can't remember how to post links but if yer in too godd of a mood read this: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134418859_bushsalmon12m.html

One step forward and two steps back! Grrrrr!

Here's the link to the other Seattle times article on the subject:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/61855_fish12.shtml

and one final Salmon link to todays Seatle Pee-Eye: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/61897_salmon12.shtml

What? "President" Bush isn't environmentally friendly? You're kidding me!

Last night, I had another Bush nightmare. In this one, President Bush, in his presidential campaign, said saving Snake River salmon is important and that we need fish-friendly turbines in the dams (despite the fish biologists and turbine engineers saying that's an impossibility). Then he announced his absolute opposition to removing the 4 lower Snake River dams. When federal agencies decided not to remove the dams and came up with an alternative habitat-restoration plan, Bush wouldn't fund it....... something about needing a tax break. So by doing nothing, Bush wrote off citizens, fishermen, conservationists, NMFS, even the Army Corpes of Engineers which helped draft the plan.

Wait......I wasn't dreaming!!!!!!!Again!!!!!!!

We'll just have to wait and see what changes might be made.

Oh well, at least we can all thank God that Gore didn't win!!

I can say without reservation, Sure glad I didn't vote for George W. Bush!!!!

Wait and see what happens? Here I thought that it was better to be proactive and appeal to our legislators before this **** gets passed, instead of taking the "wait and see" attitude and then *****ing about it after it's implemented and therefore harder to remove.

And speak for yourself on the "we can all thank God that Gore didn't win" statement. While I didn't vote for Gore, I certainly believe that he would not have sold the American environment down the river quite the way that GW has in the last year. The day the he took up residence in the White House against the will of the people of the United States of America was the day that it became open season on the environment.

Me neither Drachir!
Should anyone be surprised? Look for Bush to do more of this kind of stuff as he rides the coat tails of a high rating in the polls.

Slightly Misanthropic here of GW aye fellas? What a bunch of unhappy folks. Tough it out boys, a democrate will be in office soon enough. Then we Republicans can serve the "Whine and Cheeze".

In the mean time, mother earth will survive with or without your help.

Don't like it. Write your congressman and let them know you are unhappy. No action comes from inaction.

Amen, catch-n-eat. We should all e-mail our congressmaen and senators!!

Sincerely,
Roger

Thanks for the suggestion, Catch n Eat. I've emailed Ron Wyden's office so many times that I'm probably getting blocked by their spam filter. Go here to find the web page and email address of your favorite senator. And email them regularly about how you feel on whatever important topics you can think of. They wanna hear from you, really.

I cannot fathom why anyone interested in protecting our environment from corporate greed would advertise that we should simply sit idly by until the next presidential election, in hopes that a more nature-friendly president gets elected into office (unlike the current president that took the office against the will of the American People) and then magically reverses all the damage that was done the previous 4 years.

Nothing like a little political discussion to fire up some fishermen! I'm a Bush man myself and to all you whiners.... If Gore could have won in either his home state of Tennesse OR Clinton's home state of Arkansas, Al Gore would be president now. Obviously, the voters that know those two losers best wanted nothing to do with him. If you can't win your home state you shouldn't be in politics.

An unfortunate mix:politics and fishing. I didn't know the two had anything to do with each other until I moved to the NW 6 years ago. Since then, it's practically hit me in the head. To all you "Bushers", if you are conserned with native fish issues, he couldn't be a worse president. He's done nothing to help, and many things to hurt native fish causes. If you don't care, bonk-on and don't even bother with the rest of my comments...... If you do care about native fish, either write the administration and tell them you want them to protect native fish, or vote him out in 2004. If you are republican and like to catch wild fish, your politics are ruining your fishing! You're also a hypocrite! If this sounds cut and dry, it is! The biggest opponent to initiatives launched by groups like Trout Unlimited (in which I am active) is the republican party. Seems protecting fish costs money. I bring this up not to inflame people, but because a lot of people don't know what's going on. For more info, check out the League of Conservation Voters. I know the Oregon group puts out an annual report card on how all state reps and senators voted on environment-related legislature. The republicans vote anti-environment/fish about 90% of the time in Salem. I don't know the percentages nationally, but I know it's similar.

On another note, while openly opposing almost all pro-wild fish legislation, vice president Cheney is an avid fly fisherman. I guess if you're a multi-millionaire, you can buy your own fish to catch!

