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Dave Skinner, do you really want to go down this road of who BHA is and what they represent?
I guess so, since about the only thing you seem to shoot, is your mouth, and you aren't even real good at that.
First off, BHA, in some cases, DOES represent all hunters.
As a non-paid volunteer and Chairman of the Wyoming chapter, I will give you a few examples of some cases where BHA absolutely represents all hunters.
1. WYBHA has been a financial supporter of Wyomings largely successful AccessYes program. We have donated over $1k to the program the last 2 years to increase hunting and fishing access to private and public lands. ALL sportsmen, both R and NR utilize this program extensively. The hunting and fishing on the areas opened via the program, truly are world class.
2. The Wyoming Chapter also worked with the GF and GF Commission to pass one of the most restrictive aircraft and drone regulations regarding hunting in the entire United States. We were smart about his legislation and were careful to include language that actually made it legal to use aircraft for transportation into landlocked State and Federal lands. Prior to removing the 24 hour regulation, there was no way to legally fly into landlocked State and hunt it (illegal to camp on State lands in Wyoming, another good reason to never transfer Federal lands to the State). The regulation does not allow any scouting by any aircraft (drones included in definition of aircraft) from August-January.
3. Another BHA board member found a discrepancy in the way the Wyoming LQ elk drawing worked a few years ago. Resident hunters were being shorted Limited Quota elk hunting permits to the tune of about 300 tags. We worked with the Department and as a result, over 300 residents received LQ elk tags, that would not have. Plus, we again worked with the Departments drawing specialists and amended the regulations regarding the draw process to keep that from ever happening again.
4. Adopted the Snowy Range Alpine lakes trail system on the MBNF. Annually we inventory and clean/repair the trail system.
5. Successfully stopped the Bonander Land Exchange that would have cost all recreationists, including hunters and fishermen, access to over 5K acres of public lands in the Laramie Range. The area in question, elk unit 7, is in one of the premier elk hunting units in the State. I would consider us stopping this land exchange, where we were giving up 1031 acres of State for 295 acres of private, and maintaining access to another 5K+ a win for ALL sportsmen. Further, we are working with the Legislature in the interim, to see if we can make some changes to how land is "valued" in these exchanges and make recreation and access to other public lands more of a priority.
6. Cleaned up 11 truckloads of trash on a piece of BLM near Laramie where, I'm sure many card carrying NRA members, shoot up their old TV sets, computers, bottles, etc. That area was about to shut down and the only reason its still open to public shooting is because we've partnered with the BLM to do an annual cleanup. Otherwise, it would be closed.
Not bad for a bunch of fern feeling, self serving, volunteers who don't do anything for, or represent, all sportsmen.
I'm not only proud of the work the WYBHA Chapter has done, I'm proud of the fact that there is a group out there that does support, and represent, the broad base of "Sportsmen"...not species specific, not just hunters, not just fishermen. SPORTSMEN.
Those are just a handful of items that the WYBHA Chapter has done since it was organized 3-4 years ago. I'll put the WY Chapter and Board up against the best Sportsmen found anywhere in the world, with their woodsmanship, advocacy, hunting, fishing abilities.
They flat get it done in the woods, at the legislature, as volunteers, and as productive members of society. They are an asset for all Sportsmen, and deserve a lot more credit and thanks than they'll ever get.
Oh, and if you want to compare trophy rooms or freezers sometime, to see who is and isn't a sportsman Dave...I'm your huckleberry.
We'll separate the bullchit from the buckwheat, and men from the boys, in short order...
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Well, I see I've succeeded in upsetting the BHA members here. And I hope I've helped others to make an informed decision whether or not to join BHA.
As for Kimber, here's something else fun, BHA board member Ryan Busse, Kimber's marketing VP.
In 2004, Busse hit the national radar in 2004 for being featured in a Scripps and other "mainstream media" articles about a “sportsman” rebellion against Bush 2 – you know, in favor of that great sportsman, John Kerry. While being VP of marketing for Kimber? Yep, seriously. There was a little backlash from that, but nothing on the order of the Smith and Wesson sellout.
Since then, he's been four years chairman of Montana Conservation Voters, the state arm of the League of Conservation Voters, one of the biggest enviro-political organizations in America.
