A hostile judge

[Robbien]

WHEN THE White House is in the clutches of the oil, coal, mining, and timber companies, as it is now, the best defenders of laws to protect the environment are often federal judges. Recently they have ruled against the Bush administration on issues ranging from power plant emissions to snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

That's why it is so worrisome that President Bush has nominated a former lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries for a lifetime appointment on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California, which rules on many land use cases in the West. If the Senate confirms the nominee, William G. Myers, the judicial check on this administration's unbalanced policies will be weakened.

Myers's most recent job was a two-year stint as the top lawyer in Bush's Interior Department. There he regularly did favors for the cattlemen and mining company owners, acting against the interests of tribes and protectors of public lands.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that Myers had supported transferring public land to a mining company without bothering to check with the local office of the Bureau of Land Management, which opposed the giveaway. In reversing an opinion of the Interior Department under President Clinton that a proposed gold mine would pollute the environment and violate a sacred tribal site, Myers said he never consulted with tribal officials, though they asked for a meeting.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/03/22/a_hostile_judge/

comment: Putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. And even worse, further in the article there is this shameful statement. "Quite aside from his extreme views, Myers has a scant record of qualification for the appeals court. Myers has never been a judge at any level, has never been a law professor, and has never even participated in a jury trial." So it appears that the fox Bush supports is a mangy unqualified one whose only qualification is greed. What a pile of horse manure!

[Moderator]

1. This is an editorial, not LBN