Won't be like this on the next planet we rape!

Nader in '04!

And then we'll be getting screwed by a Democrat. Don't forget that our brilliant Governor is a Dem, and take a look at the F&W Commission. They're not doing sport fishers any favors, either.

Each voter registration card should come with a sample tube of Vaseline, so it isn't as painful when you vote (R) or (D).

Good replies Dave and that is coming from a hypocrite!

Hypocrite? Howso? Just because I didn't vote for Gore doesn't mean that I voted for Boy George.

I was not calling you a hypocrite. politics

Good thing. Now I gotta go call Uncle Guido and tell him to quit tailing you.

first off whoever (ET) the **** is who is talking about the "if he(Gore) cant win in his own state bs" it(in my opinion)wasnt a fair race and i think i remember something about when the votes where recounted that gore accually DID win in florida....but oh well water under the bridge,
now, maby im too young, and neieve but how can someone who likes to fish for these wonderfull creatures and who likes to be out in the pristiene(sp?) wilderness while doing it could be FOR Bush, didnt you read his platform on the enviroment? oh well, with a name like catch and eat just seems to show yah...let me guess you fish the cowlitz(no offense cowlitzfisherman) A LOT! and let me guess you dont care whether its wild or not...it gets BONKED!
anywho, it's Bush... we all knew it was coming, or you should have seen it coming when he(bush) wanted slade gorton to be head of the dept. of U.S. Lands, all we can do now is diddle our thumbs and yell at our congressmen and senators for the next 4 years....what do you expect when our president that has a comedy show airing thats dedicated to making fun of him.

Welcome back Hedgehog, I mean Fishermanonabike.

yah i know.....

If the only factor you take into consideration is environmental policies when voting for presidents, please, do the country a favor and never vote again. While I'm not behind Bush's environmental plan, I wasn't behind Gore's either. However, I liked every other one of Bush's policies far more than Gore. Democrats have been in power in this state for years and haven't done a damn thing to improve fish and wildlife and in fact, have done many things to make things worse. If democrats can't fix things on a state level, what makes you think they'd be able to do anything on a national level? Clinton didn't do jacksh*t.

sure clinton might not have done as much as he could have ...ie. jacksh*t, but isnt doing nothing better than doing something that is bad for the enviroment?

The right man is in office! If Gore would have won, he would be sitting in a corner rocking back and forth while sucking his thumb over this terrorist crap that is going on.

Yup. Gore was a carbon copy of Clinton and under Clinton, bin Laden attacked the WTC towers in 93, bombed the U.S. embassies in Africa, bombed a U.S. barraks in Saudi Arabia, and attacked the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. What was Clinton's response? We blew up a pharmacutical factory in Sudan. At one point, the government of Sudan offered us Bin Laden but Clinton turned them down. Also, during Clinton's last year in office, the CIA knew exactly where Bin Laden was and had a plan to take him out but Clinton wouldn't give them the go ahead. If Gore were president, we'd probably be sending bin Laden U.S. tax dollars to try to appease him.

Yeah baby, the #$&? is flying now. Blame Bush for 100 years of environmental mismanagement if if makes you feel better. At least Bush has been consisitant. He has been a strong supporter of STATES RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES since he was gov of Texas. Do you really want the Feds in control of WA fishing? Ohh.. just a minute... I'm rethinking this... maybe you're right... I'd rather have Bush making the decisions(never mind that he just signs or vetos what the Congress sends to him) than gov locke.

Jack and Jacob:

You are digressing. Osama bin Laden had NOTHING to do with our current environmental issues, so I will not take the time to point out that one of you is horribly misinformed and the other is completely baseless.

ET (liked your movie but refuse to play $25 to see it remastered with my family, sorry):

I don't recall anyone blaming the current administration for the mismanagement of the last 100 years as, obviously, that would be ridiculous. Instead, we are talking about his actions over the last 14 months that have obviously had a decidedly anti-environment bend to them. From pushing to open up that plot of land in Alaska for oil drilling (would take YEARS to develop and supply only 6 months of oil) to appointing a woman to the head of the EPA whose trying to limit the amount that a company can be charged to help clean a superfund site that THEY polluted. There's a larger list of his "accomplishments" that I have at home that I'd be happy to put up here for those who want to know.