Busse recently wrote a “clean energy” joint column “endorsed by representatives of Montana Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Montana chapter, Montana Environmental Information Center, Alternative Energy Resources Organization, Montana Trout Unlimited, Climate Solutions, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment Montana, Rural Votes and Repower Montana.”
So, pretty much a Green, a good fit for a green group funded with green money by green billionaires.
That's fine. It's fine being for "roadless backcountry" at the expense of all other public land uses -- which is in fact the agenda of BHA funder Hans Wyss.
And I guess it's just fine to support the environmental part of the political agenda, and vote to give power to the Democrats, who aren't exactly the greatest supporters of either gun rights, hunting, or America's strength in the world, right?
Yep, that's just fine.
Up hills slow,
Down hills fast
Tonnage first and
Safety last.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Must not have liked the magazine. It's fine being for "roadless backcountry" at the expense of all other public land uses.... Dave, seeing as how roadless areas comprise a small percentage of public lands, and "all other uses" occur on the majority of public lands, I think you're guilty of hyperbole. In other words, that's a crock. Do you think the percentage of public lands maintained as roadless needs to be zero? Sure sounds like it. And I guess it's just fine to support the environmental part of the political agenda, and vote to give power to the Democrats, who aren't exactly the greatest supporters of either gun rights, hunting, or America's strength in the world.... Dave, did you get fired from the bakery for stealing inventory? Because that right there takes the cake, LOL!!! Are you telling me that keeping a small percentage of our public lands roadless gives power to democrats, and will lead to the loss of gun rights, hunting, and the decline of America?? Seriously Dave. Did you make that up all by yourself, or did you have help? PS,you left out "apple pie," and the only thing you've upset is common sense.
A wise man is frequently humbled.
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Goshandgolly, Smokethrower.
Zero acres? Not exactly. There are places where building roads makes no sense. I'm fine with that. "Roadless areas" under the Clinton rule alone are 58 million acres, out of 191 million acres under Forest Service. This was done because of solid Congressional opposition to new wilderness designations, very strong and Clinton couldn't go that way. Instead, we're talking simple lack of roads as the only criteria for putting lands into a bureaucratic, "de facto" regime that is wilderness without the capital W.
In effect, it was an enormous expansion of lands managed as wilderness with no regard for actual "outstanding" character as Congress intended.
The national total for "wilderness" as in "roadless" in addition to undesignated, now practically wilderness, is 109 million acres. So, a full fourth of USFS is "roadless" bureaucratic wilderness, plus designated areas of about 39 million more -- so 45 percent of the Forest Service estate is already single-use wilderness that prohibits any kind of modern (as in effective) management techniques (including firefighting) or modern-era recreation using any modern or mechanized implements.
That's not a small percentage, especially when you consider that over 90 percent of recreation visits are "non-wilderness" in method or means. Flipped over, that's 45 percent for the exclusive recreational use of only ten percent at most of all forest users. And that's not enough of the multiple-use pie? Really, smokescreen?
Half of the "legitimate" wilderness is in Alaska, 56 million acres designated over the howling objections of Alaska's delegation to Washington by freshly-unelected James Earl Carter and a Democratic Congress. I lived in Alaska when that happened, and people were P I S S E D at Carter's highhandedness. You know, the same pro-gun Jimmah Caddah that forced the NRA to get serious about gun rights?
I guess as long as the government leaves you your smokepole, or something else to smoke there in Colorado, it's all good for you. Fine.
Up hills slow,
Down hills fast
Tonnage first and
Safety last.
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I've read all your posts and asked a very simple straight forward question. I have not received a satisfactory reply in any of your following posts. I'm OK with everything you report to dislike/distrust/hate in your last post. We need fewer roads through our NF, not more. I don't go to NF land to see 4-wheelers, oil/gas, mining or any of the other "multi-uses" you seem to favor/champion. In fact, I'm not fond of finding cattle/sheep 5 miles back into the NF either.
One thing this thread and your ramblings have convinced me is that I need to look into BHA and consider joining. Your innuendo, inference, and paranoia scares the hell out of me. I'll pass on your version of multi-use - pass the wilderness areas please......
Last edited by bwinters; 03/14/17.
Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Dave, I don't buy your numbers. I'll need to do some ciphering and get back to you. I can say this--45% of public lands are not off limits to mechanized use. That's fuzzy math son. Voodoo economics.
And by the way, smoke this.
A wise man is frequently humbled.
