OK, now the Bush administration wants to exploit national park lands for the benefit of industry.
The Department of Interior is reviewing the National Park Service rules and wants to alter the service’s primary mission (LA Times):
“They are changing the whole nature of who we are and what we have been,” said J.T. Reynolds, superintendent of Death Valley National Park. “I hope the public understands that this is a threat to their heritage. It threatens the past, the present and the future. It’s painful to see this.”
You need to read the article. The potential changes would liberalize rules that prohibited mining and take away managers’ ability to use laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act to oppose new developments in parks.
According to current policies, when park officials determine an activity may lead to impairment, officials are authorized to ban the activity. The proposed changes would alter the definition of impairment from “an impact to any park resource or value [that] may constitute an impairment” to one that can be proved to “permanently and irreversibly adversely [affect] a resource or value.” Critics say the new definition would set a standard that is impossibly high.
The proposed rules would also liberalize light and noise regulations in the parks that would kill the night sky and peace and quiet for wildlife and park-goers alike. You could expect low-flying tour planes and snowmobiling in all parks. Oh yes, and cell towers too.
Allegedly, these proposed changes were intended to be concepts for the purpose of debate and are no longer in play. Yet a park service supervisor participating in the review rejected the assertion.
I believe government has a strong role in promoting industry and commerce, but giving away (or even selling) rights to OUR rare landscapes is going too far! We just gave energy companies billions of our tax dollars, now they’re wanting to give mining companies our national parks? Talk about corporate welfare.
The bottom line is that I just don’t trust these guys anymore.