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Bush advances his drill here, now policy by opening 11,000 acres to drilling, (and RVs).
This NYT editorial, (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/opinion/18sat1.html?hp), notes that in the final three months of his presidency, W. is attempting to open 11,000 acres in Utah to oil exploration and off road vehicle use. The proposals were submitted in the form of six resource management plans, each totaling 1000+ pages. The public now has less than a month to register complaints before the plans are implemented.
A recent proposal by the Interior Department to "revoke a regulation that gives Congress and the Interior Secretary emergency powers to protect public lands when commercial development seems to pose immediate environmental dangers" indicates a further move toward a more autonomous Interior Dept. bureaucracy free to accommodate oil exploration.
In addition, Interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne " plans to scale back important protections required by the Endangered Species Act by eliminating some mandatory scientific reviews by the Fish and Wildlife Service of federal projects".
As the nation is focused on the election, the timing of these proposals by the Department of the interior is the kind of Machiavellian move we can only expect more of in the next three months, (and counting). Please contact your elected representatives if you value these heretofore protected areas of the western US.
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