"I never thought I would see the Republican Party doing this kind of stuff."
That's a quote from AFFTA President Jim Klug regarding the the current assault on the environment by the Republican controlled House of Representative.
Everything Klug says regarding the threat to the environment and it's impact on the fly business is spot on, and he should be congratulated for making such a public statement. However, it's not exactly news that Republicans are suddenly trying to gut environmental regulations, they've been at it for the last 30+ years.
Remember James Watt? He was Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan.
Watt decreased funding for environmental programs, restructured the department to decrease federal regulatory power, tried to eliminate the Land and Water Conservation Fund, eased regulations of oil and mining companies, and directed the National Park Service to draft legislation that would have de-authorized a number of previously Congressionally authorized National Parks. Watt resisted accepting donations of private land to be used for conservation purposes and proposed that all 80 million acres of undeveloped land in the United States be opened for drilling and mining in the year 2000. The area leased to coal mining companies quintupled during Watt's term as Secretary of the Interior. Watt was eventually fired for making bigoted remarks.
How about Reagan's Director of the EPA Anne Gorsuch Burford? She was indicted for having tried to gut the agency. As agency head, she cut the budget of the EPA by 22%, reduced the number of cases filed against polluters, relaxed Clean Air Act regulations, and facilitated the spraying of restricted-use pesticides. She cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating. Gorsuch resigned in the midst of a Congressional investigation.
Gale Norton? She was the Secretary of the Interior under George W. Bush and a former staffer for James Watt. At the time of her resignation, Norton was considered "the Bush administration's leading advocate for expanding oil and gas drilling and other industrial interests in the West. After her resignation, driven by an inspector general ethics probe, Norton joined Royal Dutch Shell Oil company as a legal adviser in their oil-shale division.
Norton's replacement Dick Kempthorne held the record for protecting fewer species over his tenure than any other Interior Secretary in United States history, a record previously held by....... James Watt.
Dick Cheney? Where do you start? In addition to his influence on loosening regulations on polluters, he was personally responsible for cutting off water on the Klamath in favor of irrigators resulting in tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.
Bottom line is the politics do matter. Of the 110 anti-environment votes in the current congress, 97 percent of Republicans voted for the anti-environment position, 84 percent of Democrats voted for the pro-environment position. We can lobby the current congress all day long to vote for a healthier environment but ultimately the real change will have to come from the voting booth.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 12:00AM 
