SOS: Rt. 53

Lake County's Public Works and Transportation Committee yesterday decided that we should waste more time and energy stopping the Rt. 53 extension from bulldozing the heart of the county. A full turnout of environmental leaders urged them to stay focused on more realistic transportation solutions. But Talbett, Maine and Carter, egged on by Schmidt, joined Stolman and O'Kelly to spurn our pleas. Thanks to newcomers Bush and Wilke for opposing unleashing this controversy on the public one more time, and to Carey and Carlson for their calls for more courageous leadership.

Our local officials seem to think that voters will forgive them for ignoring environmental solutions, and playing politics with transportation. But Obama can't launch a green economy if our elected local officials continue to resort to 40 year old, inefficient, polluting boondoggles in the 21st century. We need local change for our environment>>.

Meet The Press

Somebody tell Tom Brokaw that there is no "Arctic National Wildlife Reserve." That term, which he has used repeatedly, describes a store of something to be used later. In Alaska, the public lands where the caribou calve, home to the Gwich'in people, are officially named the "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." The word "refuge," in contrast to the word "reserve," aptly describes a land crucially relied upon by living things for their survival.

Mr. Brokaw's verbal slip betrays his disregard for these lands, and Maria Bartiromo's dismissal of the 2,000 acre oil extraction footprint there reveals their ignorance. The true impact of oil industry activities will spread out across the coastal plain.

Brokaw and Bartiromo should refrain from oil industry propaganda, and get the facts right before presuming to decide this issue for the American people. Considering the relentless oil industry ads aired by NBC during Meet The Press>>, which paint oil drilling as environmentally benign, it appears that Mr. Brokaw's professional integrity has been bought.

So the Bush administration has just listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They apparently had no intention of listing the bear (and have listed fewer species than any presidential administration ever) and were taken to court a few years ago by environmental groups. Enviros won the case, but, again, Bush had no intention of putting the polar bear on any list.

Finally, the green groups went back to court and the judge gave Bush till last week to do the listing. So at the 11th hour, the polar bear was listed--sort of. Apparently, Bush (as usual) thinks he can rewrite any law he doesn't like. In this case, he and his henchman, Dirk Kempthorn, say that the ESA protection doesn't include any protection that might reduce global warming or stop oil drilling, whether that helps the polar bear to survive or not.

Time for a new president.