Former Interior secretary calls out Obama on the environment

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Former Interior secretary calls out Obama on the environment
Bruce Babbitt says Obama has failed to defend against Republican and industry attacks on environmental safeguards.
By Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau

June 7, 2011, 9:27 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— President Obama has failed to answer Republican attacks on environmental safeguards "forcefully and persuasively" and to articulate his own vision for conserving American wilderness and water, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt charged Tuesday.

Babbitt, who served under President Clinton, said in an interview that he would lay out his concerns about the Republican environmental agenda and the Obama administration's response in a speech in Washington on Wednesday.

It's rare for a political figure of Babbitt's stature to reproach publicly a sitting president of his own party. But Obama has faced blunt criticism from old allies on a range of issues after compromising with Republicans who control the House.

Babbitt is giving voice to disappointment among many environmental advocates. Since the midterm elections, the administration has delayed or weakened several regulations bitterly opposed by congressional Republicans and business lobbyists, and given credence to the GOP contention that regulations — especially environmental ones — stifle growth.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-environment-babbitt-20110608,0,3882784.story

[OrwellwasRight]

1. Babbitt would know about backing down . . .

He and Clinton sucked up to drillers, miners, and ranchers enough to show Obama how it is done. Remember the "I'm going to reform grazing fees" promise from Clinton's 92 campaign? I'm still waiting . . .

[villager]

2. Oh God -- grazing fees. Democrats are terrible for the environment, due to the cave-ins....

...the GOPpers only mange to "outstrip" them, as it were, since they are actively malign, and hate wildness/wilderness, whereas Democrats are "merely" too weak to ever defend it....

[OrwellwasRight]

5. And the Administration is falling all over itself

to show how it "really likes off-shore drilling, really, honest"

[No Elephants]

7. Yet, he obviously believes Obama is dramatically worse than Clinton.

[fascisthunter]

3. gee thanks... anything else he wants to give to big business?

I mean seriously... why doesn't he just tell us to give our pay checks to wall street execs, because that seems to be where all our tax money goes, to big business interests?

[ProSense]

4. From the OP:

<...>

The Interior Department responded that Obama had embarked on a conservation plan more ambitious than those of his recent predecessors.

"The Obama administration is already building a strong conservation legacy, founded on sensible protections for wilderness lands, wildlife habitat and farms and ranches that are under threat," said Kendra Barkoff, spokeswoman for the Interior Department.

Barkoff said Obama had protected more than 2 million acres of wilderness, designated more than 1,100 miles of wild and scenic rivers, expanded the national park system and established several new national conservation areas.

<...>

NYT

<...>

Obama administration officials responded with a spirited defense of their environmental record, saying that among the president’s first actions was to designate more than two million acres of new wilderness and protecting more than 1,100 miles of wild and scenic rivers.

“The Obama administration is already building a strong conservation legacy, founded on sensible protections for wilderness lands, wildlife habitat and farms and ranches that are under threat,” the Interior Department said in a six-page document detailing its conservation record. “Secretary Salazar believes that now is the time to build on this early success, find common ground on challenges we face and continue our efforts to leave our land, water and wildlife better than we found it.”

The agency said it had authorized three new national park units, created one new national monument and designated four new national conservation areas and two new national recreation areas.

It also pointed to the creation of the million-acre Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area in eastern Kansas.

An Interior official said that the Obama administration was ahead of where the Clinton administration was at the same point in its first term. The official also said that the Bush administration’s most significant conservation action – the designation of nearly 200,000 square miles of marine reefs and waters in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands – came in the last month of his second term.

CNN, February 2011: Obama details conservation action plan

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama called Wednesday for a series of steps to help Americans conserve and get in touch with nature, including full funding of the $900 million Land and Water Conservation Fund for only the third time in its existence.

At a White House event, Obama also proposed creating a Conservation Service Corps to help young people find work in the outdoors, and extending the tax deduction for donating private land for conservation.

<...>

The action plan calls for creating more urban parks, restoring rivers and creating recreational "blueways" -- river trails designed to generate economic activity, and increasing support for protecting rural landscapes.

<...>

The Conservation Service Corps would be roughly modeled on the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s to help young Americans find work involving nature and conservation.

<...>

America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) Initiative

[No Elephants]

8. Wow. The Obama administration responded. Well, that settles it then.

[Vidar]

6. Babbitt's much more credible on such issues than Obama.

[No Elephants]

9. How bad is it when a DLCer calls this administration's policies Republican?

"It's rare for a political figure of Babbitt's stature to reproach publicly a sitting president of his own party."

IMO, people who keep framing this administration's policies as caving to Republicans are missing the point--or pretending to miss it. The Dept of the Interior is part of the Executive Branch, period. No votes, no filibusters, just doing what the boss wants.

Why would anyone assume that a that a corporatist policy coming out of the Executive Branch of this administration must have been forced upon it by Republicans or anyone else?

This is a President who appointed a Republican as Secretary of Defense and another Republican as Secretary of the Treasury, not exactly unimportant cabinet positions, and, as his Chief of Staff, a DLCer who has nothing but contempt for liberals--by which he seems to mean anyone to the left of Orrin Hatch. The rest of Obama's appointments were along the same lines.

I'm not a big fan of Occam's Razor, but it seems apt in this instance.