Thread: (NSR) Bush to open National Parks to Oil & Gas Drilling (sign petition here)

Once again, Bush and cronies are at it to give out thousands of acres of oil and drilling leases in the NATIONAL PARKS and USFS land. See message below, link and use template provided to send message. Comment period only lasting for about 2 weeks.
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Message from NRDC:
Your online action is urgently needed to save some of America's last wild forests from Bush administration plans for clearcutting and drilling. Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/tongass/takeaction.asp
and here: http://www.savebiogems.org/redrock/t...p=2&item=52252
and here: http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowsto...p=2&item=52209
right away and send a message telling the Forest Service to keep untouched wildlands in our national forests closed to roadbuilding and destruction.

Four years ago, we helped persuade President Clinton to enact the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects 58 million wild acres in our national forests that do not yet have roads cut through them. From Alaska's Tongass rainforest to the Appalachian Trail, from the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevada, this historic measure put some of America's greatest sanctuaries for wildlife and for people off limits to road building, logging and drilling so that their timeless beauty would remain untouched
forever.

The roadless rule was the most popular conservation measure in history. Americans flooded the Forest Service with more than 1.5 million messages of support.

But today, the Bush administration is preparing to override the will of the American people. It has announced plans to eliminate the roadless rule and strip some of America's last wild forests of their special status and protection.

The administration's agenda is no secret. It is lining up massive timber and energy sales that will send an armada of bulldozers and chainsaws, as well as oil and gas rigs, into our last untrammeled forests.

We must not surrender our forests without a fight. We need millions of Americans to speak out once again in defense of our wild forests.

The Bush administration is taking public comments until September 14th on its disastrous plan to reopen our wild forests to logging. The Forest Service needs to hear from people like you, people who know that nature is a fragile gift we hold in trust for future generations.

Please forward this message to as many of your friends and family as possible and tell them to speak out, too. For the sake of our forests, please make your voice heard today.

Sincerely,

John H. Adams
President
Natural Resources Defense Council
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org

MORE:
The Bush administration is finalizing a gas-drilling plan that would send roads and drill pads slicing through southern Colorado's HD Mountains, the only remaining stretch of the San Juan Basin untouched by energy development. Covering 40,000 acres, the old-growth ponderosa pine forests of the HD range provide habitat for elk, black bears, northern goshawks and mule deer. Rich archeological sites in the area date back 1,000 years.

The administration's coalbed methane plan calls for drilling 79 wells and constructing compressor plants and 36 miles of roads in this unspoiled lowland forest in violation of the "roadless rule," which is designed to protect the wildest areas of our national forests from development. For only a tiny amount of gas, the project would decimate nearly 90 percent of the HD Mountains' old-growth stands, leave mountain streams cloudy with sediment, disturb archeological sites and uproot wildlife.

Also: FOREST SERVICE PROPOSES BRIDGER-TETON LEASES
In a separate breach of the roadless rule, the Forest Service intends to hand over 100,000 acres in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest for oil and gas drilling. Auctioning of the area in Greater Yellowstone, which contains wild roadless forest and important wildlife migration corridors, is due to begin in October -- though forest officials have never conducted a thorough assessment of the environmental impacts of the proposal. NRDC and other groups have formally objected to the proposed leases and will consider legal action if the Forest Service moves forward with its plan. We'll keep you posted on these efforts.

Hey, if it lowers the price of gas to $0.85 a gallon, I'll have a ton more cash to go skiing, and I'm all for it!

FYI... the Roadless Rule covers National Forest land not National Parks. Still, I encourage everyone to participate in the public comment period... unless you favor the American tax payer subsidizing the logging the last wildlands in our national forest system.

For those you who are not liberal weenies, you might enjoy was this GOP groups has to save about the rule... http://www.repamerica.org/opinions/advocacy/49.html

Squirrel99 -

done, done, and done. Thanks for the heads up.

-dg

One issue to be aware of regarding wilderness designations (particularly of import in the case of the proposed Redrock wilderness)

Once it's designated as a wilderness, no motorized or mechanized access will be permitted. This does include mountain bikes.

The Roadless rule was less secure, but it does provide a middle ground. I believe that efforts should be spent to maintain the roadless rule set rather than large scale wilderness designations.

Done. Thanks for bringing that to our attention and making it so easy.

Originally posted by Telenater
One issue to be aware of regarding wilderness designations (particularly of import in the case of the proposed Redrock wilderness)

Once it's designated as a wilderness, no motorized or mechanized access will be permitted. This does include mountain bikes.

The Roadless rule was less secure, but it does provide a middle ground. I believe that efforts should be spent to maintain the roadless rule set rather than large scale wilderness designations.

Nate, some good points, but at this time most of this land isn't seriously being considered for inclusion in the wilderness system. True, the roadless areas in the greater Tahoe region area (and from what I hear, some great mountain biking--think South Lake) are included in the California Wild Heritage Act, but that bill has sat idle in the Senate for a year.

Bottom line, 2/3rds of the National Forest System is roaded, so ya'll have plenty of fire roads to grind up and skid down. No need to confuse the issue.

My point is that the Roadless areas created a useful middle ground between federal land with a "comercial" purpose and Wildernes. The Wilderness designation is very restrictive and is I believe being overused as a (sometimes) needed mode of preventing extractive industries use of federal land. Roadless areas accomplished much the same while allowing for flexibility in future land management. Admittedly the flexibility is coming back to bite us right now, but in the long run I believe it is better to strictly limit road construction (and thus access) than to prevent any construction of permanent facilities in perpetuity (ie. lets put up a hut in the Klamath national forest right near the border of the Marble Mountains....)

Done. Hope those things actually go somewhere.