In short, Bush has proven that he will completely disregard environmental concerns so that his corporate buddies that paid for his campaign will get paid back tenfold. Anyone who has so far tried to argue against this fact has not shown where this is incorrect and has, instead, mounted a failed effort to deflect it off to some other unrelated tangent.

Also, don't get me started with Clinton. That ******* was more right of center than some moderate Republicans, and otherwise would have BEEN a Republican except for some leftover beliefs from his college days somehow sticking around. Not that he DID anything with them.

Jacob F,

Maybe I went a little overboard. You know how it is with these threads. I suppose not everyone can be a Pro-Fish voter. ? However, I stand by my assertion that the republican party (as a whole) is anti-environment/anti-fish protection. Here in Oregon, the only reason we aren't having the same degree of wild fish problems that you're currently having in WA is Gov. Kitzhaber. The republican -led state legislature is not merely failing to come up with better fish protection, they're actively trying to roll fish protections backward. One fine example from this past leg. session was a republican-led initiative that tried to put an end to finclipping of anadromous fish in Oregon. Seems it costs money and if you cannot easily identify a wild fish, who's going to notice that they're disappearing? Their logic was shared by who?........The tribes! Tah Dah!!! If you can't identify wild fish, then who's going to mind them showing up in their nets? The tribes wanted more fish to net (inc. wild ones). The republicans wanted less fish protection for industry. The only reason they've not succeeded in these cases is the govorner's veto/threatened veto (and now, of course, ESA). Kitz has exercised more veto's than any gov. in state history and I've thanked him for it. He was the only governor or senator from the NW to call for Snake River Dam breaching. (He took a lot of political heat for that one, but got a standing ovation at the 2001 Trout Unlimited Nat. convention, which he spoke at). He also co-wrote Oregon's salmon recovery plan, which is aimed largely at protecting wild/native fish stocks. With Oregon's senators, Wyden(D) has not really taken a stand on fish (good or bad), but Smith(R) has sided with the anti-environment republicans in almost every case, including stating that removing Snake River dams should not even be considered, much less debated. Smith thinks that people who want the government to consider removing dams to help native fish are "extremists", his word, not mine.

I'm not saying that the dem's are policy genius's or environmental saviors, and I certainly don't think that about Nader either. Frankly, many Dem's (Gore and Locke included) have dropped the ball on environmental policy. What I'm saying is that, in my state and in the nation as well, the republican party as a whole has been a political enemy of wild fish and if republican voters who care about wild fish don't know this, they should and they should let their opinions be known.

Seems like you're having the same problem down there with Republicans that we're having here with Democrats. They don't finclip all hatchery fish here either because the tribes want to net more. Then, they ran Bern Shanks out of office, the first good director of fish and wildlife we've had in years and Locke appointed Koenings as the new director -- the former manager of commercial fishing in Alaska. Guess where his interests lie. Basically, when it comes to voting, I look at the big picture. Social issues, budget plans, defense policies, etc. Bush beat Gore in spades in every other aspect, IMO.

Estimates indicate that there is most likely near 10 years worth of oil up there, not 6 months.

Jacob F,

We know what we said, you don't need to repeat it. Just makes the screen take longer to pull up. The 6 months D. Jackson mentioned is if ANWR were the sole source of oil our country used (the oil reserves there are about the equivalent of 6 months of our current usage). It would take 10 years to get it online.

Regarding the democrats in WA, sounds like you all need to give 'em hell! I cannot speak for Washington (State) (At least now that Slade Gorton is gone...That Rebublican was one of the most anti-fish politicians the NW has ever seen! ). I can only speak currently on Oregon and the Fed. government, and I already have. Regarding the voting record of politicians in Washington State, do you have a state league of conservation voters? If you do, you could see a breakdown of how the different parties vote on different environment/nat. resources issues. Reading that report makes you a much more educated voter.

P.S. Not that it really makes any difference or that you should know.......I'm an independent.

Jacob:

Here's the facts: the USGS estimates that there are 10.4 billion barrels of oil harvestable in the ANWR. Sounds like a lot until you realize that during the 10 months ending October 2001 the US used an average of 19.6541 million barrels of oil per DAY. Thanks to my Windows calculator that tells me that there is roughly 528 days of oil available up there if we were to use ONLY Alaska oil. By conservative numbers the US imports 58% of its oil consumed, so let's use the Alaskan oil to replace imports. That takes us to just over two years worth of oil. Comparatively a short fix, but just long enough for Bush's oil buddies to make a killing.

