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)?

Roadless "Backsliding"

Recall that yesterday we commented that Taylor West gave Politicker a laundry list of the reasons that Mark Udall just couldn't be concerned about left wing attacks on military recruiters in Berkeley and Times Square:

"Mark Udall believes Congress has much more important work to do – on everything from the lagging economy, to skyrocketing oil prices, to getting our kids covered with health care, to ending the war in Iraq in a responsible way – than micromanaging the budgets of cities for the sake of political gamesmanship," [ Taylor ] West said in the statement.

What is the biggest potential problem facing Colorado, and is it on this list? How about 1.5 million acres of dead and dying trees? If those trees catch fire, mountain homes and towns could burn, the watershed would be badly damaged, if not destroyed, tourism would die, and hunting and fishing ruined for our lifetime.

Why is that problem not on the list? Did Taylor West just forget, or is her boss, Mark Udall, telling her to ignore it? To fix the problem, to the degree that it can be fixed would require building forest roads to allow fire breaks to be built.

They are apparently doing that in Idaho but the environmentalists are none too happy:

“Back off. Just drop the whole mess,” says Craig Gehrke, regional director of The Wilderness Society in Idaho. “Just stick with the 2001 rule. This whole fight for roadless areas is needless.”

Idaho’s petition cuts out about 500,000 roadless acres, but the state promised to keep protections in place for the remainder of 9 million acres. [ Craig ] Gehrke worries wildfire provisions weaken the proposal, though, by giving the state more “wiggle room” to blaze roads.

“They’re backsliding on it,” he says.

Idaho is trying to do the smart thing, but the environmentalists on Bill Ritter's staff are trying to keep Colorado roadless and vulnerable:

A similar battle is taking place in Colorado. Environmentalists are pressing [ Bill ] Ritter, who has spoken in favor of roadless protections, to stick with the federal rule...

Colorado’s former Gov. Bill Owens, R, submitted a roadless plan that was praised for protecting most areas. Environmentalists blasted his successor, Bill Ritter, D, though, accusing him of weakening roadless protections when he decided to largely stick with that plan...

And, where is Mark Udall on this issue. He opposes roads, and collects hefty donations from roadless advocates. Care to guess why Taylor West left this Colorado centic issue off of the list of important things that Congress had to do?

Green Frauds

When it really comes down to it, Mark Udall's sole claim to fame and thus his sole claim to the US Senate Seat is that he is an environmentalist. Some, including this author would call him an environmentalist extremist, and the whole movement a fraud.

Yes, the movement has lofty goals. It just lacks common sense.

During the Vietnam war, an army major was quoted as saying "In order to save this village we had to burn it." That quote was instrumental in undermining support for that war, as it should have been.

The modern Mark Udall equivalent would be "In order to save the forests from logging, we had to let the beetles and wildfires destroy it." Unsurprisingly, the msm has been slow to see the comparison, the fraud, the absolute attack on the public interest.

Someone read about our quest to discover the true costs of wind and solar power and forwarded us the information that they had, including a link to a very interesting Business Week article titled "Little Green Lies."

Does anyone recall their middle ages history when the Catholic Church was selling "indulgences?" Some green entrepreneurs are now selling indulgences to corporations like the Aspen Skiing Company. They call them "carbon offsets." The article makes it quite plain that these indulgences just transfer money from one company to another with absolutely no impact on the environment.

It has a link to another Business Week article "Another Inconvenient Truth."

Done carefully, offsets can have a positive effect and raise ecological awareness. But a close look at several transactions—including those involving the Oscar presenters, Vail Resorts, and the Seattle power company—reveals that some deals amount to little more than feel-good hype. When traced to their source, these dubious offsets often encourage climate protection that would have happened regardless of the buying and selling of paper certificates. One danger of largely symbolic deals is that they may divert attention and resources from more expensive and effective measures.

And, of course, that links to still another Business Week article "Ethanol: Too Much Hype and Corn."

The Mark Udall's of the world would do well to take a good hard look in the mirror before deciding that they know best about the environment. Almost all of what they are proposing and pushing is backfiring and backfiring badly.

A Campaign Quote Raises Questions

Mark Udall was quoted in the Cherry Creek News:

Speaking about the coming campaign and the issues to define it, Udall said “the outlines are clear- Iraq, the economy, immigration.” Udall said that undocumented immigrants must “travel the path to citizenship— pay a fine (for being in the U.S. illegally), speak English, have committed no crimes.” “We must address... the health care system where families are one illness away from bankruptcy.”

