Yayy, more asphalt, less trees. Oh well, Obama can reverse this policy after the inauguration and all the trees will miraculously return, pushing through the paved roads, regenerating from their stumps.
The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.
Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey’s negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation’s largest private landowner.
The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.
[From Forest Service Is Set to Allow the Paving of Logging Roads, Aiding Developer – washingtonpost.com]
Assholes. Destroying hunting and fishing land can’t make Western Republicans very happy either.
Obama sharply criticized Rey’s efforts during the presidential campaign, seizing on concerns that a landscape dotted with luxury homes would be less hospitable to Montanans accustomed to easy access to timberlands.
“At a time when Montana’s sportsmen are finding it increasingly hard to access lands, it is outrageous that the Bush administration would exacerbate the problem by encouraging prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off,” Obama said.