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Re: Sarah Palin's Record on Environment is Abysmal
de Zausel - 10.09.2008, 12:59Sarah Palin's Record on Environment is Abysmal
Sarah Palin's Record on Environment is Abysmal
From Ric Steiner
While I disagree with many of Sen. John McCain's policies,
I was willing to concede that he may at least make a wise,
rational president and represent a step in the right direction
for the nation. No longer. With his pick of Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin as his running mate, he has shown a spectacular,
even dangerous lack of judgment.
In addition to her frightening lack of qualification
to be vice president (much less president) of the United States,
Palin is an evangelical, anti-choice, pro-gun, right-wing conservative
who wants creationism taught in schools. She is currently under
investigation by the Alaska Legislature for alleged abuse of office.
Many of us in Alaska simply cannot imagine Palin having anything
to do with U.S. foreign policy, domestic policy,
national defense or the countless other affairs of federal governance.
A particularly worrisome aspect of the Palin candidacy
is her abysmal record on the environment during her two years
as Alaska governor, and how that would translate into national
environmental policy if she became vice president.
Her environmental record as governor of the nation's "last frontier"
deserves close examination.
# Climate change. Although Alaska is ground zero in the crisis
of global warming, Palin has done virtually nothing to address
the problem except hold meetings and appoint a "climate sub-cabinet"
that likewise has done little. Lots of talk, no action.
Although in the past two years the Arctic summer sea ice shrunk
to the lowest levels ever recorded, Palin apparently does not believe
it is human-induced or cause for alarm. She was asked to establish
an Alaska Office on Climate Change, an Alaska Climate Response Fund
(based on a tax on Alaska oil production)
and emissions reduction targets for Alaska,
but has taken no action on those requests.
# Polar bears. This summer, Palin filed suit against the Bush
administration over the federal listing of polar bears as threatened,
saying that her opposition was based on a "comprehensive scientific
review." But when asked to release the scientific review, she refused.
The document, later obtained by the public
(from the federal government), clearly shows that,
contrary to Palin's assertions, the state of Alaska's marine
mammal scientists agreed with the federal conclusions
that the polar bears are in serious trouble because of global warming
and loss of their sea ice habitat,
and that they would be gone from Alaska by 2050.
Palin clearly decided to oppose the listing in order to protect Arctic oil
and gas development, then publicly misrepresented the basis
for her decision, and then tried to conceal all of that.
Having run for office on a platform of honesty and transparency,
this behavior was neither. Her extreme position here puts her
to the political right of the Bush /Cheney administration.
# Endangered species. Earlier this year,
Palin approved a $2 million state appropriation for a conference
on the "economic impacts" of the Endangered Species Act,
designed to persuade the public that ESA listings were too costly
and unwarranted. Recently she agreed to use the money instead
to fund the state's lawsuit against the Bush administration over
the polar bear listing -- a likely violation of the state constitutional
provisions on appropriation. She opposes additional species listings
and other protections in Alaska, where many species
are at risk because of climate change and other threats.
# Predator control. Palin approved and expanded the state's aerial
predator control program, where wolves are shot from aircraft
and bears hunted from aircraft and killed upon landing. This year,
her state biologists even dragged 14 newborn wolf pups from their
den and, having already shot their parents, then shot each of the pups
in the head at close range. Last year, her administration offered a $150
bounty for each wolf killed until the bounty was ruled illegal
by the courts. Hundreds of wolves are killed each year by this antiquated
state program that has no scientific justification whatsoever,
but rather is designed to appease Palin's urban sport hunter supporters.
# Pebble mine. Palin aggressively opposed the "clean water initiative"
on the August ballot in Alaska (which then failed), favoring instead
foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations
controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams.
She has supported virtually any and all mining proposals
that have come her way, even likely the enormous Pebble gold
and silver mine proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed.
That plan put at risk the largest runs of sockeye salmon in the world,
where this summer fishermen caught more than 27 million salmon.
# Oil and gas drilling. Palin has supported oil and gas drilling plans
anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay
and Cook Inlet. On her watch, regulation and government oversight
of Alaska oil facilities is terribly lacking, and she has declined to establish
a citizens' advisory council to provide more effective public oversight
of the expanding oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska.
# Exxon Valdez oil spill damages. Palin refuses to push Exxon
to pay the government for the unanticipated environmental injuries
from the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Almost 20 years later,
the private case is still unresolved and the governments likewise
have yet to collect full payment from Exxon. Shortly before Palin
took office in 2006, the governments presented Exxon with a demand
to pay $92 million for this additional environmental damage,
but her administration has since not pressed the issue nor taken Exxon
to court to collect the money. Meanwhile,
Exxon reaps record profits from Alaska.
# Trans Pacific shipping. Palin repeatedly has been asked by coastal
residents and organizations to enhance the safety of merchant shipping
through Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a primary shipping route between Asia
and North America, but she's done nothing. Citizens want better vessel
tracking, powerful rescue tugs along the route and a risk assessment.
While her predecessor funded a scoping study, the Palin administration
has not appropriated one dime to improve shipping safety through
the Aleutians, and says it will take no further action to reduce risk
for several years into the future.
The pattern is clear. On the environment, Sarah Palin is essentially
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and perhaps James Watt rolled into one,
but with a more pleasant demeanor. At a time when the nation
and world urgently need strong environmental leadership from
the United States, it is important to look beyond charisma and carefully
consider the environmental implications of our vote in November.
Rick Steiner is a professor at the University of Alaska.
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