You can't put a price on silence
or solitude. You can't quantify the beauty of wilderness. And yet
that's not going to stop the Bush administration from trying to sell
off what should be the birthright of future generations.
In three days, this Friday, 110,000 acres of majestic Utah wild lands
go on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidders in the oil
and gas industry. It's a last-ditch effort by a corrupt administration
to further enrich its friends in the dirty fuels business. If they
succeed, they'll leave a wasteland behind them.
Never mind that we the People of the United States just rejected the
failed energy policy of "drill, baby, drill!" Never mind that once
industrialized, these precious lands will be marred for centuries.
Ravaging these places will put cash in the pockets of greedy
speculators, even if it won't solve our energy problems.
The miraculous thing about America though, is that we the People
have options. And one of those options is to take a corrupt and foolish
administration to court.
This morning I stood with my friends at the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) and Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) to announce an emergency
lawsuit aimed at stopping this wanton destruction of Utah wilderness.
Sharon Buccino, the head of NRDC's lands program, has been fighting the
Bush administration for eight years, holding the line against an
industrial juggernaut. She says it's illegal under federal law for the
Bureau of Land Management to just snap its fingers and sell off
national treasures. In its rush, BLM just ignored the rules.
Sharon's case will be among the last lawsuits NRDC ever files against
the Bush administration. Most of those lawsuits have been successful. I
don't know the odds on this one, but my fingers are crossed. It could
be our last chance to protect these irreplaceable lands.
Bush may be a lame duck president, but he can still quack.
Help stop Bush's giveaway of America's Redrock Wilderness.