Doug Hilton's Blog

Impeach Bush

Alright, I know I said i wasn't going to turn this into my little soap box but I read an article on MSNBC (again) that got me all fired up. Those of you that know me, know exactly where my priorities lie when it comes to the environment and the government. I'll just paste in a few sections of this article that I find rather amusing or that get my goat. You can read the whole article here.

"CPAL Director Peter Altman says “All of America’s public lands are under assault by an administration that favors corporations over conservation.”"

"The idea is that government will pay private companies to manage park resources, and those companies will in turn hire and pay workers to do it. Think about that. If the government wants to lop 20 percent off the budget for parks, that means these outside companies will have to try and take the jobs currently being done by professional, trained park employees, and do them on 80 percent of the current budget. "

"The government has already spent $16 million on the outsourcing study, to which they will add another estimated $110 million over the next three years, according to a CPAL report. Note that that’s not $16 million spent on doing the outsourcing itself; just on the study to see what privatization might save. The conclusions that these very well-paid contractors came to: privatization could save taxpayers a whopping $600,000. Subtract that from the $16 million spent on the study, and total net cost to the taxpayer: $15.4 million."

"“I will ensure that the federal government meets its responsibilities by devoting $5 billion to eliminate the backlog in maintenance and improvements at our national park.” Wouldn’t it be nice if a president said that?
Well one did—or at least he said it on his road to the White House. It was part of a stump speech George W. Bush gave on Oct 27, 2000, less than two weeks before the election.
Bush’s team came up with $5 billion figure from the 1998 General Accounting Office estimate that, in addition to the regular annual costs to run America’s National Parks, monuments, historic structures, and trails, it would take and extra $4.9 billion just top fix the crumbling facilities at parks and national monuments. This is called the backlog.
Bush crows that he’s taken care of 900 backlog projects to the tune of $2.9 billion. Wouldn’t that, too, be nice? Too bad it’s a lie."

Ok.. enough copy and paste.. you can read the article for yourself. I was so happy a few days ago when I heard that the new energy bill would not allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but it seems good 'ol W is hell bent on destroying our earth one area at at time and putting the extra money in his own pocket. Get your priorities straight. Auto makers have had the technology to create engines that do not run on fossil fuels but it's the oil tycoons (like 'ol W) that are too concerned about their bottom line to allow such engines to be produced. I'm moving to Canada!!