LAT: GOP misses chance to reshape environmental laws: "Testament to changing, greening West"

[DeepModem Mom]

GOP misses chance to reshape environmental laws
By Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writer
December 15, 2006

If ever there was a Congress in which Republicans were positioned to remake the nation's environmental laws, it was the 109th. But by the time the session ended last week, the GOP's environmental agenda had been largely thwarted.

Whether it was rewriting the Endangered Species Act, opening up most of the nation's coastline to oil and gas drilling, or selling off public lands in the West, Republicans failed to enact a range of ambitious proposals.

"It was the best chance for Republican-shaped initiatives for as long we can remember," said Daniel Kemmis, senior fellow at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

Republicans began the session with majorities in both chambers, a sympathetic president, and a tough-talking property rights champion in charge of a key environmental committee.

That they went home empty-handed, Kemmis and others say, is testament to a changing, greening West; the pitfalls of overreaching; and an emerging alliance between environmentalists and a traditional GOP base, hunters and anglers....

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-thwarted15dec15,1,6856184.story

[applegrove]

1. Almost too much to think of the laws that were not passed by this WH

& congress. And that is exactly as they wanted it.. no governance..no problems solved except the ones they favour. Unless it is an electorally important wedge...they don't fix those "perceived" problems either.