Bush Defends Loggers from Hostile Forests
Good news for loggers and asphalt companies! The Bush administration has proposed lifting a logging ban on 58 million acres of national forest.

In a brazen act of environmental terrorism, Bill Clinton shielded these potentially profitable woodlands from development as he left the White House in January 2001. Bush's plan would open these lucrative acres back up to logging and road-building in eighteen months' time, unless the governor of the state in which the forest is located successfully petitions to keep the area off-limits. And we all know what the answer to those petitions will be, don't we? After all, no sentimental Walden should stand in the way of a much-needed interstate linking Boise to Missoula.

According to CNN, our friend Jim Riley of the "Intermountain Forest Association," a lobbying group for companies that clearcut intermountain forests, is excited about Bush's plan. "These decisions are far better made by local folks than through broad national policy," Riley quipped. If we can assume that by "local folks," he means "local billionaires," amen to that!
- posted by Colin A. Faver @ 1:57:30 PM