The first environmental impact from November’s Clean Sweep is the Bush Administration’s proposal to:
… give managers of the nation’s 155 national forests greater leeway to approve logging and commercial activities with less examination of potential environmental damages.
Regional managers are easily influenced by timber interests, who tend to have as much interest in the good of the environment as the, um, oil people do. In addition, this new proposal removes many of the required environmental impact checks, and decreases visibility of the decisions being made about the public’s forests.
Have you hugged a tree today? Better do it quick, because that thing is toothpicks on the hoof.