Lieberman attacks Leavitt-Norton deal | Salt Lake Tribune

Lieberman attacks Leavitt-Norton deal

By Christopher Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON -- A top Senate Democrat expected to be a leading voice against Gov. Mike Leavitt's nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency has written a pointed letter about Leavitt's April deal to eliminate nearly 6 million Utah acres from study as potential wilderness.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said contrary to statements made by Interior Secretary Gale Norton when she announced the settlement agreement with Leavitt, the Bureau of Land Management has not developed any plan to preserve areas with wilderness characteristics that lost their protection status in the deal.

"DOI and BLM officials have made statements suggesting that although such areas could not be designated as wilderness study areas, they could and would be protected," wrote Lieberman, the ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which investigates the operations and management of all branches of the federal bureaucracy. "However, to date there has been no visible evidence of efforts by the administration to ensure protection of these valuable areas, suggesting that these statements were little more than illusory promises."

Lieberman's interest in the Utah deal -- his seven-page Aug. 15 letter to Norton includes more than two dozen questions and requests for documentation, instructions and directives related to the settlement -- is another indication of the contentious reception Utah's Republican governor can expect from the nine minority members on the Senate Environment Committee, which includes Lieberman.

More at the Salt Lake Tribune

he's doing good here.

It is why I am for anyone but Bush including holy Joe.

Who has almost nothing else to attract me.