Bush Blew Off Outdoor Enthusiasts
Rich Landers
The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington
January 23, 2004
President Bush's State of the Union speech appears to have made a clear
statement of his administration's commitment to the outdoors that support our
fish, wildlife and outdoor recreation.
He devoted less than one sentence to the nation's environment.
''I suppose the President didn't have anything good to say about the
administration's environmental record, so he didn't say anything at all,"
Dave Alberswerth, spokesman for The Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C.,
said in a telephone interview.
Considering the creativity of the Tuesday evening speech, you'd think the
President would have drummed up something to appease the millions of Americans
who care about the environment.
Perhaps he could have appealed to significant southern constituencies such
as tournament bass fishermen by noting that his policies are promoting
catch-and-release fishing.
While dismantling laws that have helped reduce mercury emissions into our
air and water, the administration almost simultaneously issued cautions last
year through the FDA and EPA that women and children should reduce fish
consumption.
Now that's conservation.
However, some hunting and fishing groups understand the direct relationship
between national environmental degradation and the prospects for less game and
fewer fish.
And they've been taking notice of some quietly enacted Bush administration
policies.
''In an incredible show of clout," the National Wildlife Federation
announced Tuesday, ''America's outdoor enthusiasts have convinced the White
House to reverse itself and abandon plans to rewrite the Clean Water Act
rules" regarding wetlands.
In addition to the federation, those groups included Ducks Unlimited, Trout
Unlimited and the Izaak Walton League.
''Last month, in direct response to hunter and angler demands, the Bush
administration called a halt to the rewriting plans that could have eliminated
Clean Water Act protections for up to 60 percent of the nation's waters," the
federation said.
Unfortunately, new enforcement guidelines that revoke Clean Water Act
protections for wetlands and streams remain in place, federation officials
said.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers - the
agencies that enforce the Clean Water Act - still have active orders for field
staff to remove protections for up to 20 million wetland acres.
Sportsmen must continue to make the case that roughly 80 percent of the
country's wildlife is associated with wetlands.
It wouldn't hurt if birdwatchers and hikers joined the chorus.
Nobody has to feel disrespectful or unpatriotic about drawing the line at
no net loss of wetlands.
Development has already taken more than its share.
The nation has only half the wetlands that graced this country 200 years
ago.
Last month, the Christian Science Monitor reported another story indicating
that even the Bush administration's foundation has a few weaknesses for
environmental issues.
''Perhaps no example is more poignant than a recent petition signed by
hundreds of gun clubs - on behalf of untold thousands of members - telling
Dale Bosworth, Forest Service chief, to keep in place Clinton-era protection
of old-growth forests, two-thirds of which lie in Alaska," the newspaper
reported.
''The response took me by surprise, especially in Texas," the Monitor was
told by Greg Petrich, the petition organizer, who is also a registered Alaska
Republican and former commercial fisherman."
The president, however, did not flinch in this case.
Last month, the administration removed roadless rule protection from 9.3
million acres of the Tongass National Forest despite significant opposition to
potential logging development.
Trout Unlimited, with its large membership of suburban Republicans who love
to fly-fish, have questioned the Bush administration's opening of pristine
public lands to natural-resource development, the newspaper said.
Here again, the results have been minimal - so far.
Animal rights groups, in the frivolous way to which we are accustomed,
tried to make headlines out of Vice President Cheney's involvement in a group
that shot hundreds of pen-raised pheasants released near their blind on a
Texas game farm last month.
In covering the story, the Dallas Morning News sought comment from Ted
Kerasote, author of ''Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt," a highly
regarded book about hunting ethics.
Kerasote said he's less offended by the game farm hunt than by Bush-Cheney
policies that have opened more public lands to oil and gas drilling, to the
detriment of game herds and sportsmen.
In October, Field & Stream magazine, a publication that supported Bush's
election on a gun-related theme, published Kerasote's scathing investigation
of Bush-Cheney energy policies and their impact on wildlife.
Grumbling in the ranks of sportsmen also caught the attention of the
Washington Post, which recently reported on Bush administration policies that
are making domestic energy production a national security priority.
''Rumbles of renewed resource extraction along the (Rocky Mountain) Front
are echoing across the country - with prime hunting and fishing habitat coming
under threat in the federal forests, plains and wetlands of Alaska, Wyoming,
Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, New Mexico and elsewhere," the newspaper
reported.
''The gathering din has begun to worry - and, in some cases, infuriate -
America's fishermen and hunters, many of whom are Republicans who voted for
Bush. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates about 47 million Americans
fish or hunt.
''This is a community that is slow to anger, but once they get lit it is a
real hot burn," said Chris Woods, conservation director for Trout Unlimited,
which has 130,000 members, 64 percent of whom say they are Republicans.
''You are seeing this now on the Rocky Mountain Front. This is one of the
Holy Grail places."
The Post pointed out, ''When it comes to politics, a long-standing lament
among American sportsmen is that Democrats want your guns and Republicans want
your land."
But for now, the President doesn't want to talk about it.
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