Environmentalists suffer on key budget provisions

The biggest losers in the federal budget deal may have been environmentalists, who suffered setbacks not only with cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget but also with the shellacking of two of the movement’s pet programs. The Continuing Resolution includes a provision that prohibits funding for the so-called “wild lands” policy, an Obama administration initiative that allows the Interior Department to confer special protections on federal lands without congressional approval. The resolution also removes the gray wolf of the Northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list and allows for state management, which would include managed hunts for the wolves, a species that once was decimated but now thrives. The additions came as unexpected defeats for the environmental movement, which has enjoyed a series of victories for the past two years under Democratic rule. The Wilderness Society issued a statement Tuesday saying that the resolution “attempts to roll back the clock and open up our wildest lands to drilling and destruction.”...more