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Smokepole,
Dave Skinner is a liar and doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Here are the facts, not Dave's "alternative facts", otherwise known as lies. I guess by definition being a "free lance" writer, he assumes he's free to make up his own facts???
Anyway, the total number of acres controlled by the Federal Government in the United States is 700 million. Of all federal land, 109,127,689 acres are designated wilderness. Keep in mind that 56,572,549 acres of that total wilderness designation is in Alaska, another 14,000,000 and change in California. So over 70,000,000 is in those 2 states...roughly 65% of all designated wilderness is in 2 states. Dave and his fuzzy math would have you believe the West is all tied up in wilderness, not even close to anything factual.
The BLM controls about 248 million acres, the USFS about 193 million acres.
Of the 193 million acres that the USFS controls, only 18% of those lands are in designated wilderness, or around 34.7 million acres.
That leaves about 160 million acres of FS lands in the US open to multiple use.
The BLM has 8.7 million acres of designated wilderness, leaving a cool 239.3 million under multiple use mandates...or 97% of it open to multiple use.
Dave seems to think that the only federal managing agency with wilderness designation is the FS, that's not true either.
Its funny watching some dude with a tinfoil hat, writing from his Moms basement, trying to BS the players...
Isn't going to happen.
Last edited by BuzzH; 03/15/17.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Buzz, we've tussled in the past but I'm impressed by your knowledge and agree with your take on this issue. Plus-one.
Huge public land fan here. My whole life has been spent in the West and on public land. I'm staying out of this thread because the notion of privatizing makes me see red.
The CENTER will hold.
Reality, Patriotism,Trump: you can only pick two
FÜCK PUTIN!
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Campfire Outfitter
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Smokepole,
Dave Skinner is a liar and doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Here are the facts, not Dave's "alternative facts", otherwise known as lies. I guess by definition being a "free lance" writer, he assumes he's free to make up his own facts???
Anyway, the total number of acres controlled by the Federal Government in the United States is 700 million. Of all federal land, 109,127,689 acres are designated wilderness. Keep in mind that 56,572,549 acres of that total wilderness designation is in Alaska, another 14,000,000 and change in California. So over 70,000,000 is in those 2 states...roughly 65% of all designated wilderness is in 2 states. Dave and his fuzzy math would have you believe the West is all tied up in wilderness, not even close to anything factual.
The BLM controls about 248 million acres, the USFS about 193 million acres.
Of the 193 million acres that the USFS controls, only 18% of those lands are in designated wilderness, or around 34.7 million acres.
That leaves about 160 million acres of FS lands in the US open to multiple use.
The BLM has 8.7 million acres of designated wilderness, leaving a cool 239.3 million under multiple use mandates...or 97% of it open to multiple use.
Dave seems to think that the only federal managing agency with wilderness designation is the FS, that's not true either.
Its funny watching some dude with a tinfoil hat, writing from his Moms basement, trying to BS the players...
Isn't going to happen. His equating Roadless to be the same as Wilderness was a nice way for him to pad his numbers. And ignore the fact that there are huge differences in management between the two outside of travel management. PS- To be fair, a good poriton of that 239 million acres of multiple use BLM land is in AK as well...
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Campfire 'Bwana
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His equating Roadless to be the same as Wilderness was a nice way for him to pad his numbers. And ignore the fact that there are huge differences in management between the two outside of travel management. Not to mention that the state with the most acreage affected by the federal roadless rule (Idaho) came up with their own plan (the Idaho roadless rule) that varies from the federal roadless rule and was developed with input from all the local stakeholders, including loggers. So much for the "federal land grab" in the state most impacted. Colorado did the same, by the way. That takes about 14 million acres out of the equation.
A wise man is frequently humbled.
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Campfire Regular
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Sorry, but Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is a green group, first and foremost, joined at the hip to the TRCP. Here's their board of directors, a number of them professional greens.
This is just the top two guys of BHA, the board co chairs:
Ben Long Co Chair
Ben, an Idaho native, used to be the “environmental” reporter for the Daily Inter Lake. I always wondered about Ben’s objectivity, and wondered no more when Ben left journalism to take a job with Resource Media – he “opened the first field office for Resource Media in 2001 and his primary focus has been conservation of public land, water and wildlife habitat in the western United States and Canada.”
Resource Media provides support to environmental groups in the PR arena – “From planning to implementation, our strategic communication services can power up your advocacy a notch or two.”
