Ken Salazar

Fifty Years Of Environmentalism—Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama— All To Be Applauded!

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Today, April 22, is Earth Day, first declared by Richard Nixon and his Interior Secretary Walter Hickel in 1970, but the environmental movement was begun, actually, by Lyndon B. Johnson and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall in 1965 with the promotion of the first water and air pollution laws as part of the Great Society.

Jimmy Carter proceeded to promote the most advanced environmental record of any one term President, and with the great assistance of Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus.

Then, Bill Clinton, under the prodding of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Vice President Al Gore, contributed greatly to advancement of the environment.

And Barack Obama, under the support of Interior Secretaries Ken Salazar and Sally Jewell has also contributed greatly on the issue of the environment.

Additionally, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, and John F. Kennedy, with Interior Secretary Udall (who served for eight years under both JFK and LBJ), also did a great deal on the environment.

Sadly, with Theodore Roosevelt being the true promoter of the environment in the early part of the 20th century, and assisted by Interior Secretary James R. Garfield and close TR friend Gifford Pinchot, one would have thought that the Republican Party would have continued to be the leader on the issue, but except for Richard Nixon, that has not been the case, and now Republicans are doing everything possible to help advance industry over the environment!

This includes attempting to prevent any future national parks; allowing industrial exploitation of the Grand Canyon and other parks for mining; and wishing to undermine or destroy the Environmental Protection Agency begun during the Nixon Presidency!

So the battle to promote conservation of natural resources and add to public lands is a never ending battle between the political parties, when it should be part of the national agenda that all political leaders believe in and advocate!

Republican Solution To Jobs Crisis: Promote Importation Of Dangerous Snakes, Including The Burmese Python, Already A Major Threat To Everglades!

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In the midst of the jobs crisis in America, members of the House of Representatives Republican majority are holding hearings trying to prevent an end to the transportation and importation of nine varieties of snakes, including the Burmese Python, Boa Constrictors, and Anacondas, that have become to inundate the Florida Everglades, posing a risk to other species, and ultimately, to humans! We have the report of a Burmese Python swallowing a live alligator whole and then exploding from the effect of doing it!

A snake breeder testified that the ban proposed by Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, would interfere with the right of snake owners and snake breeders to purse their hobby and livelihood, and prevent them from moving interstate!

Are we living in an insane society, which already allows the abuse of gun ownership, to the detriment of thousands of innocent victims every year, by saying that there should be allowance for BREEDING of snakes that are dangerous to all of us, and come from tropical climates in Asia, Africa and Latin America? Is it necessary for one to pursue his hobby or livelihood in an “industry” which already is laying havoc in the Everglades, killing various species and threatening Floridians who go into that national park?

It is guaranteed that the snakes, particularly the extremely dangerous Burmese Pythons, which number 100,000 in the Everglades by reckless breeding and escapes from captivity, will start to spread not just through all of Florida, but eventually be a threat all over the United States!

This is a clear and present danger to our security, and yet the Republicans latch onto this insane proposal as an interference to job growth! It makes one wonder about their ethics, their sense of right and wrong, their understanding of human needs!

We do NOT need to engage in such dangerous “commerce” in order to revive our economy, and if such a law passes by some looney reasoning that it is necessary, President Obama needs to veto it and send it into the dustbins of history, making the Republicans who sponsored it look as what they are: CRAZY LUNATICS!