Dean Disheartened By Signing of 'Healthy Forests'

Dean Disheartened By Signing of 'Healthy Forests'
Wednesday December 3, 2003
By: Garrett Graff

'When President Bush signed his misnamed 'Healthy Forests Initiative' today, he did nothing to protect the communities most at risk from forest fires.'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 3, 2003

Contact: Press Office, 802-651-3200

Dean Disheartened By Signing of 'Healthy Forests'

BURLINGTON--Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean, M.D, commented today on President Bush's signing of the Healthy Forests Initiative.

"When President Bush signed his misnamed 'Healthy Forests Initiative' today, he did nothing to protect the communities most at risk from forest fires. This bill follows a skewed logic that will allow increased commercial logging on our precious public lands as a form of fire prevention. Instead of working with the landowners most at risk, this legislation amounts to a payout for large corporations and special interests. Once again, the Bush administration is hiding their true designs behind false, empty rhetoric.

"We should call this bill by a title that appropriately captures its intent: the 'Healthy Big Business Initiative,'" Governor Dean said.


http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10830&news_iv_ctrl=1301

I'm glad he said this seeing that the "cockroaches" in Congress passed this BS plan with little opposition.

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called the **** Doctrine ..

"Who do you believe, me or your own eyes?"

Supposedly a great environmental achievement, but it's little more than a logging bill. Of the 132,000 acres, 64% "includes a 'forever logging' provision that requires any future owner to harvest at least half of the annual net growth on the property. Such a protection for logging does not exist elsewhere in Vermont." Another 27% allows timber harvest as a "secondary use". Which leaves only 9.5% as truly preserved. Some environmental deal.

http://www.vtce.org/championlands.html

“Business leaders were especially impressed with the way Dean went to bat for them if they got snarled in the state's stringent environmental regulations. ... IBM, by far the state's largest private employer, says it got kid-gloves treatment. ‘We would meet privately with him three to four times a year to discuss our issues,’ says John O'Kane, manager for government relations at IBM's Essex Junction plant, ‘and his secretary of commerce would call me once a week just to see how things were going.’”

IBM Plant Biggest Polluter in Vermont. “IBM's Essex Junction chip plant discharged the most of any Vermont company, releasing 213,446 pounds of chemicals, or 36 percent of the 591,790 pounds released in the state in 1999. … IBM released 170,000 pounds of nitrates in 1999. The chemical is discharged to the Winooski River with the company's wastewater. That discharge is up from the company's 1998 nitrate release of 140,000 pounds.

Speaking of Forests:

Dean Appointed Two Ski Executives to Land Use Panel. “The Land Use Permitting Process Interim Committee, which is to report its findings to the House and Senate Natural Resources committees by Jan. 15, agreed Friday to examine ways of eliminating redundancy in the permit process and make it more efficient while maintaining some public participation. But the 13-member panel itself came under criticism over its makeup. The law creating the group called on the governor to appoint four of the members: one each representing environmentalists, cities and towns, businesses and the general public. Gov. Howard Dean appointed ski area executives both to the business and general public slots, a move that some environmentalists said left the panel stacked in favor of developers.”

”’I find it laughable that a representative of Killington is the governor's appointee to represent the general public,’ said Steve Holmes of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. ‘What I fear is that we're going to grease the process even more for businesses at the expense of citizens and at the expense of the environment.’ Committee member Sen. Richard McCormack, a Windsor County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, said of Spangler, ‘Clearly he's representing the ski industry.’ He said it ‘certainly would be as reasonable’ to appoint Elizabeth Courtney, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, to represent the ski industry. ‘It really doesn't pass the straight-face test,’ McCormack said.”


And speaking of being overly friendly to big buisness:

Nearly All Permits Approved—Most Without Hearings. “’After the post-C&S purge,’ says Kaplan, ‘the burden of proof for Act 250 permits switched from being on the applicants -- where it's supposed to be -- to being on the environmentalists. That's why 98% of the permit requests are approved and only 20% ever have hearings.’”

What a mess Dean left...

Vermont 2000 environmental ranking is #1