Shaheen On Wildfires...You Can Smell The Hypocrisy (From Day 1) - Granite Grok

Shaheen On Wildfires…You Can Smell The Hypocrisy (From Day 1)

Jeanne Shaheen had some harsh words for the White House regarding the Wildfires…

I Can Almost Blame George Bush From Here!

“These wildfires are a direct result of this administration’s failure to do something about global warming,” Shaheen said with passion and to applause as the microphone cut out on her.

back in October of 2007.  Back in 2007 she was talking about California Wildfires and then President George W. Bush.

Whether you believe in Global warming or not, and regardless of whether you think it could or would have any affect on wildfires as Jeanne Shaheen believes–at least for the sake of campaign rhetoric–what bearing do these remarks have on the current situation in Colorado today?

Wildfires have been raging across Colorado for weeks.

Tens of thousands of people have had to leave their homes.

Federal forests are being ravaged and private property damaged.

We have a sitting Democrat President (Barack ‘Smokey Bear’ Obama), who has done and said nothing (From Day 1) about the crisis.  It’s been two weeks and some C-130’s have finally been cleared to help just days ago.

Well, I guess he’s been busy campaigning for re-election don’t you know.  But word has it that he may want to campaign in Colorado so he should probably take a look and make sure there is still a Colorado to campaign in.  Or maybe there is a Golf Course in the path of the blaze.

(Can’t imagine he’ll be looking at vacation spots for Michelle on this visit.)

But there they are.  Massive wildfires during the administration of a Democrat president.  A guy who had complete partisan control of Congress and the White House for two years.  A green ideologue who has been issuing an endless stream of global warming related edicts through the EPA for years.  Obama is the global warming President.  So why no fire about the fires?

From the Colorado Gazette we have news about something Mr. Obama did that may actually have a serious detrimental affect on forest fires.

“Less than a year ago, the same administration seemed to be doing its best to leave the Forest Service ill-equipped to deal with the mounting wildfire threat, by summarily cancelling a contract with a company that furnished roughly one third of the wildfire-fighting tankers in the agency’s already-depleted fleet. That action might loom large as calls mount for an investigation into why the agency’s air assets seem inadequate to meet the threat.”

Where’s the Outrage Ms. Shaheen?

She has not changed her position on Global Warming to my knowledge and she has never retracted her Global Warming Bush Blaming for wildfires in 2007.

She has a great view of the situation from her perch on a number of Environmental Senate Committees including a Senate Sub Committee on public lands and forests.  Did you know that these fires are burning on public lands and forests?  Senator Jeanne Shaheen has oversight on public forests and wildfires!

But if you Google Jeanne Shaheen, Colorado, and Wildfires….all you get her remarks about George Bush from 2007, and Blogs about it by folks like me.

There is a link in the list to a  Wildfire management hearing pdf from June 14 2011 at which Senator Shaheen was present, but no links to anything from the Senator on the Colorado Wildfires.

No remarks from her about the inaction or inadequate actions of the Global Warming President of record, nor any reference to Mr. Obama allowing the resources needed to fight Wildfires to lapse.

And yet we know for a fact, particularly to a Global Warming advocate like Senator Shaheen, that wildfires are a serious concern.

“These (Republican) wildfires are a direct result of this (Republican) administration’s failure to do something about global warming,” Shaheen said with passion and to applause…”

If you read the beginning of the hearing notes on the Wildfire management hearing pdf from June 14 2011 Global Warming, severe weather, and droughts take center stage.  And hey, so does this.

Another challenge that looms large given our fiscal situation is fact that the Nation’s remaining fleet of aging air tankers needs to be replaced or restored in the near future. The cost for doing that will be quite substantial, and it cannot be covered from within the agencies’ existing budgets.

$800 billion in stimulus.  Agency and department budgets were bloated from 20-50% while Democrats ran congress in the last (and only) budget the Democrat controlled US Senate actually passed.  They added five trillion in new debt to the deficit.  And there is no money in agency budgets for the nations remaining fleet of aging air tankers?

What was that quote again.

“…the same administration seemed to be doing its best to leave the Forest Service ill-equipped to deal with the mounting wildfire threat, by summarily cancelling a contract with a company that furnished roughly one third of the wildfire-fighting tankers in the agency’s already-depleted fleet.”

I wonder.  Is this what happens when Democrat US Senators violate the law and refuse to fund the government with a budget and instead play politics with continuing resolutions?  Substantial costs.  No money in the agency budgets.  Hmmmm.

Then there is this…from the same linked article above)

Environmentalists have fought the use of slurry for years, which may or may not explain why Obama seems to lack enthusiasm for a robust tanker fleet. Environmentalists sued to stop the use of fire retardant after it killed 50 steelhead trout in the Santa Ynez River near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2009.

Washington-based Human Events magazine reported in September of 2011 that nearly half of the federal government’s air tankers sat idle at a California airport, as wildfires ripped through national forests throughout California, Texas, New Mexico, and other states.

It turns out the Obama administration ended a long-standing contract, leaving the Forest Service with only 11 tankers to battle 50 wildfires that were burning nationwide. A decade ago, the Forest Service had 40 firefighting tankers.

The Obama administration canceled the government’s contract with Aero Union — a company with 60 employees that had been under contract with the Forest Service for 50 years.

I cant help but remind you that Senator Shaheen sits on a committee with oversight on this very problem, but she still has nothing to say about massive wildfires chewing their way across Colorado, and does not appear capable or willing to raise the bile she shared on the same subject  when a Republican President failed to meet her “requirements.”

Have the requirements changed?  Or is this like the hundreds of billions in taxpayer funded green loan defaults and bankruptcies to Solar companies (invested in or owned by Democrat 1 percenters), the oversight or investigation of which could fall into the lap of another committee she sits on if the Democrats running it could find some interest.

If banks or oil companies lost billions in public money Senator Shaheen would be unable to shut up about it.  If companies owned or run by republicans went bankrupt after getting drunk on taxpayer money, we’d have strings of press releases, public appearances, and wailing for justice.  We’d have more investigators than we could shake a stick at.  And when a Republican President was there to blame for wildfires of convenience Shaheen was there, tin foil hat in hand, to talk nonsense for political points.  But now?  (Crickets…)

There is not one mention of Colorado or Wildfires (or Obama or Global Warming causing them) on the press pages of her Senate web site either.

Why not?  Jeanne Shaheen is a partisan first and foremost.  She is a left wing hypocrite of epic proportion.  The party always comes before the people and it always has.

But there is hope for her.  Now that Mr. Obama has finally acknowledged the fires and decided to have a look-see, she might receive permission to break her DNC sanctioned silence.

Of course there won’t be any notes instructing here to blame Obama, so her blatant partisan hypocrisy on this issue remains secure.

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