Karl Rove at the headgates
For those naive enough to believe that the Bush Administration can be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to issues like environmental policy, and, more recently, develop a fair and coherent policy for upgrading our energy infrastructure, would do well to read this editoral from the Oregonian. In part, it notes
The Bush administration's high-level interest in the Klamath Basin water crisis has carried all along more than a whiff of politics, discernable even amid the stench of belly-up salmon.
Yet it is still disturbing to see now the extent that political considerations and poll results were introduced to influence crucial decisions on scarce water in the Southern Oregon basin.
The Wall Street Journal recently detailed a January 2002 meeting in which Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, delivered a presentation to 50 top U.S. Interior Department managers making it clear the administration expected them to side with agricultural interests in the Klamath.
Of course, this wasn't the first or last time a White House has played politics with a controversial natural resources issue. But the depiction of Rove giving a Power Point presentation to Interior bureaucrats, flashing poll results and speaking of the urgent need to protect the Republicans' farm "base" is distressing to all of us still naively hoping that the Klamath crisis will be resolved using the best science.
Add to this revelation Cheney's secret energy meetings with oil and energy executives, Bush's ties with the likes of Kenneth Lay, the manipulation of electric transmission in California by Enron and others, all in the guise of improving our energy infrastructure, and you get the idea that maybe what we need here is an independent oversight committee to keep watch over the White House. If this is the kind of energy policy reform Bush is thinking about, then God help us all.
For those naive enough to believe that the Bush Administration can be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to issues like environmental policy, and, more recently, develop a fair and coherent policy for upgrading our energy infrastructure, would do well to read this editoral from the Oregonian. In part, it notes
The Bush administration's high-level interest in the Klamath Basin water crisis has carried all along more than a whiff of politics, discernable even amid the stench of belly-up salmon.
Yet it is still disturbing to see now the extent that political considerations and poll results were introduced to influence crucial decisions on scarce water in the Southern Oregon basin.
The Wall Street Journal recently detailed a January 2002 meeting in which Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, delivered a presentation to 50 top U.S. Interior Department managers making it clear the administration expected them to side with agricultural interests in the Klamath.
Of course, this wasn't the first or last time a White House has played politics with a controversial natural resources issue. But the depiction of Rove giving a Power Point presentation to Interior bureaucrats, flashing poll results and speaking of the urgent need to protect the Republicans' farm "base" is distressing to all of us still naively hoping that the Klamath crisis will be resolved using the best science.
Add to this revelation Cheney's secret energy meetings with oil and energy executives, Bush's ties with the likes of Kenneth Lay, the manipulation of electric transmission in California by Enron and others, all in the guise of improving our energy infrastructure, and you get the idea that maybe what we need here is an independent oversight committee to keep watch over the White House. If this is the kind of energy policy reform Bush is thinking about, then God help us all.
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