Now, the other thing to consider is that in 1995 a ban on selling Alaska oil overseas was lifted. Current Alaskan delegates are against any future ban, so with that in mind are we sure that this oil will help the US situation? Oh, it'll help the oil companies who have been posting impressive profits gained from last years gas price inflation.

Also factor in the recent production increases from Russia. Their goal for the near future is to wean America from the OPEC teat, and with the low prices along with the instabilities in the Middle East, America appears to be very willing to accept Russian oil.

As a side note, I went to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge website several months ago to study this stuff and it talked about how there wasn't enough oil up there to make the expense of exploration worth it, and boasted pictures of mountains, wetlands, and prairies to show that the image spoonfed to us of a vast wasteland was incorrect. Today I went back to the site and those pictures are all but gone. The front page is this red, white, and blue patriotic thing urging voters to write Tom Daschle to encourage him to open the ANWR to "responsible development". The pictures section is now largely a group of shots of the Alaska Pipeline, refineries, and great expanses of nothing. Nice changeover. If you read the pdf file available on the site about how much oil is available up there, by the time they're done bloating the numbers the end up with over 40 billion barrels. Funny how a website representing a wildlife refuge can change so quickly and so drastically. I even like how they added "oil" to the meta keywords.

So there's the numbers. Hardly seems worth tearing that place apart just for 2 years worth of oil.

Getting back to the original post --

A lot of times when broad brush one-size-fits-all federal legislation is implemented in the real world at the local level, there is a lot of stupid BS that does nothing to furthur the intent of the original law - it only causes needless misery.

When I have looked beyond the surface and past the knee-jerk reactions, I usually see that the Bush Administration's main goal is to minimize the stupid BS - accomplish the environmental goal without screwing the economy any more than necessary....

SlabQuest,

Do you read the papers? Before 9/11, the editorial pages of papers across the nation were full of info blasting the Bush admin. and surprised at the magnitude of the rollbacks to environmental protections on the Bush agenda. The one issue I know details of best (because I'm in an organization that's fighting the administration) is water flows and dam removal. Bush isn't trying to cut out the BS, he's FULL of BS. How about his saying "We need fish friendly turbines" on the Snake River? There's no such thing! The engineers and biologists say it cannot be done (they ought to know, they've been trying to come up with them for decades). When discussing removing the dams, Bush won't even discuss it. When the alternative NMFS/Corpes plan came up in his budget, he appropriated $1. ONE DOLLAR!

That's not BS? Give me a break!

Dammit Dave,

After all the crapola I gave you over on the F4 thread, and then you deliver gems like that. Makes me feel bad.

Gore is bad, bud Bush is worse.
Locke is bad, but Carlson would've been worse.
And I'm through talking about simple Eyman and his simpler followers.

Man, and I thought I had until November to get all wound up.

Wow, this topic certainly "shook the behive". I am against all the liberal handouts the democrats want to give everyone. I believe that a person should get what they earn, not what they are handed because of their gender or race. That being said, could not vote for Bush because he made it very clear from the beginning that he cared very little for the health of our planet.

We are now in a place where many of our salmonid populations are at or near extinction, how much longer can we wait? For those against more Federal regulation, please take a look at where "local control" has gotten us. People are for the most part greedy, don't expect them to "voluntarily" implement actions that will benefit the environement at their own expense, thus the need for intervention. Our farm programs are a perfect example, CRP and CREP, WRP, etc. Although there are landowners that voluntarily take the steps to protect stream corridors, water quality, etc., the vast majority did (and have done) nothing until being paid a fee to do so.

Bush is a good "war president" I believe but sincerely doubt you will find many "salmon" voting for him. Thanks!

RM

How can you say Carlson would have been worse than Do-Absolutely-Nothing-About-Anything Locke? Carlson would have removed commercial and tribal netting from the state as well as fix numerous transportation problems. Locke will be remembered as the governer who chased a bat around in the Governer's Mansion.

Jacob:

Never NEVER use the campaign promise of a losing candidate in a "so and so would have done this if they would have won" scenerio. We all are painfully aware of the value of campaign promises once the person gets into office. They often seem to disappear right before our eyes, don't they?

Stew, go back to your corner and wimper yourself to sleep little boy. Had no intent of bringing that stewpid flotilla 4 crap over here. If you noticed there fella, it is all light hearted fun. Do you know what fun is Stew? And Stew, don't need you to agree with me at all. I can hold my own without charity support.

