The Green Sportsman

Cancel that ambulance, but keep the engine running. CRP does not need CPR--just yet.

The crisis over the future of the Conservation Reserve Program was put on hold recently when Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns revealed the Bush Administration was postponing two very bad ideas, and pushing forward with a very good one.

All three ideas have grown out of the administration’s drive to increase ethanol production. The push for ethanol is a very green concept, but if farmers abandon CRP to capture the skyrocketing market for corn to supply ethanol plants, the bio-fuel craze could be very bad for wildlife. For several months it looked like that just might happen, but Johanns’ announcements have given the program a reprieve.

Bad Idea No. 1 was a proposal to reduce the allotment of CRP acres in the new Farm Bill from the current 39.2 million figure. But Johanns said flatly the administration would ask Congress to maintain the status quo.  That’s not the 45 million acres authorized for CRP when Congress first approved the program in 1985, but it’s the next best thing. Nor is there any guarantee that Congress will fund the entire 39.2 million, but at least there won’t be objections from the White House--for now.

Bad Idea No. 2 was the request to allow no-penalty early withdrawals from CRP contracts. Johanns now says that won’t happen in 2007. But no decision would be made on 2008 until the fall, when the administration has a better idea on how much corn was actually planted, and how well the predicted harvest might meet demand.

Very Good Idea No. 1: The administration will increase funding for programs that encourage development of technology to produce ethanol from so-called “bio-mass”--prairies grasses and plant waste. Once these technologies are perfected, the pressure to plant corn will begin to ease. Better still, farmers would have a market-driven incentive to put more acres into native prairie grasses, actually enlarging the impact of CRP.

“We’re definitely not out of the woods on the threat to CRP just yet, but all of these developments give us some breathing room,” said Terry Riley, a farm policy specialist with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

“We’re still going to need to watch very carefully, and push Congress to hold the line on the gains we’ve made in CRP.”

Anyone seeking a measure of how far the nation’s environmental awareness has slipped during the Bush Administration need only consider this: Earlier this month sportsmen and other green folk cheered a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stating dams were not a part of the natural ecosystem. Read it here.

The court was forced to make that ruling because the Bush Administration was actually making the claim that dams had been around so long on the Columbia River, they should be considered part of the natural environment. And because they are part of the natural system, their impacts couldn’t be considered a reason Columbia basin salmon have been pushed toward extinction. And that, of course, meant dams should not be regulated or removed to help salmon.

It didn’t take long for the clearly astonished three-judge panel to give the administration what the Portland Oregonian rightly described as a unanimous slap-down.

In earlier times (say, six years ago) this would sound like material for The Daily Show, a matter of such absurdity that even uttering it would bring ridicule. After all, no one in their right mind – even their far-right mind – would make the claim that a massive wall of concrete across a free-flowing river should be considered part of a natural ecosystem. If allowed to stand, that logic could be used to undo regulations on power plants that cured acid rain because those plants had been around so long their pollution was now just a natural part of the atmosphere.

One might argue, as many have, that dams are more important than fish, or that cheap, clean hydroelectric power is more important than preventing a race of salmon on the Columbia River from becoming extinct. That would be the principled argument used by many opponents against the push by sportsmen and other environmentalists to address the damage to river systems caused by dams. It’s a point of view worthy of due consideration. Problem is, the public has considered those points, and rejected them. By wide margins, Americans want natural systems restored.

This admittedly leaves policy-makers with a challenge, especially since the pressing issue of global warming means we must get more power from clean sources, like dams. But if we can put men on the moon in less than 10 years from a standing start, surely we can find a way to produce the same amount of  clean power without destroying valuable renewable resources.

Yet anyone who has followed this administration is surprised by their recent dams-are-natural gambit. It’s just more of the Alice-in-Wonderland logic it has tried in other environmental issues when the facts put the lie to its desires – which are always to err on the side of industry profits.  

At first we were stunned by this tactic. But six years later we are reduced to claiming “a victory” when a court issues a ruling pointing out that dams are not a natural part of the landscape.

Thanks, Dubya.

Anyone who doubts the threat George W. Bush and his ilk present to the future of public hunting and fishing need only remember the name Susan Dudley.

For many years Dudley headed the Mercatus Center, an industry-funded anti-regulatory think tank at George Mason University (read it here).

The philosophy of scholars there is that government should get out of the regulation business and allow the free market - or public reaction - to decide behavior. So, if a hamburger joint was selling tainted burgers that were killing people, it would quickly go out of business because people would stop buying burger there. Who needs meat inspection, right?

Taken to its logical conclusion there would be no need to regulate how oil and gas companies drill on public lands because a public outraged at their excesses would purchase gas from another brand. Or, buy electricity from another power producer. Or .. well, you get the point.

Over the years Dudley has opined against air bag and seat belt regulations, air pollution regulations, limits on arsenic in drinking water, a public pollution warning system, to name a few (click here to read).

That may sound extreme to you, me and most other Americans, and it is. But it perfectly reflects the ideals of President Bush and his small inner circle of ideologues. So last year the president nominated Dudley director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. That innocuous-titled position is one of the most powerful in government, because the person in that job has the authority to block or change all regulations proposed by all government agencies.

So what do you suppose Ms. Dudley would do if (and I'm dreaming here) the Bureau of Land Management suddenly got religion and issued a regulation that forbid oil drillers on the Rocky Mountain front from poisoning local water sheds?

