OPINION/COMMENTARY

TED SACRIFICES GREEN GOALS FOR GREENBACKS

The media mogul gives millions to environmental and conservation causes, but finds himself in the awkward position of having to drill more gas wells on his pristine wilderness ranch in New Mexico.

Some environmentalists have been on the warpath in Washington, D.C., for months to control gas exploration in his area and along the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains.

One conservation group on the forefront of the debate, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), gets major funding from the Ted Turner Foundation.

Its leader, conservation lawyer Jim Range, doesn't see a conflict because he says Turner runs his drilling operations in a clean, ecologically sound manner.

"It's a model of the way exploration should be done," he says.

Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch, about three-quarters of the size of Rhode Island, is rich with billions of dollars in coal and methane reserves....

ESCALANTE RULING GIVES PRESIDENT CARTE BLANCHE AUTHORITY

Every school child knows that, in 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison, established the principle of “judicial review” under which the Court may declare acts of Congress unconstitutional and that, in 1955, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Court ruled that the unconstitutional actions of a president, even those undertaken in a time of war, may be enjoined. These rulings symmetrically set out one example of a fundamental principle of American government, its system of “checks and balances.”

Although the ability of federal courts to review and to restrain the exercise of power by the Executive Branch, seen most recently in the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit regarding the Executive’s duty to produce enemy combatants as witnesses for an accused terrorist’s defense, has been true for decades, presidents have sought consistently to expand the outer limits of their authority.

Thus, after the shock that President Bush chose to defend President Clinton’s 1996 national monument decree in southern Utah—especially given Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign rhetoric--it came as no surprise that Bush lawyers did so zealously. In response to a lawsuit brought by the Utah Association of Counties and other westerners charging that the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, which closed 1.7 million acres of federal land in Kane and Garfield Counties to all economic and much recreational activity, federal lawyers argued that the Utah federal district court lacked authority to review Clinton’s actions. Clinton is, said the lawyers, “the sole and exclusive judge” of whether the monument, as the Antiquities Act requires, is limited to the “smallest area” and contains things “historic” and “scientific.”

Where Are the Weapons of Mass Environmental Destruction?

Pop quiz: This President has proposed "policies that are destructive, disdainful, and uncomprehending of environmental values." He has "simply refused to do the job that the laws require...to protect the public from pollution and to use publicly owned resources and lands for the public good." His "attention has been focused upon easing the burdens for polluters instead of protecting the public." Who is he?

If you guessed George W. Bush, you would be dead wrong. Though this sounds like the standard rap sheet environmental groups use to pummel Bush, it was in fact all taken from Green attacks on a past Republican President, Ronald Reagan. The attacks didn't have much back up then: Thanks to government action (and, to be sure, common sense advocacy from environmental groups), during the 1980s air and water quality improved across the board, and nearly 40 million acres were added to the federal government's portfolio of protected lands--not exactly a convincing portrait of environmental devastation.

Just like 20 years ago, nary a shred of serious evidence suggests that yesterday's potted complaints will stick to the Bush administration today, according to the this year's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, an annual assessment published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute....

Prosperity First

Environmental officials in Brussels are getting edgy. Energy and economic officials are steadily revising up their estimates of the cost (principally higher energy prices) of implementing the Kyoto targets to reduce greenhouse gases. Claims that the Kyoto targets can be met without slowing growth seem increasingly hollow, especially as doubts mount that Europe can maintain sustainable growth. But it is Asia which spotlights Kyoto's fatal flaws....

Why the Sympathy for Mosquitoes? Pesticides Get an Undeserved Rap

”Save Our Mosquitoes" isn't a plea one expects to see these days with the mosquito-borne West Nile virus killing hundreds and making thousands of people sick. But someone posted that very appeal on a sign in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. These "poor bugs" were indeed at risk as the town was debating whether to spray pesticides that year. Residents decided to show their mercy; they gave the mosquitoes a stay of execution. No spraying in 2002. Discovered by an official from the local department of health, the sign shows how bizarre the debate about mosquito spraying has become. Radical environmental activists have been leading the pack, making a host of unsupported claims about the risks associated with pesticides. While some might sympathize with the plight of the mosquito, the anti-pesticide crowd has shown little concern for those humans suffering from the sometimes deadly, and often debilitating, virus transmitted by the bugs.