Fishermanonabike. Gore never won Florida. All the recounts showed that. Give it a rest. Be glad we have a little backbone in office.

Just don't blame Bush for the distruction of the environment yet. He will need 4 MORE YEARS at least.

So far I've deleted my reply to your "Gore never won Florida" comment three times. Quit antagonizing me.

We aren't blaming Boy George for the current problems. We are merely pointing out how his recent decisions have a strong likelihood of making things a whole lot worse. If you don't see that, then you've got your eyes closed.

I got one word for you Jacob...........gullible.

So you'd rather vote for a candidate who's shown time and time again that he has no interest in saving fish, has shown he will not do anything to save fish, and in fact, has interests with the tribes and commercials than a candidate who at least promises to do the right thing by the fish?

No, but Carlson didn't do the thing that required a spine, which would have been to ban the nets he, as Governor, would have had control over; the non-tribal commercial nets.

Instead he did the spineless thing. He proposed legislation that would ban ALL nets. Legislation that surely would have been shot down in the courts since state laws can't override Federal treaties. So we would have spent time, money and effort for no reason.

In my mind, promising something you know damn well you can't deliver makes you a liar.

Locke has lied numerous times too. Remember Locke pledging that there would be no tax increase for transportation unless it was approved by a vote of the people? If Carlson couldn't hold up his promise, what's the worst that would have happened, things would have remained the same. When Governer Locked ignores his promises, we get higher taxes. Go figure.

Well, you're not going to catch me defending Locke here, Jacob. I didn't vote for him in the last election. The term before that, when the state GOP decided that Ellen Craswell was the best they could offer, I voted for Locke to make sure Craswell wasn't in Olympia. Then after the Bern Shanks debacle at the WDFW and Locke's appiontment of Koenings as WDFW Director, Locke gave up any chance of me ever voting for him again.

But just because I won't vot for one liar doesn't mean I'll vote for the liar running against him.

I guess I can agree with you on that

Just out of curiosity, do you ever listen to the John Carlson show on KVI?

I was wondering how long it would take before people started whining about Bush.
All of a sudden this week, that's all I've heard.
You have to consider who we almost had in that office. Kind of funny how you didn't hear much about Gore leasing his "ranch" to a mining operation. You don't hear about how bad it screwed up the river downstream from it either.

I thought it was funny how he kept pushing auto makers to make more small cars, and yet everytime you seen him he was accompanied by a FLEET of suburban type SUV's.

Considering the state of the world right now, aren't you glad Bush is in that office? Clinton/Gore had ample oppurtunities to take action in their 8 years but didn't. There was countless attacks and threats and they sat on it.

I better not rip on Gore to bad on here, if it weren't for him inventing the internet we couldn't do this.

Sinker:

And this has to do with fisheries...how?

I can get into Boy George debates until the Earth reverses rotation but we need to at least TRY to keep this fishing/outdoors related.

DJ, you crack me up!
You post more NFR stuff than anyone (10 on this thread alone)and then you reprimand others?

The parent post is about President Bush and his environmental record during the scant 14 months that he's been president, with some other politician/environment discussion thrown in. If you all wanna talk about whether George W. Bush IN GENERAL is fit to be in the White House then I can tap that dance too. I'll give ya so much information about this goofball that it'll make your head spin, and the best you'll be able to come back with is "Well Gore was this" or "Gore would do that" or "Nader something else" instead of admitting that this "President" is doing his best to sell us all down the river. Environmentally, politically, internationally, corporately (is that a word?), every way you can imagine and a few you cannot.

I'd like to pretend that the contributions that you classify as NFR do have some value (note that all posts in this thread were on topic), so don't spoil it for me. But what I'm also saying is that a full-out, no holds barred debate on the Thief in Chief would spiral horribly out of control until it earns a rarely-administered (but likely earned) lock by the mods.

Call it fair warning. I've done my homework.

I believe he was making the point that when it comes to voting for a President, there are much more important issues to consider that what his policies on wild salmon are.

As for your second post, I doubt you could post anything about Bush that I don't already know or would make my head spin. Consider that a challenge if you wish, but I believe you'd be wasting your time.

Bernie you gonna hit me "upside the head" with your float like you threatened other people who don't agree with you?

All in good fun dude