Resource Media is a nonprofit spin-off of Fenton Communications, which first hit the radar when Fenton bought Meryl Streep before Congress to freak out over Alar, the apple pesticide. Remember that one?
Listed RM “partners” include the Brainerd Foundation, BlueGreen (union and greens) Alliance, Idaho Conservation League, Montana Wilderness Association, Southern Environmental Law Center, Wilderness Society, Wilburforce Foundation – all environmental groups or environmental funders.
Other RM clients include George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and the National Parks Conservation Association, that to help “advocates win a campaign to create the first Marine Wilderness on the West Coast” – which more honestly was the elimination of a family owned oyster farm within the Point Reyes National Seashore. When the 40 year lease came up in 2012, the Park Service moved to depart the operation.
From the LA Times: In 1962, Congress created Point Reyes National Seashore, a wind-swept coastline that feels remote despite its location an hour north of San Francisco. Fourteen years later, President Ford signed the Point Reyes Wilderness Act, encompassing Drake's Estero, which was designated as a "potential wilderness" because it contained a commercial enterprise.
But was the oyster company really meant to disappear at the end of its lease?
In 2011, retired legislators who helped establish the Point Reyes National Seashore told Interior Secretary Salazar that they had always intended for the oyster farm to stay in business.
"The issue of what to do with the oyster farm wasn't even under contention," former Rep. John Burton told the Marin Independent Journal. "Several things were grandfathered in, and aquaculture — oyster culture — was one of them."
So that’s what RM does, creates spin campaigns for environmental groups.
Furthermore, in 2014, the Wilburforce Foundation recognized Ben with its annual Conservation Leadership Award. Wilburforce has been a longtime champion of conservation in the Northern Rockies and a consistent supporter of Ben’s work.
{in other words, Wilburforce funds Resource Media so RM can orthcestrate PR campaigns for the groups Wilburforce funds] In making the award, Wilburforce Yellowstone to Yukon Program Officer Liz Bell said, “It’s hard to imagine what the Flathead and Northwest Montana might have been like today without Ben’s enormous talent and commitment.”
We’d be more prosperous and have fewer fires, for one thing.
Joel Webster Co Chair TRCP Director for Western Lands, supports the Clean Water rule that farmers and ranchers hate. In fact, that is a huge line item for TRCP, they pulled out all the stops for the Rule, which the president most of us just voted for issued an executive order to re-do the EPA's power grab.
And guess what, on the Outdoor Life blog is THIS:
“Hunting and Fishing Groups Leery of Weakening Clean Water Act
Without clean water, the outdoors could suffer mightily
By Ben Long Yesterday at 7:19pm
Ben Long? Really? Yep, Ben starts with visions of the apocalypse:
Take the water out of a freestone trout stream and you’ll be casting to a bunch of rocks.
Drain the wetlands of America’s prairie pothole “duck factory” and you’ve got empty skies come hunting season.
That’s why groups like Trout Unlimited are worried about a move in Washington D.C. that would gut the Clean Water Act’s ability to conserve headwaters and seasonal wetlands.
Now, THAT’s a great lede….
Ben oh so randomly quotes Chris Wood of TU, who is otherwise known as the lead dog in the Clinton Roadless Rule, 58 million acres.
Nowhere is Ben’s day job with Resource Media mentioned, he's just a simple blogger and reporter.
Ouch! It hurts to read your posts on this, not because you're right, but because you vigorously believe you're right. Sorry, I don't see it, and as others have noted, your numbers don't make sense. Hence I don't see your "Big Picture." To add, when you sully the name of those sportsman's groups, organizations of people, who put time, money and passion into preserving the habitat for future sportsmen, your wide brush approach loses all credibility. Why attack members of our own community on this? I hope you take the time to sort it all out, and make some peace with whatever that conflict is, going on in your head over this. There may be some points that you made, which have true validity. But the daunting effort required, to tweeze them out from the enormous bulk of BS "truisms", destroys any significance of the information presented. Just because you believe it, doesn't necessarily make it true.
Last edited by Wyogal; 03/15/17.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
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To add, when you sully the name of those sportsman's groups, organizations of people, who put time, money and passion into preserving the habitat for future sportsmen, your wide brush approach loses all credibility. Why attack members of our own community on this?
