Republican hounds are already after the
Democratic fox. When presidential hopeful John Kerry told
an online environmental news service, “That black stuff is
hurting us,” he went on to say that America’s
dependence on oil is “hurting our health … cost(ing) us
unbelievable security disadvantages … and contributing to
global warming.” Within hours, Reps. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and
Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., fired back with a press release saying Kerry
is “dead wrong.” Said Cubin: “The American people deserve a
president who isn’t hostage to the radical environmental
community and who knows that what’s hurting us is red tape
and frivolous environmental litigation — not American oil”
(HCN, 3/15/04: Follow-up).
The FBI may have
found one of its elves:In early March, FBI agents
arrested a 23-year-old California Institute of Technology graduate
student for torching more than $3 million worth of SUVs and Hummers
in Southern California last summer (HCN, 9/15/03: Burning one for
the road). A month after the incident, someone sent e-mail messages
to the Los Angeles Times, declaring his
affiliation with the Earth Liberation Front or ELF and claiming
responsibility for the damages. The FBI has since traced those
messages to William Jensen Cottrell, whose lawyer says he’s
innocent.
It’s not the $64,000 question,
but rather the $90,000 slogan. When the U.S. Forest
Service released its Sierra Nevada Forest Plan in January, it
neglected to mention that it had paid a public relations firm to
help sell the plan — which calls for increased logging to
reduce the risk of “catastrophic wildfire” on 11.5 million acres of
national forest in California and Nevada (HCN, 3/1/04: Old-growth
trees to fall in the Sierra). In an 11-page memo to the agency,
OneWorld Communications Inc. developed the plan’s “Forests
with a Future” slogan, outlined a strategy to prevent the public or
staff from “impeding” the plan — and cautioned the agency to
keep its strategy confidential because “members of the public who
are not professionals in public relations or marketing might
misinterpret certain ideas or concepts.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Follow-up.
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