Bush Crony's Law To Turn Forests Into Housing Subdivisions

LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears ready to push through a change in Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.

Mark 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 complained of being blindsided when Rey negotiated the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.

Read the full story here

OR

Read HuffPost blogs and stories on other Bush midnight regulations:

::Environmentalist Pranks Bush Administration, Saves Utah Land -- But Needs Money
::Leo W. Gerard: Bush's Midnight Regulations Value Profits More Than People
::Robert Redford: Stopping Bush's Destruction Of Our Environment
::Colorado Governor Acts To Delay Bush Midnight Regulations

Comments

[Gasparilla]

I fully agree with the Bush administration culpability on this. But, we also have to address overpopulation in this country and the undisputed fact that immigration is the major component of our population growth. We are looking at a population of 400 million before 2050, the majority of that due to immigration and the higher birth rates of immigrants in this country. And please don't ask me what immigration has to do with this. I just explained it.

[Hayduke1]

"local governments complained of being blindsided when Rey negotiated the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner."

Funny how the Bushies and all the other conservatives intent on defiling every last bit of our public lands love to talk about "local control" over land use decisions. Yeah, except when it doesn't suit their purposes.

[JulieSA]

This story is a snapshot of one of the largest potential changes in land use in recent US history, and it's happened just in the last few years. This is a much larger issue than "Bush helping a crony build some roads through this one forest". If you are interested in conservation, you should know that all the huge US timber companies are selling off millions of acres of timberland to satisfy their responsibility to the stockholders. Some are doing this unwillingly.

Some of the land will be kept in timber production. Where they can get more for the land by selling it for homesites, the companies are doing just that, and that's what's happened in this story.

Land trusts like the Nature Conservancy are desperately trying to buy as much of the land as possible, but we're talking about millions of acres.

Frankly, If HuffPo were really interested in conservation, they would get away from the shallow "I hate Bush" posts, and get into some meaty issues like how this massive timber selloff, or the Farm Bill, have a huge effect on conservation.

[BRlongview]

Good information, thank you, Julie. I too agree that the Huffpo green stories are a little light on substance. But this is not set up to be a "green" site. Like almost every organization today, Huffpo has a "green" component, but i don't think their mission is to push green issues. For better or worse, it's just not a priority here. But there are other sites and publications that do dig deeper out there.

[Lpeter]

I think the Huffingtonpost should have a tab called enviorment so we can really converse and read about the real issues going on like this and so many others. And have Blogs from the National Resource Defense Council and the Enviormental Action Fund.

Groups like that are really making the difference and the need all the support and exposure they can get.

[RTIII]

They do, it's called "greed" - oops, I mean, "green."
.

[RTIII]

YOU can become a blogger here and write about it YOURSELF. I'll bet you that HufPo WILL take your stories...
.

[LeLoup]

Doesn't Mark Rey knows how problematic and infinitely disagreeable his professional life could become if he persist in doing that?

[AtomiClash]

that story, but especially that picture, make me want to vomit.

[JulieSA]

That picture was taken in Canada. Don't EVER think that HuffPo photos are accurate portrayals of the situation.

Credit for that to Arctamus, downthread.

[JulieSA]

That picture was taken in Canada. See commenter Arctamus below.

[LiberalBuzz]

I just cannot wrap my self around the idea of a president who is so driven by giving greedy people carte blanche to people who no interest in being responsible to the world around them but only in profit.

Isn't that what has gotten us into this financial mess to begin?

PURE GREED?

NO Corporate responsibility to the people, just investors?

Greed will kill this country as surely as if we simply all followed Jim Jones and drank the kool aid.

WHEN will we get passed the point of actually believing that Greed Is Good?

Bush should be in prison and not allowed to sign a single more "rule" that destroys this country.

[ymuttley]

Didn't that company bow out? I heard they did on the news this morning

[MNinWI]

Hope that is true. GW has sold his soul many years ago. I don't think he knows or cares what's right or wrong.

[alguien]

what soul was that?

he must have stolen one from someone else.

[Arctamus]

As a Canadian, I just want to chime in that the photo above is a housing development in Markham, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, and appears in the Wikipedia entry for 'suburb'.

Sometimes I think the worst thing to ever happen to North America was its vastness of space. Like goldfish, humans seem to expand to fit their environment. Big box, big people, big SUVs, big houses.

[JulieSA]

Ha. You're right. So that's where those silly interns get the photos for this place.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

It has ALL been made possible by the exploitation of the automobile--like nowhere else on earth. The ethic of BIGNESS unfortunately is no limited to North Americans; it's just that they coopted a litany of narcissistic justifications for this expression......; likely it's to "compensate" for SMALLNESS in coporal regions traditionally NOT open to display.....!!!

