Once More, With Feeling: Palin’s Abysmal Environmental Record
Just in case we haven’t hammered the point home yet, let’s take some time to go back over GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s environmental record. Since the decision to include her on the Republican ticket was announced, we’ve reported a few times on various stories about her record, but haven’t included all the facts in one place. Since she may very well have to step in as President for John McCain at some point if they win the election, it’s important for anyone who cares about the environment to know what we’d be getting ourselves into.
MSNBC reports that Gov. Palin’s environmental priorities are ‘crystallized’ in the small town of Wasilla, Alaska, where she served as mayor and still resides with her family:
Palin declared Wasilla “open for business,” and business rushed in: Dozens of strip malls sprung up along the city’s two glacial lakes.
The costs of such fast — and sometimes haphazard — growth can be seen even from Palin’s lakefront home. Once-pristine Lake Lucille is plagued by high levels of phosphorous, which chokes off oxygen from the salmon and trout. Scientists put the blame on nearby development.
Palin refined her pro-business attitudes after becoming governor in 2006. Faced with choosing between development and the environment, she has sided more often than not with business interests.
According to MSNBC, Palin has also occasionally made choices that were good for the environment, such as when she restricted the use of old two-stroke engines in the Kenai River, which reduced oil pollution by 66 percent in one year. However, examples like these are few and far between.
She likes to trumpet the fact that she started a climate change committee in Alaska, but her committee set no goal for reducing emissions, focusing only on ways to adapt to warmer temperatures (!). Not to mention the fact that her insistence that global warming is probably not caused by man undermines their efforts. As Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden noted, we’ve got to know the cause of global warming if we’re going to fight it effectively.
“If it’s all just a natural, cyclical thing, maybe we should just all go home and read a book,” said Kathie Wasserman, an adviser to Palin’s climate change committee.
Palin is a vocal supporter of offshore drilling – hence the “drill, baby, drill” chants heard at her rallies. In fact, she’s such a fan of offshore drilling, she’s willing to let oil and gas companies set up shop anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge, which is home to bears, gray wolves, sandhill cranes and a herd of caribou, as well as fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet.
Furthermore, Palin has proven to be no friend to animals. As we’ve learned, she is an avid hunter who routinely kills caribou, moose, bears and other animals for fun. Her office is decorated with dead animals. And worse yet, she advocates shooting wolves from low-flying airplanes. Scientists recently revealed that half of all mammals are in decline, and we’re facing an uphill battle to protect and preserve these animals. With Palin in office, it’s doubtful that conservation would be a top priority.
Here are more details of her record as Governor of Alaska, from Seattle PI:
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.
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 copper 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.
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.
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.
Combine all of the negative things Palin has managed to do during her short time in power with John McCain’s hypocritical performance, and you’ve got a recipe for environmental disaster. Read all about John McCain’s environmental record in our previous post, ‘9 Reasons a John McCain Presidency Would be a Disaster for the Environment’.
Link [MSNBC] + [Seattle PI]
Photo credit: EarthFirst composite/Wikimedia Commons
October 22 2008 08:32 pm | Environment and External Blogs and Green
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