Adding to the list of irreparable damages left for a legacy, President Bush and his cronies are now set to open 10,000 acres of public land in eastern Utah, to allow for drilling of natural gas and oil.  The Bureau of Land Management plans to auction off the tracts of land, which border three national parks, conveniently one month before Bush leaves office, making it difficult for the next administration to reverse the plan.  According to the New York Times:

National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine.

This is a lasting impression we can’t afford to let Bush leave behind.

takepart by supporting the National Parks Conservation Association and help protect these natural treasures.

Related:  Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Photo: Arches National Park, NYTimes

Eighteen states sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday for failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles. The suit comes one year after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision outlining that the EPA had the power to limit said emissions under the Clean Air Act. In addition to these 18 states, 3 cities and 11 environmental organizations have also signed onto the suit.

The Supreme Court ruling was viewed as a major defeat for the Bush administration given their policy on global warming. Although the administration has admitted that some aspects of climate change are human-caused, they have been widely opposed to “across-the-board” limits on carbon emissions.

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Wake up and smell the weak CAFE standards. A federal appeals court in San Francisco told the Bush administration on Thursday to stop blowing smoke up our collective tailpipe and get serious about reducing pollution from SUV’s, pickup trucks and vans.The administration’s proposed regulations uphold the double standard Detroit’s been banking on, calling for greater fuel efficiency from passenger cars than light trucks and giving SUV’s a total pass. Seriously. The standards, lame as they are, don’t even apply to trucks weighing more than 8,500 pounds, like, say, the Hummer H2.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sets the standards, has never regulated Hummers and their carbon spewing cousins, claiming that more testing needs to be done first. The court rejected this excuse and ordered the NHTSA to develop fuel standards for these larger trucks or come up with a better reason not to. Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General Formerly Known as Governor Moonbeam, called the ruling “a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration and its failed energy policy,” adding that “the idea of raising vehicle efficiency 1 mile per gallon is pathetic and shocking.” But Dave McCurdy, president and chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, warned that “any further changes to the program would only delay the progress that manufacturers have made toward increasing fleet-wide fuel economy.” In other words, requiring American automakers to manufacture more fuel-efficient cars will only delay the manufacture of more fuel-efficient cars. When it comes to combating climate change, these guys really know how to stall.