[waverly]

Bush knows not what he speaks. He has no idea why his favorite president "Teddy" is so honored.

[Bearangaria]

Wait...I thought we can't keep/fill/or sell the houses we have?

[BearsLeft]

Kinda puts the Mariana Trench designation into perspective, doesn't it?

[RightWingMarine]

If Plum Creek is building on their own land what business is it of yours? Either Plum Creek owns the land and if so they should be free to do with it as they wish provided their actions don't cause harm to your land i.e. building a dam on their land that turns yours into a lake. This is about property rights either we own our property or we don't.

[HowietheScreamer]

Cool, so if I buy the house next to yours I can use it for toxic waste disposal and you'd be cool with that?

[RightWingMarine]

so long as your waste didn't pollute my property by what right would I have to tell you what to do with your property?

[KillTheMessenger]

I happen to own a piece of land in my county. It is designated as residential property. I so would love to turn it into an eight story office building to get tons of rent for it... too bad I can't.

How is this different from this case? Just because you own land does not mean you can do whatever you want.

[RightWingMarine]

If you can't do what you want with this land (provided you are not causing harm to another with your actions) is it really yours? Seems to me that if you have to get permission from another body to take build something on this land that it really isn't yours.

[frantaylor]

Maybe you've never heard of 'zoning', there are very strict laws concerning the things that you can do on your own property.

Recent Supreme Court decisions and years of 'eminent domain' precedent indicate that, NO, you do not have absolute right to your land as property.

Don't get your panties in a knot over losing a 'right' that you never had in the first place.

[RightWingMarine]

this goes to the heart of my argument. Either we own our land or the govt does and they permit us to do what they please with their land. Eminent Domain is accounted for in the Constitution and was intended to be used only for the needs of the nation (building forts and such) Zoning laws are not accounted for in the Constitution and have been used by by some to force their will onto others.

[JScott]

But what's more important saving valuable forest/wilderness/timberland/ag land/range land for public use for every one or create more COSTLY urban sprawl that the owners don't in anyway want nor expect to pay for the NEGATIVE externalities they cause. We'd have an absolute right to do as we wanted but only if theres 1 billion people on the planet not 6 billion. Grow up!!!!

[dctackett]

It all kind of boils down to a basic concept of which I will try to phrase in a way that is most understandable.

No one actually "owns" land, it's not actually "yours"... it is not OF you, like your arm. You are temporary, and everything that you do affects everyone and everything else directly or indirectly.

No land is actually seperate from other land... even when you go to the ocean, the land is actually still there, it's just under the water. When you dump oil onto the ground of what you consider "your" land, it will be there when you die, it will also be flowing through the water supply and ground.

Think of owning land as renting it from the universe (which includes you and everything else)

[BRlongview]

I think there used to be a few cultures who thought that way... once upon a time... living in this territory. I'm pretty sure our culture did its best to kill or silence them all.

[JScott]

Stupid stupid idea.

Hopefully in Ca. at least it was addressed with a bill recently signed by Arnold to compact and contiguouize urban uses, developers signed on because it offered regulatory relief and it was touted as a partial solution to global warming-less driving, not only that there are water supply issues that are being exacerbated by increasing population ( :( ) and drought. And there is some 'breathing room' with the housing slump.

[hellinabucket]

Heck'u'va job Bushie, putting a timber lobbyist in charge of our National Forests, another fox at the henhouse. Owning property in and next to a National Forest holding (DBNF) I will fight to the end to protect it and other National Forest properties. Somehow National Forests got twisted into rewarding commercial interests over individual citizens' rights/oversight & species' habitat. Who cares about some fish, owls, bats, even mussels, over people? "There's lots of trees!" "Trees grow jobs!" "Run outta places to mine & log, how about here?" "Gotta have a place to store all that coal ash!" They just will not be happy til they've developed, bulldozed and paved over every square inch! Any way to make public lands inaccessible to the average citizen. Then they'll say, oh we've got polluted water & air, poisoned land, species' extinction, low quality of life, chronic disease, invasive species, flooding, etc., etc., its FUBAR'd, BUT WE NEVER SAW IT COMING, HOW COULD WE HAVE KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN?

[FreedomAgain]

And they will profit from all those bad things happening as well. Bush's pals have enough money to buy private forests for their pleasure. They don't care if the average citizen has access to a natural environment, only greed and profit. They profit from the damage, and the later effects of the damage.