Udall, a westerner, said that Colorado issues would play a key role in the Senate race: water, transportation and creating more transit options. He also emphasized that Colorado’s position for renewable energy and the jobs it could create was strong, given our resources and the presence of the National Renewable Energy lab in Golden.

Someday we must remember to ask if Mark Udall considers it acceptable for (as he says) an undocumented immigrant to gain his citizenship if he went through Bill Ritter's agricultural trespass plea bargain mill.

Note that Mark Udall is not all that interested in talking about his part in the bark beetle crisis, his refusal to allow either clear cutting of fire breaks to reduce the size of a probable forest fire or the harvesting of dying trees by lumber companies.

We wonder if Mark Udall will be willing to talk about his part in his staff's railroading of Caroline Bninski into a one year jail term.

Is Mark Udall proud to be associated with Daily Kos to the point that they were setting up his own personal blog on that site?

So many questions and so few answers. Oh, and our favorite, the Department of Peace?

Skewing the Scoreboard

Our friend at Liberal and Loving It decided to try play games with our scoreboard today. His attempt elicited a belly laugh:

Ok, the schaffer v udall blog is tracking the number of times Mark Udall has been called conservative (presently 0). So here you go - Mark Udall is a very conservative congressman. I base this on his tireless work to conserve the environment and his extensive opposition to change (in our climate).

We make the rules, and we try to keep them rational. Just as we won't count a conservative blog calling Mark Udall a liberal, we won't count a liberal blog trying to claim that he is a conservative or even a moderate.

If you folks want to rack up some "conservative" or even "moderate" hits on the Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard, go find a conservative blog to call him conservative. And no, we won't count a faux conservative blog that lacks history.

As for the claim that Udall is a conservative because he claims to be a conservationalist, we think that Mark Udall's biggest vulnerability is his environmental record. Coloradoans who go to the polls this fall need only, as Mark Udall himself said, "picture dead forests in their mind's eye." If there is a big fire and if people die in it, Udall and John Salazar will and should bear a good deal of the blame.

As for opposition to climate change, the environmentalists never seem to be willing to count burned forests as contributing to the atmospheric carbon dioxide load. The left's carbon footprint is enormous, but they pretend it doesn't exist. We had three forest fires in excess of 500,000 acres each last year. Udall's answer as of today: Lets do a study, but lets not build forest roads or clear cut fire breaks.

You folks on the left have painted yourself into a corner and it is going to take one heck of a long time for the paint to dry. The sad thing is that you don't appear smart enough to realize it.

Still Dragging His Feet - And Lying About It

We've called Mark Udall a liar before. He doesn't just tell little lies. He tells big lies on the Hitler theory that if you make the lie big enough and repeat it often enough, people will believe it.

Today, in the Rocky Mountain News, he was quoted as saying:

"I have been sounding the alarm on the beetle and wildfire risk problem for our forests since my first year in Congress," Udall said Wednesday evening.

Mark Udall has been a Sierra Club toady since his first year in congress. The Sierra Club's position on wild fire risk was to oppose thinning until the Hayman fire in Colorado.

By pure chance, the Hayman burn area included a small experimental area where thinning had occurred. The fire didn't burn hot enough to kill the trees in that area while the other, unthinned areas burned so hot that the soil was fused and even the roots were consumed.

That demonstrated that the Sierra Club had been wrong to oppose thinning, so they modified their position slightly. Instead of coming out against thinning, they went to court to oppose the road building that would have made thinning possible.

Mark Udall has aided the Sierra Club with their mindless roadless policy. Last year, he was the author of roadless legislation.

Even the bills he just introduced do not propose thinning. They propose studying thinning.

What is needed now is clear cut fire breaks and the forest roads that would permit the dead wood to be hauled out. Without fire breaks, the dead forest will burn until it runs into natural fire breaks, and it will burn hot. Mark Udall isn't ready to propose that, nor is he willing to propose a total relaxation of timbering restrictions in areas that will die anyway.

The sad thing is that Mark Udall and his partner in this crime against Colorado, John Salazar won't even fight hard to see this legislation pass. To do so would risk the funding flow from Sierra Club members in California who don't have to look at the dead trees or fear running for their lives in a fire.

