Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator wanted Interior chief to explain indecision on endangered listing
I don't want to hear how this is a liberal conspiracy against the government. There is evidence indicating protectins of the Polar Bear are necessary and the Chairperson of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has an obligation to carry out the laws of the people of the USA. Where was Secretary Kempthorne? He addressed a conference as a keynote speaker via video (don't even know if it was a live) link on April 1st (click here).
Keynotes
Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) Dirk Kempthorne addressed the audience at the Plenary Session via video. Kempthorne discussed the remarkable technological advances in geospatial technology that allow us to see the world in a new way and provide tools for addressing sustainability and managing disasters. "The possibilities indeed, the promises of this technological revolution are literally beyond imagining for both this generation and future generations."
Where was he yesterday? Golfing? The man is alive, right?
Senator wanted Interior chief to explain indecision on endangered listing
WASHINGTON - APRIL 02: U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) questions witnesses during a hearing about the possible listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act April 2, 2008 in Washington, DC. U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was invited to testify but declined until he said he could provide more information regarding the listing of the polar bear as endangered. According to conservation groups, polar bears are threatened because their habitat, sea ice, is shrinking from global warming.
Updated: 1:02 p.m. ET April 2, 2008
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23920837/displaymode/1176/rstry/23920757/
Interior Dept. faulted over polar bear status (click here)
Senator seeks explanation for delaying decision
By Matthew Daly
Associated Press / April 3, 2008
WASHINGTON - The chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee yesterday slammed Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for failing to appear before her panel to explain why the Bush administration has delayed a decision on whether to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, criticized Kempthorne for declining her invitation to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
"It's wrong that Mr. Kempthorne is not here," Boxer said after the hearing, which went on without an appearance from Kempthorne or any other administration official....
It seems as though Mr. Kempthorne has a lot of people that want to talk to him.
Another WOPR setback Government scientists criticize BLM logging plan (click here)
Published: April 1, 2008 12:00AM
The Western Oregon Plan Revision is a dead plan walking.
Those exact words weren’t used by the team of government scientists that recently reviewed the Bush administration’s proposed forest management plan. But it’s the underlying message that should be clear to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who should immediately yank the plug on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s hopelessly flawed proposal to nearly triple logging on 2.2 million acres in Western Oregon.
In a scathing 100-page report, the team of federal and state experts said the BLM’s proposal failed to consider the most current and relevant data on fundamental concerns such as wildlife habitat and water quality.
The report said the computer models used by the BLM were overly simplistic and failed to take into account the loss of spotted owl and other wildlife habitat to logging and wildfires. The models also failed to take into account budgetary, political and legal factors, and generally ignored climate change and its potentially profound impacts on Western Oregon’s forests....
...The Bush administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency has warned that the BLM plan lacks a sound scientific basis and would cause long-term damage to water quality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the plan fails to adequately protect steelhead and salmon....
And we already know about the overfishing of Salmon. So now that the Salmon are being lost, it's okay to destroy the ecosystem, huh? So, what is the issue? The loggers are 'getting enough?' Too bad !!!
...BLM officials say they will take the latest scientific criticism into account while preparing to issue the final version of the WOPR. That’s a mistake. The BLM plan is so thoroughly flawed that it must be replaced, not fixed.
If Kempthorne won’t give WOPR the early execution it deserves, then Congress should intervene with legislation that protects old growth.
What part of “dead plan walking” doesn’t the Bush administration understand? Why is it stubbornly continuing to push a plan that has as little chance of surviving judicial scrutiny as a condemned man does a trip to the gas chamber?
It would seem Senator Boxer has many bills to write including that of Old Growth Forests and Polar Bears. If the Bush White House continues to be this negligent then it is time the good Senator Boxer move to legislate protections while reporting the lax administration of this White House to the Justice Department and independant prosecutors !
