Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions
for the Bush Administration And Congress
1) Get the foxes out of the hen houses
Clean out the corruption in the Department of the Interior (DOI) and other
government agencies. President Bush promised the American people he would
have a clean government, yet he appointed people like Deputy Secretary J.
Steven Griles to high-level positions. Griles is a former energy lobbyist
and is running the DOI. He is still receiving $284,000 from his former lobby
firm and continues to meet with his former clients. Bush also appointed Mark
Rey, a former timber lobbyist, to oversee the U.S. Forest Service. Several
other top Interior officials including former DOI Solicitor William Myers
and Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke are under investigation
for possible violations of ethics laws. The Bush administration should clean
up the DOI and protect the integrity of other federal agencies by strictly
enforcing the conflict of interest laws and removing appointees who violate
them.
2) Put the public back in public lands
The Bush administration repeatedly claims it is committed to working with local
communities on land management policies, but in almost all cases the public
has been shut out. For example, the Interior Department received over 280,000
comments to protect Yellowstone National Park from snowmobiles, yet the administration
continues to push a plan to let nearly 1,000 snowmobiles a day into the park.
The administration is also working to gut the U.S. Forest Service Roadless
Rule to protect national forest areas uncut by roads or saws – even
though over 95 percent of the 1.6 million comments on the Roadless Rule asked
for these strict protections.
3) Use sound science – not pseudo science – for decision
making
Time and time again, the Department of the Interior, Forest Service and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have made decisions not based on sound
science, but based on how industry would benefit. The administration did
not use sound science to justify snowmobiles in Yellowstone and a dirty coal
fired power plant nearby the park. They are weakening Clean Air Act regulations,
and in blatant disregard of their own scientific findings, the administration
is arguing for continued mountaintop removal coal mining and valley fills.
4) Create a legacy of protected natural wonders, not profit driven blunders
America’s remaining pristine and natural treasures are being chipped
away by oil, logging, gas and coal development. The Bush administration and
Congress should restore protections to lands proposed or being studied for
wilderness protections, instead of encouraging drilling or logging in these
pristine areas. In addition, the National Wilderness Preservation System should
be expanded to include new areas that merit protections. Native sacred sites
and cultural resource areas should be protected, as well as our national parks,
which are threatened by outsourcing, air pollution and destructive roads.
5) Reduce our reliance on dirty energy
Last year Congress put together an energy bill with $60 billion in giveaways
to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries. We need an energy bill that
funds renewable energy and protects our pristine wild places.
7) Protect communities from forest fires instead of shielding timber industry
profits
The administration should promote real solutions to wildfire-threatened communities
and properties. But instead, it has issued new rules that completely eliminate
environmental review for many logging projects and make it much harder for
the public to have a say in public land management. In addition, the recently
signed “Healthy Forests Initiative” goes even further in reducing
environmental protections for our national forests and reducing public access
to the forest planning process, and does nothing to increase protection for
communities at risk from forest fires. Community protection projects need to
focus on thinning areas directly adjacent to homes, removing the small trees
that comprise the vast majority of the fire risk.
8) Back up promises with the necessary funds
Despite a stated commitment to fund important conservation priorities, the
Bush administration has starved these critical public lands programs from the
funding they need. The administration abandoned the landmark Conservation Trust
Fund, a bipartisan program created to provide a dedicated stream of funding
to land acquisition, open space protection, wildlife habitat, recreation and
historic preservation. The administration has also backtracked on their promise
to fully fund the maintenance backlog at National Parks, and has sought steep
cuts to a range of other critically important programs. At the same time, they
have attempted to prioritize Bureau of Land Management funding for energy exploration
over conservation of public lands. The administration and Congress need to
fund these key conservation programs.
9) Stop undermining the Endangered Species Act (ESA)
The Bush administration should stop undermining the ESA through executive rule
changes (such as the recent proposals to cut the Fish and Wildlife Service
out of endangered species protection that have to do with forest projects).
They should also stop standing in the way of protecting new species. Congress
should provide full funding for the ESA listing and critical habitat programs.
10) Conduct your business
in the sunlight – not in the shadows
The Bush administration is one of the most secret executive branches we have
ever seen. From its fight to hide who was involved with Cheney’s Energy
Task Force to gutting the Freedom of Information Act to the administration’s
attack on the National Environmental Policy Act, the administration has repeatedly
sought to keep decision-making behind the scenes. Ours is a government by
and for the people. All citizens should have the ability to find out what
their government is doing and what their tax dollars are paying for.