There's a lot of caviling with words here. Pope is getting expert at this kind of Clintonian parsing in his press releases. In the first place, the agreement wasn't supported by local environmentalists. In fact, the Sierra Club's own local representative, Brian Brademeyer, walked out of the talks once he saw where they were headed. He also quit his Sierra Club post. Pope's organization, it must be noted, is on record as opposing all commercial timber sales on federal lands, but that didn't prohibit him from signing off on logging in two of the most sacrosanct types of land in the national forest system: a roadless area and a wildlife preserve.
When Bush came into office, the mainstream enviros howled that he was putting timber industry flacks, such as Mark Rey, in charge of the national forests. A case of the fox guarding the henhouse, they charged. It's clear now that an equal threat comes from the leadership of the Democratic Party, in the form of Tom Daschle and Dianne Feinstein, and enviro bureaucrats who trade away forests, even in the sacred Black Hills, to keep them in power. There's a difference. No one can accuse Mark Rey of hypocrisy. He's never claimed to be a defender of nature.
That the Wilderness Society played a key role here is hardly shocking. After all, this was the group that was headed in the 1990s by a man who clearcut his own ranch in Montana and when he was exposed tried to blame the scandal on his wife.
When Bush came into office, the mainstream enviros howled that he was putting timber industry flacks, such as Mark Rey, in charge of the national forests. A case of the fox guarding the henhouse, they charged. It's clear now that an equal threat comes from the leadership of the Democratic Party, in the form of Tom Daschle and Dianne Feinstein, and enviro bureaucrats who trade away forests, even in the sacred Black Hills, to keep them in power. There's a difference. No one can accuse Mark Rey of hypocrisy. He's never claimed to be a defender of nature.
That the Wilderness Society played a key role here is hardly shocking. After all, this was the group that was headed in the 1990s by a man who clearcut his own ranch in Montana and when he was exposed tried to blame the scandal on his wife.