In the past, these groups have downplayed the risks by pointing out that the illness only kills the elderly, the sick and children--as if that offered any comfort! However, it isn't even true. In 2003, the median age of those who died from the virus was 47 years with a range of 1 month to 99 years old....

Your Children, PETA's Pawns

Given the amount of propaganda it aims at America's children, it was just a matter of time before People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals crossed the wrong parent. A tip of the Consumer Freedom hat to Matthew Knowles, father of pop diva Beyoncé Knowles, who saw his daughter getting shoved around by PETA last week and did the only honorable thing he could. He shoved back.

MSNBC reports that PETA recently attacked the pop star with a full-page ad in Billboard magazine, slamming her for wearing fur. In response, her dad called PETA president Ingrid Newkirk and left a message saying, in part: "Tell her we're going to get to know each other very, very well." Newkirk acknowledges that she expects a lawsuit to be in the offing, saying that if "you're a realist, you look for a subpoena."

Mr. Knowles isn't the only father who should be upset, as PETA has a long history of targeting children with its destructive animal rights messages. The group indoctrinates kids with Animal Liberation Front vocabulary at an early age, sends convicted felons into schools to lecture them about "compassion" (and vegetarianism), and even propagandizes them as they walk home at the end of the day....

The City that Never Gets a Break: Anti-Capitalism at the Movies

In the upcoming movie The Day After Tomorrow, German director Roland Emmerich lets the glaciers roll over Manhattan following an abrupt change in climate. It's the third time his production company, Centropolis, has destroyed New York in recent years. They leveled it in Independence Day. They had a monster eat it in the Godzilla remake. Now they're freezing it. What do these guys have against New York City?

Plenty, if my theory is correct. New York, you see, is a symbol of the victory of capitalism. Therefore, if you want to make the point that capitalism has done terrible things and needs to be eradicated, the Big Apple will be your number one target.

This new movie is a case in point. The ice sheets that roll over Wall Street are caused by manmade global warming. You read that right. In some environmental alarmists' computer models, global warming threatens to shut down the Gulf Stream and bring a new ice age to Europe and North America. Al Gore, indeed, is so impressed by the argument that he told Variety, "The Day After Tomorrow presents us with a great opportunity to talk about the scientific realities of climate change. Millions of people will be coming out of theaters on Memorial Day weekend asking the question, 'Could this really happen?' I think we need to answer that question."....

Kerry and coal

Last Oct. 20, Sen. John Kerry, in nonstop derision of President Bush, declared: "Where we see a beautiful mountaintop, George Bush sees a strip mine." That environmentalist rhetoric, backed by Kerry's Senate voting record, injects the senator into confrontation with the coal industry that could defeat him for president. That is his burden in Wheeling, W.Va., Monday, on a campaign swing that includes visiting a coal mine.

Coal is a side issue in Congress, but it is critical to two states won by Bush in 2000 that could decide the 2004 presidential election. Coal production is important for Ohio and absolutely vital to West Virginia. If Kerry is perceived as anti-coal, he could lose both states -- and the presidency....

The rest of the picture

It is heartening to see Northern Virginia newspaper readers take an interest in learning more about The Nature Conservancy. It is true that they own well over 100 Million acres worldwide, of which more than 15 Million acres are in the United States. It is true that they take in approximately $1 Billion per year, and that they are being audited by IRS for an extended period, as you read this. Despite rumors of mismanagement and real estate sweetheart deals for employees, the reputation of TNC for "saving" wild places persists. Even while they seek Federal tax breaks, at our expense, for those who sell them land to thereby make them the highest bidder for whatever property they desire.

TNC buys land to stop land uses by private owners, from ranchers to home builders. While couched in terms of preservation, the result is always less privately owned land, and more Federally owned land, since TNC resells (at a profit) millions of acres to the Federal government. Say what you will, this also means less use of our environment; from natural resources and recreation, to the raising of families and strengthening of communities. Given the current scale of such acquisitions, this means a weaker United States of America....

Our posterity will laugh at us

It may take a generation or two, but at some point in the future, policy-makers will look back in disbelief at the arrogance and ignorance that permeate the policies of this generation. How profoundly arrogant is it to think that public policy can, or should, "preserve" the environment as it was at some point in the past?

Suppose the policy-makers at the turn of the 20th century had decided to "preserve" the environment as it was before America was discovered. Had government been enlightened then, as it seems to be now, and prohibited mining, oil drilling, grazing and logging, would the world be a better place? Those who drive public policy today seem to think so....