Own Your Own Island Part 2...or a house in the city!

Last month, in the blog entry "Own Your Own Island" I discussed proposals by Rep. Richard Pombo of California to sell off various National Park Service properties "to raise money."

The e-real estate magazine, The Slatin Report, has a nice article by art history professor Kevin D. Murphy, entitled "Dump to Pump." From the article:

Given the issues put on the table by Katrina and the events that followed, it was therefore surprising to read (in a dispatch from the National Parks Conservation Association) that Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican from California and Chairman of the House Resources Committee, had proposed in a draft budget reconciliation legislative proposal, to sell 15 national parks to oil and gas interests and private developers. In addition, Pombo suggested that the National Park Service sell advertising space on its vehicles, buildings, and publications. Naming rights for National Park buildings would also be up for sale. Welcome to “Halliburton’s Yellowstone National Park!

”While it's unlikely that Pombo's proposal would pass if introduced as part of final legislation, but as the San Francisco Chronicle reported: "Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said the proposal shouldn't be viewed as a joke because it was made in the same week that Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., introduced a bill to sell 15 percent of Interior Department lands to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts." In other words, it was posturing to a certain extent, but posturing with a stark message of disregard for the environmental and social challenges facing the nation...

For Sale? Mary McLeod Bethune National Historic Site in Washington, DC.

Writing in the New York Times (9/21/2005) Thomas L. Friedman despaired that in Katrina’s wake President Bush and his advisors were refusing to do what the disaster demanded and “change course,” especially with regard to energy policy. Slowly has Bush begun to advocate energy conservation (introducing a mascot called the “Energy Hog” the other day, destined to be about as effective as Richard Nixon’s “Whip Inflation Now” buttons), but he hasn’t got the broad vision to do what Friedman suggests and fund “a Manhattan Project to develop alternatives for energy independence, and subsidize mass transit systems for our major cities.” Quite the opposite: Bush’s federal budget proposed de-funding Amtrak, part of the same public transportation system he now wants people to ride. Other Republicans, like Pombo, stubbornly refuse to learn the lessons that the hurricanes provided, namely that the unequal treatment of minorities must be addressed, and that the intertwined problems of how we produce and consume energy while safeguarding the environment must be resolved in a dedicated way. Doing away with the historic sites that memorialize the heroic achievements of our forbears who took up similar challenges will deprive the present of the valuable lessons of the past.