Mark Udall's campaign motto should be "Burn Colorado, Burn."

And the big blue lie machine churns on.

Cleaning Up The Forests

Mark Udall is opposed to cleaning up the forests. It would require building forest roads. Heaven forbid!

Today, the Rocky Mountain News made a proposal to remove dead timber that will never be allowed to happen, and it admits as much:

But these productive solutions are possible on a large scale only if federal and state lawmakers act quickly to provide the economic assistance and regulatory relief needed to develop viable commercial applications of significant scope.

As unpopular as it may be with some groups, [ and politicians like Mark Udall, John Salazar, Bill Ritter, and Ken Salazar ] relaxing certain zoning and environmental restrictions is as critical as finding funds for new machinery or other start-up costs. Removing barriers to quick production is essential because of the natural timetable at work in Colorado's forests.

The Rocky didn't go far enough. Forest access roads must be built and maintained. Clear cuts must be established as fire breaks. Environmentalist terrorists like Mark Udall and his Sierra Club must be put on notice that their foot dragging won't be tolerated. Does anyone have the courage to do that? Not likely, unless it is the voters.

Where is Udall's Thumb?

It seems that Bill Ritter may be trying to create policy that allows some road building in Colorado forests, something that Mark Udall reflexively opposes.

The Denver Post has an very informative and balanced article on the issue. The comments are equally informative.

The First Rule of Politics

Mark Udall demonstrated that he fully understands the first rule of politics: If you are going to lie, make it a whopper.

"We are in the midst of a very dramatic beetle-kill cycle in our lodgepole forests," he said.

Mother nature holds the upper hand, he said, but we must do everything we can to mitigate the impacts. Udall said several years ago he encouraged the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider disaster mitigation for communities like Winter Park that are facing lots of beetle-kill.

He said, "FEMA's response was not much better for us than New Orleans."

Mark Udall is only this year sponsoring a bill to reverse the laws he helped put in place to restrict thinning, and then only within a mile of these communities. Neither FEMA nor the Forest Service can overcome the laws that the environmentalist extremists put in place to restrict thinning, and to claim that their "response was not much better...than New Orleans" ignores that fact in an act of pure hypocrisy.

The story got buried quickly, but last month the Lake Tahoe fire victims were publicly blaming the Sierra Club for going to court to slow the thinning and road building that would have saved their homes.

Just this year, Udall put up an amendment that would have closed roads on Federal lands to the public.

Mark Udall is acting like a little kid who has spent his lifetime strewing nails on the street leading to his home and now angrily blames the fire department for not responding quickly enough when he set his own house afire.

Udall Throws $22 Million at his Problem

Mark Udall may have come to realize that his bear hug with the environmentalists can be blamed for the destruction of millions of acres of forests by fire and beetle.

Now, he has sponsored a bill to get the Congress to appropriate $22 million so that the forest service can "help communities cope with wildfire threats, create wildfire response plans and provide grants for beetle-killed trees to be used for energy production. "

The entire Colorado delegation is behind the bill, and that is good news. The bad news is that Udall's bedfellows in the environmentalist left oppose it.

Sloan Shoemaker, director of the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, said it’s good to see the congressional delegation working together to address bark beetle concerns. But “the bill’s a mixed bag” because he fears it will streamline the public involvement process under the National Environmental Policy Act.

“It feels like they’re monkeying with bedrock environmental legislation in order to sort of apply the wrong solution to the problem,” he said.

The environmentalist left wants the right to go into court in Colorado to slow the thinning process. They think thinning is the "wrong solution," and that the only right solution is to let the forests burn.

A Wayne Allard spokesman thought the bill would pass if a national environmentalist group didn't oppose it. So much for that.

While we applaud this bill, we wonder if Mark Udall's purpose is to use it to insulate him from his own record of environmental extremism. $22 million doesn't go far, given the magnitude of the problem. Consider that it costs $600 an acre to reseed a burned forest. What must it cost per acre to remove the undergrowth and excess trees? Common sense suggests several thousand dollars per acre. If we assumed that it cost only two thousand dollars per acre, $22 million would thin only 11 thousand acres, or 17 square miles (an area a little bigger than 4 miles by 4 miles).

Unfortunately, Udall's inclusion of bio fuels grants in the bill suggests that he is unserious about solving the problem. Allowing the forest service to keep forest roads open to the public might do more good than this bill, and yet Udall opposes that.