By Gary Namie, Ph.D., WBI
Nov. 9, 2006
Effective Nov. 9, there is a call for nominations for nine new members of the Carrizo Plain National Monument Advisory Committee.

In the past, Marlene Braun had worked extremely well with this group. They valued her work and understood the impossibility of working under the tyrannical boss Huntsinger. They took seriously their role as stewards of the Monument created by Pres. Clinton.

Now, with the independent Monument manager Braun gone and Bush's anti-conservation mandate moving forward unimpeded, Huntsinger next gets to pick the members of public's watchdog advisory group. At the Dept of Interior website, under the BLM banner is posted the following boast: "Interior has joined other agencies to help streamline the permitting process for oil and gas projects on federal lands." And the first oil and gas leasee has declared his intention to drill at Carrizo (under an exemption written into the Monument's creation for leases that predated the creation of the Monument).

Can you spell C-R-O-N-I-E-S ?

Think Huntsinger will pick advisors who dissent for the sake of quality land management and critical decision making? Think again. This is Huntsinger's opportunity to bury Braun's legacy forever within BLM and advance the Bush anti-environmental agenda in California without the nagging conscience that was the principled Marlene Braun.

He cannot be trusted. He must have oversight.

Call Gale Norton, Sec'y U.S. Department of the Interior
202-208-3100


Call and write to Kathleen Clarke, BLM Director
202-208-6731
1849 C St NW, Washington, DC 20240

Let Norton and Clarke know you will be watching the inevitable fiasco unfold at Carrizo and that you expect Huntsinger to select Advisors deemed acceptable to veteran conservationist groups, not just rubber-stamping ranching and agribusiness representatives in addition to oil and gas developers.

Return to Marlene Braun index