It’s official – Grijalva has declined his appointment to the powerful Ways and Means Committee to keep his influential position advocating for public lands and wildlife. Press Release 12/16:
the need to continue my work on the Committee on Natural Resources and, more specifically, my Subcommittee Chairmanship is more important at this time. There are several issues that will still need to be addressed, such as uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and the continued preservation of our public lands.
Brian Ertz
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Looks like Grijalva very, very nicely told Pelosi to “pound salt” as the Arizona paper supported him doing a week or so ago.
Here are a couple of articles on the uranium explo/mining Grijalva references in his Press Release. It looks like the Forest Service is allowing it to occur under a “CE” Categorical Exclusion. That’s what the Forest Service and BLM used to use to authorize painting an outhouse, or some such really innocuous action.
Under the Bush Admin, federal agencies have been using CEs for everything from this uranium mining crap to Ely BLM authorizing cattle grazing for 10 years on a 100,000 acre cattle allotment with 12 extirpated grouse leks, and only a couple leks remaining. This is why Grijalva is so needed as Interior Secretary. He understands all the damage that has been done with all the complex changes to federal agency management
Uranium:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07canyon.html
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2008/2008-03-13-01.asp
A SCARY thought just crossed my mind: If Industry didn’t somehow pre-emptively leak Salazar, did the Obama people float him to try to make some other minimally palatable sort a tiny bit more palatable— in comparison to Salazar who is universally opposed by any real environmental group?
God heavens, kt!! I hope not. We’ve really had enough of the degradation crowd’s having their way with our lands…
My ability to hold out hope for something, somebody that can hear with ears that are capable of hearing small voices that have been overwhelmed by the screaming extraction interests… is waning by the hour.
I can hardly go to bed at night without feeling like I may wake up to “four more years” and a sinking feeling that all could be lost during that time or at least that irreparable damage will dominate the land to the point that there is nothing that can be done. And once again I begin my days ashamed of my country.
It seems that the extractive industries, including ranching, figure that wildlife belong in zoos and that’s all we really need.