Arguably (I suppose), no modern congressman has attempted more to undo longstanding environmental protections than the Republican out of Tracy, Richard Pombo. Head of the House Resources Committee, he has worked to gut the Endangered Species Act, pushed for more offshore oil and gas drilling (a position even Schwarzenegger has to oppose), tried hard to weaken leasing restrictions for mining companies (the Senate did his plans in) and proposed selling off huge segments of National Park Service land.
Last I looked, his Democratic challenger, wind-energy consultant Jerry McNerney, didn't stand a chance of beating him. But with his 11st Congressional District increasingly infiltrated by displaced Bay Area liberals (thanks to the reckless subdividing of farmland his family benefits from), and Pombo's ties to Jack Abramoff lurking in the collective public mind, and dissatisfaction with Bush's administration growing every day, it's starting to look like Pombo could go down.
McNerney's campaign has released the results of their own internal poll, and the race is just about even, and only 32 percent of voters said they'd re-elect Pombo. Granted, this is not an unbiased survey, but, well, one can hope. With Bush campaigning for his rancher buddy in California today, there's also a slew of news stories discussing the potential for Pombo's defeat.
My fingers remain crossed.
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Now see, you were right! The only reason I read your article was because you intrigued me by promising to compare environmentalism and sex. So, I get your point. This is especially relevant to me because, as a senior citizen, I had decided to devote my retirement time this year to becoming more of an "online environmentalist". I was going to start forwarding all of the scarey e-mail of environmental warnings to my friends and entreat them to respond with instant activism. But as you say, they will probably start deleting my e-mail as soon as they see it's from me, their environmental-nazi friend. So maybe I shall have to sugar-coat these dire warnings, perhaps with satirical anecdotes or pictures of "naturists". And by the way..................what IS the difference between environmentalism and sex? Keep up the good work, Judith. I'll be rootin' for ya. Tiff Henderson, 62
Posted on January 19, 2007 12:01 PM by Tiffeney Henderson