My Page: Joan McCarter
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Public Lands Bill: Finally, A Blow for Mother Nature
In the first vote of the 111th Congress, in a special Sunday session, the U.S. Senate finally gave some good news to the community of anglers, hunters, hikers, backpackers, recreational outfitters--anybody who loves the great outdoors--by finally clearing the way to protect 200 million acres of wilderness in nine states: California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Michigan, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. In addition to the new wilderness designations, it protects over 270,000 acres along more than 1,000 miles of rivers in Oregon, California, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, and Massachusetts, and adds 2,800 miles of new hiking trails in public lands. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
A Plan for Stimulus Money: National Parks
Back in the 1930s, the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps essentially built our national parks:
The CCC built more than 200 museums, interpretive sites and park lodges, 2,000 hiking shelters, nearly 2,500 cabins, 400 bathhouses, 2,000 drinking fountains, and 12,000 latrines and toilets in the national parks. The corps also improved 600,000 miles of existing roads in the parks, built 125,000 miles of new roads and 40,000 bridges, and 8 million square yards of parking lots -- an area equivalent to 2,500 football fields. CCC trail crews improved 100,000 miles of existing hiking trails and blazed 28,000 miles of new trails.
This staggering public work was meant to encourage outdoor recreation, and it did. America's burgeoning car culture made vacationing in the parks and national forests easy and affordable, and the CCC's roads, trails and facilities made those places even more attractive. In 1933, 3.5 million people visited national parks. By 1938, it was 16 million people, and 1941 brought 21 million.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Getting Back to Roots
Home for the holidays is one of the most cherished, and hackneyed, ideals of the season. It's also out of reach for too many people. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Ken Salazar to Interior
The Denver Post is now reporting as settled the rumor it reported this morning that Sen. Ken Salazar would be named Secretary of the Interior.
On environmental issues, I think we could have done worse. California Rep. Michael Thompson, for instance, would have been much worse with his strong ties to timber and seemingly best qualification being the fishing and hunting groups like him. Much better, IMO, to have an interior westerner at interior than a coastal one. We probably could have done better, too. Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, unabashedly progressive, had been very much on top of keeping track of Dirk Kempthorne's diry deeds in the current administration.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Our Broken Health System: It’s Not Just about Insurance
In between answering questions about a scandal that it's not involved in, Obama tried to announce his new health care team and has also put a call out to Americans to work on the project as well. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
A New Spot of Blue in Wyoming
Democrat Jim Roscoe, a home builder, marathoner and former ski patrolman who has never run for public office ran for the open District 22 seat in the state House against Republican Charles Stough, a recent transplant. Roscoe won in the general election in a complete squeaker, by just four votes--2,991 to 2,887. But then it got kind of hinkey. Joe Albright, Teton County Democratic State Committeeman, explained what happened in an e-mail: [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Grijalva Obama’s Best Bet at Interior
The litany of damage done by a government of, by, and for Big Oil really is too much to try to delve into in one essay. Suffice it to say, the Iraq War wasn't the only gift to the friends of Bush and Cheney out to maximize profit. Millions of acres of our public lands sweetened that pot. Trying to figure out how to ameliorate this giveaway is going to be one of the biggest jobs the next Secretary of Interior faces. I agree with Bill Schneider, please let it be Raul Grijalva. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Parting Shots from the Bush Interior Department
The Bush administration has given the incoming Obama team (and the American people) yet another middle finger. First they announced--on Election Day, the day the American people decisively rejected "drill, baby, drill"--that they were putting huge swaths of Utah's most beautiful and fragile canyonlands under the auction block. Now they think they've figured out a way to make their policy of "rape the land first, don't bother with the questions ever" permanent. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
The New Western Landscape, Same as the Old One?
The headiness of election eve (was it really only a week ago) and some apparently very bad polling gave me a little too much confidence in western voters in making last week's predictions. But elections do have consequences, and while a few key races didn't turn the way Democrats had hoped, there's a new sheriff in town who's got a very tough job ahead of him in dealing with messes in the West. [more]
Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Who’s Going to Win in the West?
Election Day for politicos is like Christmas Eve for a five-year old. You've tried all year to be the best you could, to do everything right so that you get your reward on the big day. But on that day, there's nothing left to do but wait for the capricious hand of an outside force to determine your fate. Since you're past the point of altering the outcome, you speculate about what the day might bring. We do know that tomorrow morning we're going to wake up to a vastly different national political landscape. Here's what it might look like closer to home. [more]
