Bush's Dark Pages in Conservation History By Stewart L. Udall

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-udall26jul26.story

Bush's Dark Pages in Conservation History
By Stewart L. Udall

Stewart L. Udall has written, edited or contributed to dozens of books, most recently "The Forgotten Founders: Rethinking the History of the Old West" (Shearwater Books, 2002).

July 26, 2004

SANTA FE, N.M. — A crucial struggle over land stewardship is taking place south of my home on the Greater Otero Mesa, a 1.2-million-acre stretch of grassland that looks pretty much the way it did when Coronado explored the region almost 500 years ago. As much as half of Otero Mesa still qualifies for protection under the landmark 1964 Wilderness Act, which was enacted when I headed the Interior Department under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. This law prevents industrial development on designated federal land "retaining its primeval character and influence."

But the Bush administration, determined to ransack public lands for the last meager pockets of petroleum, has turned my old department into a servile, single-minded adjunct of the Energy Department. It is intent on opening Otero Mesa and other wild lands to oil and gas exploration under the guise of reducing our ever-growing dependency on imported oil.

Here in New Mexico, where citizens cherish sublime landscapes, the administration's attack on the mesa is a heated issue. Gov. Bill Richardson has been joined by lawmakers, environmental groups and thousands of citizens in opposing drilling on Otero.

This crusade is part of a wave of public resentment across the West over the dark chapter that President Bush and his aides are writing in the history of the American conservation movement. From California to Colorado, Montana to Arizona, drill rigs pockmark the West's wild places, licensed by a White House that views opening of the nation's last untrammeled country to private development as a prime economic priority.

For the last 50 years as a congressman, as Interior secretary, as a citizen activist and a historian, I have been involved in the conservation cause. Until the last few years Americans have taken pride in the fact that our country has set the standard for innovative ideas about resource stewardship, and has seen them emulated throughout the world.<snip>

[Old and In the Way]

1. Nothing conservative nor liberal about Bush.

Criminal is this administration's political orientation.