Our View - Monday

Gaming the system

Let’s not Astroturf public lands

The people supposedly have spoken on the question of drilling on Colorado’s Roan Plateau. The people supposedly have spoken on the question of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. The people have supposedly spoken on . . . well, on just about every public land management decision that gets made these days, thanks to federal rules that don’t permit a tree to be removed from, or a path to be cleared across federal land without an exhaustive public review process.

But whether this results in better public policy-making is doubtful, since the “public process” is routinely manipulated and misused by special interest groups.

Members of the Campaign to Save the Roan Plateau are claiming that just a handful of the 42,000 comments filed in response to a controversial drilling plan for the area were favorable. Therefore, the group says, the “public” overwhelmingly opposes drilling and it shouldn’t go forward.

But of the 42,000 negative comments filed with the Bureau of Land Management, 41,539 came as part of a mass e-mail campaign orchestrated by the Natural Resources Defense Council. They came mostly from people from out of state, and mostly from people who wouldn’t know the Roan Plateau if they were walking on it but could register their objections and rig the process simply by clicking a mouse.

That doesn’t invalidate these comments. Those people no doubt object to the drilling. But it’s preposterous to claim they represent the views of “the people.” The Natural Resources Defense Council doesn’t represent the public, but a narrow subset of people with rigid and extreme views on environmental and energy issues. Their comments should be considered accordingly.

Many Americans, realizing that the game favors the wellfunded and better-organized special interests, have lost faith in the process.

Similar attempts can be seen in the controversy over snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Those seeking more restrictions or an outright ban on snowmobiles say the public comments show overwhelming opposition to the machines.

Most comments on the snowmobile issue came from afar, as part of organized mass mailings, conveyed cookie-cutter thinking and reflected complete indifference to the possible impacts on nearby communities and individuals. Of the more than 122,000 comments filed on the most recent snowmobile plan, 73 percent wanted more restrictions. But 21,000 of these comments originated in California, largely as a result of a campaign.

Should these opinions trump those of folks, necessarily smaller in numbers, living in states that surround the park, whose livelihoods and lifestyles will be most impacted by the decision? It smacks of the tyranny of the majority.

If anything, the opinions of people living in proximity to the facility, who’ve taken the effort to craft an individualized response, should count for far more than mass mailings arranged by special interests.

Such decisions aren’t decided by this sort of “voting.” A Yellowstone spokesman told one Wyoming newspaper that Park Service officials “will use specific comments that have unique viewpoints, rather than the consensus of opinions, to guide their decisions.” But the pressure to bow to the will of the special interests can be intense when they can point to such statistics and claim a public “mandate.” And most Americans, when they hear such statistics, have no idea that the “mandate” didn’t originate with ordinary taxpayers, but was mass produced by well-funded and highly organized extremists.

Recognizing that the public process was being hijacked, the U.S. Forest Service a number of years ago proposed discounting such “Astroturf” comments, placing a greater emphasis on more thoughtful, individualized comments. But an angry reaction from the Astroturfers — delivered, no doubt, in a blast of identical e-mails — forced the agency to beat a quick retreat.

Yes, these lands belong to “the people.” But the public process, as currently designed, favors the special interests over the general interest, and the squeaky wheels over the commonweal.

Findings deflate climate change rhetoric

For only the third time since 1990, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions declined in 2006 from the prior year, the government reports. The 1.5 percent decline is welcome, particularly by those who say greenhouse gases cause global warming.

Nevertheless, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions alone increased 19 percent since 1990, says the World Bank’s Little Green Data Book. China’s emissions surged 73 percent since then, and India’s 88 percent, compared to the U.S.’ 20 percent. As their economies grow, their emissions will, too.

Poorer nations want economic comfort. “Deforestation is . . . in itself a consequence of poverty,” says the World Bank. “Tropical rain forests are diminishing at an alarming rate because of the human need for food and demands for timber, energy, minerals and other resources.” Those who would micromanage others’ economic choices would deny developing countries advancement by imposing arbitrary emission limits.

However, there’s good news (or bad news, depending on your view). The latest findings indicate CO2 emissions don’t have a cause-and-effect temperature relationship. “Temperatures peaked in 1998 and have shown no warming for a decade,” says American Meteorological Society fellow Joseph D’Aleo, formerly chief meteorologist at Weather Services International Corp. “Many scientists have been remarking about this trend for several years but no one takes heed, preferring to believe models than actual data.”

Where’s that consensus everyone is talking about?