Great question. My guess is, he's attacking members of our community, but not his community.
A wise man is frequently humbled.
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I bet Skinner doesn't even buy an elk and deer tag in Montana every year...
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To add, when you sully the name of those sportsman's groups, organizations of people, who put time, money and passion into preserving the habitat for future sportsmen, your wide brush approach loses all credibility. Why attack members of our own community on this?
Great question. My guess is, he's attacking members of our community, but not his community. That's sad. In reading Mr Skinner's posts, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt on a few things, but then he contradicts himself and muddies the path I thought he was on. Towards the end he just sounded like some poor old demented guy trying to make alot of noise, just to get attention, by poking a stick at the sportsmen groups. I'm thinking, he's all over the map, out there flappin'. Just sad. But then again, in the past, I've said some crazy virulent things, based purely on my emotional investment. Embarrassed later on when I see the truth. 
Last edited by Wyogal; 03/15/17.
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Winner winner chicken dinner. I haven't for quite some time, as I already have a satisfactory hat rack plus I get all the meat I want every fall. I'm okay with leaving some for the other guy.
Up hills slow,
Down hills fast
Tonnage first and
Safety last.
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Well, then......Thank you!
Maybe some of them critters will wander down into Northern Wyoming.
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Buzz,
I know you're a Forest Service employee, RMRS no less, so you of all people should KNOW the management restrictions on "roadless areas" ARE so close to those in big-W designated wildernesses that there is no practical difference in policy or results on the ground. Don't deny what you know is true. I've still got a copy of that 1400-page monster EIS for the roadless rule. Don't make me dig it out and start book-chapter-verse.
The only exemption for road construction is with a Chief's ruling of some kind of threat. Any trails built will be non-mechanized or at the minimum non-motorized, because motorized use is a wilderness disqualifier -- and wilderness is the end goal for these lands.
Minerals, ski areas, active forestry, and the modern recreational uses preferred by a gigantic majority of USFS recreationists (you're USFS and have read the recreation visitor day (RVD) reports, so you know I'm correct) don't happen in wilderness, they can't, by law.
And they are also proscribed, for all practical purposes, for "roadless areas," by a unilateral edict of policy.
This edict occurred when the USFS was led by Mike Dombeck and his #2 guy in charge of the "roadless rule" was Chris Wood (his current bio reads "senior policy and communications advisor to the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service where he helped protect 58 million acres of publicly owned land," who JUST HAPPENS to be today President and CEO of Trout Unlimited, a position he took in fall 2001 right after leaving the Forest Service -- and was at TU while TU was fiscal sponsor of TRCP predecessor and Trout Unlimited "project" TRCA, A for Alliance.
Convenient, that was. Coincidence, purely.
But Wood's bio ties right into your claim about "only 18% of those lands are in designated wilderness, or around 34.7 million acres." His bio "helped protect 58 million acres" -- protection meaning a status that is wilderness with so few exceptions as to be meaningless. That's still 93 million acres, fully 48% of the Forest Service's entire land base. That's a lot of the total, even using your numbers -- half the land is reserved for, at most, the 10% of recreationist days that use politically-correct means or activities.
To claim that "roadless areas" don't count on the landscape as wilderness is untruthful.
To deny that "roadless areas" are not wilderness in fact, wilderness in terms of policy, is profoundly dishonest, especially coming from an agency employee.
And to claim that 160 million acres of USFS are open to multiple use (as under the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, and perhaps even the Organic Act) when you KNOW that even areas open under existing Forest Plans are tied up in court way too often -- in THEORY, perhaps, but as long as we have Molloy and Christensen as federal judges, in PRACTICE you know, through your day job, that's flat out not true!
Again, you won't register that the 56 million acres of wilderness in Alaska came in one bill, at the end of the outgoing Carter adminstration over Alaskan opposition. Alaska is half the size of the entire Lower 48, and got a vast chunk of unpopular wilderness equal to half what everyone else has? I was there, and a lot of people were NOT okay with it. And do we want to argue about ANWR and the 1009 area (I think)? Oh, that's not really wilderness, nope.
And, when you mention BLM, don't say a WORD about the National Monument designations or the creation of the National Conservation Lands System. Don't tell what happens to mineral exploration or cattle grazing or transportation infrastructure in National Monuments, never mind hunting. Don't tell about the long history of NM's becoming National Parks (no hunting, kids) after a "decent interval."
