." The environmentalist extremists are blameless.

The largest fire this year was 600,000 acres. That is 1000 square miles. Another this year was 500,000 acres. Fires of 200,000 acres, once rare, are now commonplace.

If "global warming" is causing these fires and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are causing global warming, one wonders why 60 minutes couldn't make the connection between the megatons of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by these fires and the environmentalist extremist communities' refusal to allow reasonable forest management.

60 minutes did report one fact that was new to this author: Half of the area burned was so badly damaged that it won't be reforested in the foreseeable future. That will have a serious impact on water supplies.

Nice Job, Mark! Keep those campaign checks coming from the Sierra Club and its allies.

Just too Polite to Mention Udall?

The Pueblo Chieftain skewered Diana DeGette yesterday on her new Wilderness bill, but they could as easily have been writing about her close ally, Mark Udall. Udall shares with DeGette a willingness to be co-opted by the environmentalist extremists:

What we are seeing here is an ultra-liberal congresswoman being co-opted by the professional environmentalist lobbies that want to lock up vast stretches of public lands in the West.

The Costs of Roadless Wilderness

The Colorado Index is suggesting that Boulder Liberal Mark Udall is creating the potential for ever larger forest fires by closing the roads. The author observes that closing the roads makes it difficult or impossible to thin forests and notes that the Lake Tahoe residents who were burned out are complaining about the Sierra Club's interference in the thinning process.

Closing the roads also might cause the deaths of fire fighters and a huge infestation of beetles with the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of acres of forest.

The essays are here, here, here, and here.

Mark Udall Caters to Green Extremists

In a stinging editorial last Sunday, Udall takes wrong fork in the road, the Colorado Springs Gazette called Mark Udall to task for trying to close roads on Federal property to the public:

Today, public lands exclusionists are trying to close or restrict use of these roads as a way of curtailing access to federal lands. “Roadless” advocates are waging war on the miners, ranchers, loggers, and oil and gas developers who also make use of these roads, as well as Americans who recreate on motorized vehicles...

This suggests Udall cares little about the rights of rural Westerners to use byways their great-grandfathers used before Washington “owned” everything, and that he will cater to green extremists and the anti-access elitists if he ever becomes senator. Coloradans wanting to keep their roads and lands open and accessible should keep that in mind.

If you follow the link to read the whole editorial, you should know that the Gazette has a quirk with their editorials. They publish on two subjects but with one link. This is the second editorial, so scroll down to see it.

If you want to see what the green extremists are saying, and who is saying it, follow this pdf link.