It's very interesting how in many US States, the Environment Department is called the Fish and Wildlife Service. Based on this story, maybe they should be in separate divisions. Because one person, Dick Cheney, apparently like to hunt for ducks without a license (and also for humans, literally) but hates beasts of the sea, especially the big ones.
Congress is trying to force the Bush Administration to adopt rules which the government's own scientists at NOAA -- the official weather office -- state are threatening the right whale, an endangered species if ever there was one. Fast moving ships can injure or kill the whales so the argument is for reduced speed limits in or near ports.
But as has been so typical of Bush-Cheney, the veep is saying there is "no hard evidence" that lowering the speed limits would make a difference.
Yeah. The same way Cheney objects to hard emission caps which would reduce America's greenhouse gases, preferring "voluntary" rules. Howdy, y'all, welcome to the Lone Star State where the grass is green and the skies are as opaque as waxed paper. There are voluntary rules in Texas and there are smog alerts in Houston almost every day. They have tough rules in California and smog days in Los Angeles every year are a handful at best.
What goes for the air also apparently applies to the sea. If Cheney lived in a manor on the ocean instead of a ranch in Wyoming, he'd say he has the right to flush the toilet without having the waste go through a sewage treatment plant even if everyone else in the city has to use the municipal facility. Could it be that his stake in Halliburton has something to do with his objections -- that it'd make things difficult for the favoured no-bid-contractor to warmonger Bush?
Why is Cheney so content to see one of the great species go extinct for short-term gain? How about the passenger pigeon which was hunted into extinction in just fifty years -- from 2 billion to zero?
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