Right.

Congress had the same concerns, so it blocked the appointment. But when Congress left for Easter vacation, the Sportsman-in-Chief used his recess appointment power to put her in that seat anyway. The Dudley appointment was so essential to this president that he felt it worthwhile forcing her into that key position. even if it meant used a tactic guaranteed to infuriate Congress.

And this is a guy who says he loves huntin' and fishin'.

Just before Congress left for its Easter break, an event took place that every sportsman in America should become familiar with. The House Committee on Natural Resources held a full oversight hearing entitled, “Access Denied: The Growing Conflict Between Fishing, Hunting, and Energy Development on Federal Lands.”
          
In clear and unambiguous words, representatives from the nation’s leading sportsmen-conservation organizations spelled out what the Bush Administration has been doing to public fish and wildlife habitat, especially in the Rocky Mountains.
        
Their sentiments are best summarized by Dr. Rollin Sparrowe, chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s energy working group, who complained that the Bush Administration had “reprogrammed” federal land managers to make assisting mineral development their first – and sometime only – priority. (download PDF here)

Sparrowe went on to point out that while some energy companies made honest attempts to follow regulations, others “have invested in attempts to discredit research results they perceive as unfavorable to their mission." Realistically, their job is to develop gas and oil and produce as much as possible. Their associations and company lobbyists have pursued "the wildlife question" as an impediment and our government has listened to them and largely ignored the conservation community’s many appeals to slow down and "do this right."

 
Steve Williams, President & CEO of the Wildlife Management Institute, and a former Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under George W. Bush, told the committee,  "As a hunter, angler, and wildlife conservationist, I am troubled by the pace of leasing, exploration, and development occurring throughout large portions of public land in the West. More troubling than the pace of development, however, is the manner in which it is conducted."    

It’s worth reading all of the testimony, then comparing the statements made by Williams and other wildlife professionals to the surreal claims of cooperation and beneficence by the representative of the energy industry, Charles E. Greenhawt of Questar Exploration. (Read it here)

But it’s also significant that the event took place at all.
 
Anyone who hasn’t been sleeping under a rock for the last six years is aware of the damage done to fish and wildlife habitat by the unholy alliance the Bush Administration has with the energy industry.  To be fair, Dubya didn’t hide his intentions during the presidential campaign.  He was going to Washington as an oil man determined to make it easier for the oil bidness to pump energy and profits off public lands. And if the choice ever came down to fish and wildlife vs. oil and gas, goodbye trout and deer.

And the Sportsman-in-Chief couldn't have unleashed this unprecedented assault on public lands without a compliant Republican congress. Sportsmen began complaining almost immediately, but there was never going to be a full oversight committee hearing on how energy development was impacting fish and wildlife under that Congress.

For six years anyone who raised a voice against abuse of public property by the very special interests aligned with the White House risked being called an “extremist” or “obstructionist” – and, of course, the always favorite “unpatriotic.” Those special interests had such a tight grip on Congress, we couldn’t even get a hearing. Remember the Cheney Energy Task Force?

But last fall’s elections changed that equation. So two weeks ago, a Congressional committee actually asked to hear what hunters and anglers thought about the Bush Administrations energy practices on public lands.

Now, if we can only get the Sportsman-in-Chief to listen.

Can the nation’s rush to biofeuls production be turned into a blessing for fish and wildlife?

A few months ago that idea would have been dismissed as something worse than wishful thinking. After all, the Bush Administration’s push to increase ethanol production had already sent corn futures skyrocketing, prompting the farm lobby to demand early release from CRP contracts to meet the demand from the wave of ethanol plants being built. That news could mean the loss of 5 to 7 million acres of upland cover for wildlife.

And any thoughts those fears were misplaced were dispelled last week when the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the biofeul craze had prompted the largest corn plantings in the U.S. since World War II.

So where’s the good news?

It’s here: Research shows native prairie grasses are much more efficient in producing ethanol than corn.

It takes 1 gallon of fossil fuels (in the form of fertilizer, tractor fuel, ethanol plant operation, etc.) to produce 1.2 gallons of ethanol from corn. Yet research has shown that 1 gallon of fossil fuel can produce over 5 gallons of ethanol from prairie grasses, according to Terry Riley, President of Policy at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

So, if the whole reason for ethanol production is to relieve our dependence on oil and reduce the production of greenhouse gasses, then native prairie grasses are the way to go. And even President Bush can tell you native grasses have infinitely more value for wildlife than rows of corn and soybeans. Read it here.

You can read all about it in a fascinating op-ed piece “Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem,” by University of Minnesota researchers David Tilman and Jason Hill that appeared in the March 25 edition of The Washington Post.

Their 10-year experiment, the results of which were published in Science magazine, showed the huge advantages of using native grasses over corn for alternative energy production. The same grasses that sportsmen have been trying to put back onto the landscape through CRP are more efficient at producing ethanol and - just as important - hugely effective at reducing greenhouse gasses.

Even better, native prairie grasses will grow on soils that cannot support corn or soy beans, meaning the total acres available for fuel production - and greenhouse gas reduction - would be dramatically increased.

Imagine the explosion in the population of upland game birds if miles of row crops were replaced by native grasses.

Imagine that market incentives could make this possible without government subsidies.

So far it’s only an idea. But with gas prices inching over $3 per gallon, its time may be coming.