Saturday, July 05, 2008

Our Government at Work

"MISSOULA, Mont. - The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation's largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.

The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal."

full article here

1 comment:

sandy said...

Oh those behind the door deals!!

Another thing that makes me concerned, the impingment ongoing into the national forests for new subdivisions.

I read recently, can't remember where now, where we are selling tons of top soil to China. Here we are in So Cal with "dust bowl desert" conditions because of our winds. You can't grow anything unless you amend the soil or bring in new topsoil. With the problems with crops, etc., in the midwest, I can't believe we are selling all this topsoil to China. I believe the company is located in the midwest that is the seller of it.