Just when you think he can't do anything worse. How in the name of Heaven does he think? I rarely denegrate others, however this man TRULY is clueless, and a true danger to everyone..........

I find it telling of our (meaning the USA) president, that he not only wages needless wars agianst people, but agianst our environment as well. I dont think there is a peaceful bone in his body. I dont think there has ever been a more destructive leader than Bush.

[edit on 12/1/04 by Kidfinger]

I agree with both of you.

You see, Washington State is one of alot of virgin wilderness and unsullied beauty. people up here are pretty environmental, even soccer moms tend towards it. We have spent years working hard to avoid environmental disaster, punish the evil doers, and do whatever we could to protect wildlife.

Salamon is almost a state symbol. Its something Seattle is famous for. Our Salmon runs were just starting to get back to normal numbers, after all the work we have done.

And now this worthless excuse for a human being who dares to call himself my leader has in one fell swoop, undone it.

Every time Bush comes to Washington State, hes greeted with protests and animosity. the papers show him no mercy. Now you know why we hate him. He represents the opposite of everything Washingtonians hold dear.

May he rot in hell.

Skadi,

I have never been to Washington state, but I have been to the portland Oregon Rose festival. Navy sent me Anyway, once you goet out of the city, you experience some of the most beautiful forest and woodland areas you're likely to ever see. If Washington is anywhere close to the natural beauty I witnessed in Oregon, then I would say you have evry reason to do everything possible to protect what Washington Citizens truly care about. Thier surroundings. You should start writing to members of Washington's State Government.

Originally posted by Kidfinger
Anyway, once you goet out of the city, you experience some of the most beautiful forest and woodland areas you're likely to ever see.

I bet this would hit the point well... after seeing real big forests you don't know should you laugh or cry when thinking about parks and those in cities which are thought as nature in there.

Is it possible that these rivers and streams are not really critical to salmon production? Seems pointless to criticize the decision without posting the REASONS for it.

Please remember that Clinton seized more private lands using bogus science that almost every other president combined. Perhaps Bush has decided to throttle this back a bit? Perhaps he listened to both sides of the story and made a compromise decision instead of weighting it to one side or the other.

After reading the article he’s protecting all rivers where there are salmon. He’s just lifted the critical protection on rivers and streams that salmon “Might happen to go into some day”. I think this is reasonable. He hasn’t approved wholesale development of the land, just made the process for application for land use a little less draconian.

Yesterday's action came in response to a series of court decisions that said the federal government must consider the economic cost of designating critical habitat.

And, of course the Bush haters ignored the above paragraph. Bush’s team HAD to make some reductions to the habitat due to legal pressures.

Of course, if the environmental lobby had perhaps met with the builders and farmers in the area and worked something out they might have gotten a little more river / stream protection than 20%.

"By incorporating more accurate data, we found the area actually occupied by salmon [and steelhead] was one-fifth as large as in the 2000 designations," Lohn said, saying the new area covered about 27,000 miles of streams.

I see more accurate data being used and appropriate planning responses based on it. We’re still protecting 27 THOUSAND miles of streams. It’s not like he’s authorizing clear cutting forests…just being more reasonable.

MrNice,

The thing is, the current administration is focusing on the 'now' and not on the 'later'. The population of salmon might not be as large or spread out as previously thought, but then agian, the salmon are also not back to the numbers they were before we reaked havoc on the environmental system. Bush needs to think about the future, not just the present. It is made obvious that the future in all aspects is the farthest thing from his mind. Bush wants instant gratification, and he is damn well going to get it, or somebody will catch hell over it.

Actually,

No one can predict what the salmon population will do. Of course just because something is not designated "critical area" does not mean we're going to be damning things up right and left.

It just means we can actually take a look at limited development or logging in the interm period without draconion measures that hurt working families in the area.

Why anyone logs on wild land anymore is kind of beyond me. Perhaps because of certain old-growth trees. Here on the east coast we get plenty of re-usable wood off of our tree farms. They're everywhere and seem to work out pretty nicely.

I say, let them have reasonable access to land where the salmon are not present and then slowly close off land was we need it.

The situation that was just corrected was WAY too skewed towards the environmentalist’s absolutism viewpoint.

Also, I repeat, the courts were slowing pressuring the government to make the changes anyway. So Bush just avoided a nasty court battle and made a reasonable decision.

It really didn’t matter if he took short / long term point of view..the end game was going to be very close to this resolution in any case. He probably just decided it was better to avoid the fight, which would do neither side any good. Now if both sides would just sit down with each other and LISTEN we could have some reasonable land use while perserving our resources.

See patriot act, Iraq war, enron, 9/11, environmental record, amongst other reasons, to see why I hate this man.

Patriot Act: Not written by Bush..written during Clinton’s administration. Passed during Bush’s administration to give us some war-time powers. Open abuse hearings have not had ONE witness come forward with a complaint. I’m sure the left would be more than happen to shout these abuses from the rooftops during the last election if they were present. While this is a bit scary it is nothing compared to some of the acts Lincoln, FDR, etc.. have enacted during wartime.

Enron – Clinton Administration was responsible for oversight derivative markets. The Derivative market exploded under that administration’s watch. It’s now so dangerous that Greenspan / Bush are afraid to tackle it.

911 – Hmmm..blaming someone who just took over the reigns for the government for something that was planned and set in motion before he took office is pretty amazingly ignorant. Have you SEEN what the president has to read and absorb / work on EVERY day? You should try making ½ the decisions / analysis a president makes before you go crucifying the man. The bureaucracy that was in place those first few months was established over 8 years of Clinton leadership…perhaps that had more than a little to do with how information was filtered upward?

Environmental Record – Why? Because he lifted some restrictions that Clinton put in place? I’m not exactly choking on pollution over here in Atlanta. I know that relaxing coal plant restrictions are a pain for many knee-jerk environmentalist and some other decisions have upset things as well…..I’m prepared to have a debate on that. America is pretty clean. Bush tends to side on business expediency over fanatical habitat restrictions. Perhaps the solution is in the middle somewhere. No reason to hate him over this.

Other reasons? Perhaps you can elaborate eh?

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Mr. Nice, You should see what some of those loggin operations do. They strip entire hillsides which then turn into mudslides and completely destroy creeks, streams and rivers. This affects not only the salmon but home owners that live there.

I grew up in Oregon. To see the r*pe of the environment for the sick desires of rich and greedy friends of Bush shows just how immoral his supporters are.
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Clinton wrote and passed the patriot act? NOW Im laughing!

I doubt the courts REALLY had to put any pressure on Bush to open up the wild areas to industry. Its something he has been spouting about doing since he got in office. Saying hes doing it because of legal pressure is like saying Bill did the Monica thing because the Republicans made him do it.

His environmental record is shoddy. Those protections Clinton put in place were there for a reason. To prevent further harm and slowly progress back to environmental health. Something Bush is undoing. There was nothing extreme about the protections. They were desperately needed.

One only needs to look at what has happened to various parts of Europe to see what concentrated, expanding industry does to the environment. The Europeans have enforced strict environmental laws, laws that make ours minor by comparison. Were trying to avoid that stage.

We do have tree farms here. Weyerhauser has a huge one. but its never enough, is it?

Working families here need the jobs that have been lost and sent overseas. The logging jobs have long been in decline, and the majority of people suffering economically here do so because of Boeing and the Dot Com Crash.

We have our tree farms, byt now they want to destroy more virgin land. Slank has it about right. Looking at the de-forested hillsides, the mudslides and hill collapses, is not a sight i want around me.