OPINION/COMMENTARY

Ideologues Hinder Environmental Clean-up

Areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina continue to be environmental wastelands and some environmental ideologues are doing their best to keep them that way, according to The National Center for Public Policy Research. Government officials recently warned of serious health hazards spawned by bacteria, fecal contamination, and various chemicals still prevalent in the sediment left behind by floodwaters. Despite this toxic soup and all its dangers, some environmental groups are scaremongering against a congressional measure that would permit the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive onerous regulations that hamper the clean-up effort. Peyton Knight, Director of the John P. McGovern MD Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at the National Center, notes that such obstructionism is sadly ironic. "The same brand of environmental obstructionism that prevented the City of New Orleans from building vitally-necessary flood gates almost 30 years ago, is now impeding the clean-up of the disaster," he said. In 1977, the environmental group Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) successfully sued to stop the construction of a hurricane barrier project that was designed to thwart flooding wrought by powerful storms such as Hurricane Katrina. The Save Our Wetlands website even boasts: "While politicians talk, SOWL sues! SOWL has been involved in countless lawsuits involving Lake Ponchartrain on every subject... In 1977, SOWL obtained an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz enjoining the Corps of Engineers from building a billion dollar dam at the Chef Mentaur Rigolets Fort Pike Area, where the Gulf of Mexico enters into Lake Ponchartrain." Joseph Towers, retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district, told the Los Angeles Times last month: "If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded." Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is now sponsoring a measure that would give the Environmental Protection Agency the ability to grant a temporary waiver of certain environmental regulations that hamstring the Katrina recovery effort. While EPA officials consider Inhofe's proposal important to the recovery effort, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are demonizing the measure....

An Energy Solution

By virtue of alarmist environmental rhetoric and ill-informed media coverage, much of the public has been convinced that we’re about to run out of fossil fuels. Actually, the U.S. is an energy-rich country. We have, for instance, the world’s largest known coal reserves. It is true, however, that environmentalists are with each passing day making it more difficult to access our reserves. In 1996, for instance, they succeeded in cutting us off from 68 billion tons of our cleanest coal reserves. Located in Utah, this coal is of a type sought by utility companies to satisfy the EPA’s ever-rising requirements. It is worth more than $2.6 trillion after extraction, or more than $9,000 for each man, woman, and child in the United States. Even if all U.S. electric power plants were using coal, 68 billion tons could run them for more than 45 years at the present rate of consumption. Yet access to this resource was blocked by the Clinton administration on the grounds that mining it would despoil the environment. Thus we are forced to buy coal from overseas sources. Tampa Electric of Florida recently contracted to purchase 400,000 tons of coal per year from Borneo. Along with the coal from Utah, it is among the highest quality on earth. Interestingly, it comes from mines largely owned by the Lippo Group, the Indonesian conglomerate which made a heavy financial contribution to Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign. When Clinton banned the use of those 68 billion tons of coal from Utah, Lippo’s equally good coal increased immensely in value. Doubtless its owners are delighted by this, while U.S. environmentalists gloated about winning another round “to save the planet” when they locked up Utah’s coal. If they were consistent they would admit that mining coal in Utah is no more destructive to Mother Earth than mining it in Borneo—indeed, because Borneo’s environmental standards are much less restrictive, mining there is very probably more polluting. In addition, many extra pollutants are being discharged by the smokestacks of ships transporting the coal on their 20,000 mile roundtrips from Borneo to Florida. We calculate that some 20 percent more carbon dioxide and other emissions are vented into the atmosphere through this substitution of Bornese for American coal....

Newsweek Fawns over New Head of ‘Frugal’ Environmental Group

At Newsweek, “The Fight Is Never Over” trying to convince the public that global warming is a problem, and the magazine applied that attitude to an interview under that headline with the incoming head of the left-wing Natural Resources Defense Council. Under the header “Leadership & Innovation,” Newsweek described Frances Beinecke as the new president of “the most influential environmental group in the nation.” However, the piece attributed 650,000 members to the group, which is 350,000 fewer than it claims on its Web site. The story didn’t delve into the speckled history of NRDC, a group involved in the now-discredited Alar pesticide/apple scandal. Instead, Newsweek’s Jerry Adler depicted Beinecke sitting “in a corner office with not much space to spare; frugally, the lights are switched off on a sunny afternoon and the coffee served to visitors is barely lukewarm.” Adler hammered home the “frugal” description of NRDC’s new boss by calling her “a Prius-driving graduate of Yale and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.” But Adler’s questions about global warming were even more revealing. He prepped Beinecke: “You’re taking over at a critical time for the environmental movement, when people are suddenly waking up to the threats of global warming and the need for energy conservation.” A few questions later, Adler asked about NRDC’s position on nuclear power, “in light of the greater threat posed by greenhouse gases.” That wasn’t a new position for Newsweek. Despite scientific opposition, the magazine has done its part to say any weather changes are likely “initial symptoms of enduring climate change,” as the magazine said on August 8. That same issue described nations coming “to grips with global warming.”....

USFS Propaganda

The news broadcast on my truck radio mentioned a "new weather system approaching the Gulf" – so when I got home, I turned on The Weather Channel. Big mistake. What I caught on TWC was a "Joint Presentation of the U.S. Forest Service and The Weather Channel" on "Forest Fires." It was all U.S. Forest Service, ex-Forest Service (i.e. the retired and likely-rehired annuitant or consultant "Chief"), and Interagency Fire Center federal employees. They were all dressed in their best "Orvis-casual" duds, as they spoke in ponderous tones in front of spectacular outdoor backdrops. Clearly, it was paid for and scripted by the U.S. Forest Service. It went on for about 25 minutes, and it was the most egregious bit of environmental propaganda I have ever witnessed. The fact that our taxes paid for it, only rubbed salt in the wound. One of the most recent models for this planned rural land clearance was the British conquest, and subsequent clearance of Ireland and Scotland, to give to favored aristocrats. Environmentalists and animal rights radicals are every bit as intolerant, and dismissive as British conquerors, hundreds of years ago. Just as the British had no intention of living with unruly inferiors or allowing them property or their freedoms or traditions, today's radicals have no intention of practicing vegetarianism, or managing their own lands as sacred "fuel" dumps: these are things to be forced on others. Today's radicals want to eliminate ranchers, farmers, loggers, hunters, fishermen, trappers, and others, as surely as British aristocrats wanted to eliminate native Scots and Irish, to possess their lands. Today's radicals don't fight their own fights, they employ surrogate politicians, professors, and bureaucrats, like mercenaries, to clear the land for their wishes, in return for more money and support. The propaganda, to accomplish this, is paid for by all of us....

PETA Employees Face Added Felony Charges

Prosecutors in Hertford County, North Carolina filed additional charges today in the case of two People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees accused of killing adoptable puppies and kittens with the controlled substance pentobarbital, and tossing their bodies into a grocery-store dumpster. Felony animal-cruelty charges were re-filed this morning against defendants Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook in Superior Court. In addition, they were each charged with three felony counts of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses. The pair is expected to be formally indicted in Superior Court on October 31. According to the new felony warrants, the charges of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses allege that Hinkle and Cook removed healthy animals from shelters and veterinary offices under the false promise that adoptive homes would be found for them. When the two were arrested in June, police found 31 dead animals which had been obtained only hours earlier. They also found several vials of the narcotics pentobarbital and ketamine....

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