Ranchers, Environmentalists, Hunters Unite To Fight Bush Energy Plan In NM

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OTERO MESA, N.M. — The governor of New Mexico — leading an unusual alliance of ranchers, environmentalists, hunters and property-rights activists — has launched an election-year challenge to the Bush administration's energy policies, vowing to block a plan to drill for gas on a vast expanse of desert grasslands here.

Gov. Bill Richardson's opposition represents the strongest signal to date that the Rocky Mountain West, long dependent on energy production, is having second thoughts about the administration's aggressive advocacy of oil and gas drilling. "The federal government just got notice that, if they want to drill in Otero Mesa, this governor and this state are going to fight them," Richardson said at a rally in Albuquerque last week.

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The companies that stand to benefit most from drilling at Otero Mesa have close ties to members of the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and top officials of the Department of the Interior. That has led opponents to argue that cronyism, rather than sound energy policy, is behind the Otero Mesa drilling plan. The contested area, encompassing 1.2 million acres in southern Otero County, west of Carlsbad and northeast of El Paso, is a vast plain, punctuated with rugged rock formations, that has long been a magnet for hunters and naturalists. It is home to herds of pronghorn, migratory songbirds and endangered Aplomado falcons.

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Many locals are so angry about the drilling plan that they have joined forces with traditional adversaries. For example, the campaign to save Otero Mesa includes bitter antagonists such as the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, a conservation organization, and members of the Paragon Foundation, a private-property-rights advocacy group made up of conservative businessmen and ranchers. "I am a lifelong Republican. I was a fundraiser for President Bush, and I never thought I'd be saying what I am today," said Tweeti Blancett, a sixth-generation rancher from San Juan County in northwest New Mexico, where the landscape holds 35,000 wells. An additional 10,000 are planned."

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[el_gato]

1. geez

"I am a lifelong Republican. I was a fundraiser for President Bush, and I never thought I'd be saying what I am today," said Tweeti Blancett

Well Tweeti its about time you woke the fuck up and pulled your head out of your ass!