Up hills slow,
Down hills fast
Tonnage first and
Safety last.
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The biggest problem with the roadless rule was because the Bush 2 administration appointed some terrible people to Interior and Agriculture. With the presidency tied up in the sandbox, and with the Republican leadership in Congress scared of their own shadow (kind of like now with Obamacare, right), Bush wasn't interested in sticking his neck out and rescinding the "roadless rule" outright. So, a half-measure.
And while the timber people acceded to both CO and ID, keep in mind that by 2004, the industry as we know it was already gone, killed in the ten years since the spotted owl in Oregon, the grizzly bear in Montana, and Denver environmentalism in Colorado -- and at the national level by Bush appointees that saw National Forest supply as "competition" against private forests in other regions, not allies.
The few survivors cared only about "wood now," just the little they needed to keep in business. They really had no incentive to care about the loss of trees or habitat from fire, they were kind of like Jake and Elwood in the tunnel with Carrie Fisher, "please please don't kill us."
Never mind that Idaho had the Statesman and Rocky Barker telling the story during that time frame. He treated the concept of multiple use about like the New York Times reports on firearms issues. And the Denver papers?
Up hills slow,
Down hills fast
Tonnage first and
Safety last.
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As guy who has supported Trump virtually from the beginning, my biggest reservation I have about him is the management of federal lands here in the west.
Our problem is most of the senators and congressman we send to Washington are in the pockets of the traditional resource extraction industries, and most of the Republicans who come kfrom outside of the interior west have this Hollywood view of limitless tracts of land that can never be "used up".
It all begins and ends with habitat. Without functioning, unfragmented habitat, there is no wildlife, without wildlife there is no hunting. Despite most Republicans who claim to support hunting, they are usually entirely unable to connect those three, simple dots.
What's worse is most of the critical habitat (read: winter habitat) occurs at lower elevations on BLM and private land. BLM is the most resource extraction oriented federal land agency of all. And this is where most energy extraction occurs.
Chaffetz bill is something he introduces practically every year since he has been in Congress and is considered a "message bill". Even though he has withdrawn it, it may well pop up again in some form. And given the current environment in Washington it does cause me concern.
Although it completely belies the stereotyping on places like the 'Fire, sportsman's groups and environmental groups have partnered up to preserve/protect public lands in the past, and I am aware of a LOT of conversation going on between sportsman's and environmental groups currently because of what they have seen since Trump's election.
Employees in the Interior Dept resource agencies I have talked to are generally pleased (relieved) with the choice of Zinke for Secretary, but nobody in the Dept of Ag (USFS) knows a thing about Perdue. And I got a feeling Perdue probably doesn't know a thing about NF management issues.
Here in Colorado I'm not too worried about transfer of federal lands. One of the very few good things about the three million immigrants into my state over the last 25 years is most of them have moved here for the "Outdoor Lifestyle" and a lot of them have money and connections. Transfer of federal lands probably ain't gonna happen in Colorado. Gov Hickenlooper is already on record as opposing it.
If tomorrow we had state by state ballot initiatives in the interior west and the west coast concerning the transfer of public lands, the vote would be an overwhelming "NO".
Casey
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 2,990 |
I don't want our public lands sold. But I do want them open to drill and mine. Sell mineral leases. Set standards and enforce the standards. The people enjoy a new revenue stream and good jobs. And it is done where there was no economic production of relevance before.
On the federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The operator of the lease pays a lease fee determined by highest bidder then 12 % of the production. With some exceptions for royalty relief on marginal prospects. Under the Rockies are some huge prospects for oil and gas that would make a difference for our National economy, likewise in Alaska. The Oceans off the east coast are untapped. If done responsibly, everybody wins. I don't have any faith that wholesale drilling and mining would be done without big problems on our public lands. In this era of deregulate just about everything, I especially don't trust the part about setting and enforcing standards; there is too much likelihood of fraud and corruption, or just plain error. And with the return of the idea that it's okay for coal mines to dump their mine waste and fill streams, why should we expect better on our public lands? Consider all the miles of streams polluted by existing mines. If you want to see a mess, take a look on Wikimapia at the Bakken oil area on the MT/ND border. Looks like a bad case of acne. Lotsa money being made I assume, but Which of the public lands you hunt or fish do you want covereed with a rash of oil wells or coal mines?
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