WTF Is It Now?!?

JUST GREAT.
Read it and weep, people:

The Toxic Tinhorn administration is asking Congress to ease environmental laws so 10 million acres of overgrown federal forests can be thinned more rapidly to reduce wildfires.

At the same time, the administration is quietly mapping a far more ambitious plan that would bypass Congress: changing agency procedures so such projects can proceed on 190 million acres with far less environmental scrutiny than is now required.

The administration strategy, still being fine-tuned, would involve an array of administrative changes to skirt some requirements of federal environmental laws. The result: Thinning projects wouldn't be subject to reviews gauging their environmental impact; citizens would have less opportunity to comment; and there would be fewer studies of the potential harm to endangered species.

Many conservationists say that short-circuiting fundamental environmental laws would cater to the timber industry and result in widespread abuses: commercial logging of large, valuable trees instead of brush and smaller trees that feed fires; thinning projects deep in the woods rather than near communities at risk; and excessive road building in sensitive wildlife habitats.

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Interior Secretary Gale Norton proposed legislation that would effectively exempt thinning projects from the National Environmental Policy Act. That 1969 law requires the government to study the environmental impact of its actions and involve the public in decision-making.