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No one should be surprised at this administration's mendacious tactics for erasing rules against the overgrazing of the American West Given a president who shows no scruples about “fixing” facts to support the invasion of Iraq, and who cheerfully admits to pre-selected audiences that “catapulting propaganda” is his stock in trade, no one should be surprised at his administration’s mendacious tactics for erasing rules against the overgrazing of the American West. But we should be outraged - and we should be funneling those sentiments Washington-ward through the president’s partisans representing our state in Congress. Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that the administration took a scientific analysis of environmental impacts of cattle grazing on public lands and changed the parts it didn’t like. Then, brandishing truth it had smeared into lies, the Bush Bureau of Land Management introduced rules relaxing limits to running cattle on 160 million acres of federal land in 11 Western states. The rules are far different from those adopted 10 years ago during the Clinton administration. Those regulations respected the findings of range scientists that decades of poor land stewardship had degraded dwindling water resources, damaged many native plant groups and further imperiled wildlife. Despite policies aimed at restoration of land and streambeds, progress across the vastness of the West is gradual at best. As originally written by BLM scientists two years ago, the latest analysis warned that the new rules would have a “significant adverse impact” on wildlife. Out with that phrase, commanded the new regime - and in with one concluding that the new rules, written by the corporate-ranching lobby, will be “beneficial to animals.” You know, the kind that say “ba-aah” and “moo” and muck about in streambeds when they’re not monopolizing what little grass tends to grow on BLM land. Unreasonable rules, the kind onerous to the small ranchers whose animals leave little footprint, should be reconsidered. But any such reconsideration should include scientific research. This process was a political one, flying in the face of facts. It’s a whitewash, says the guy in charge of research for the report; “they took all our science and reversed it 180 degrees.” He further characterized what happened as “a crime.” But since he retired a few months before the administration issued his tricked-out document, there isn’t much more he can do. But at least he’s spoken up. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, our state’s main Republican on Capitol Hill, should find such low tactics highly offensive. When they’re exposed as this stunt was, it undermines his long-standing support of public-lands use by private individuals and companies - for ranching, for mining, for timbering or anything else. Domenici, Republican Reps. Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, as well as our state’s two Democrats, Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Tom Udall, should join a congressional effort to apply budgetary pressures to BLM boss Kathleen Clarke; to her boss, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, and to her boss, President Bush. Call off the new rules, our senators and representatives should demand - and desist from faking facts to justify depredations of our public lands. Copyright 2005 The New Mexican - Reprinted with permission |
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