AR-News: (U.S.) Bush, Kerry and wildlife

[Mary Finelli]

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH ...
Bush Shows Off Ranch to Conservation Groups
Daily Grist, April 8, 2004


President Bush today will give a tour of his Texas ranch to what the White 
House calls "wildlife conservation organizations," including Ducks 
Unlimited, the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, and, uh, the National Rifle 
Association.  Bush's policies of promoting oil and gas exploration and other 
development in the West have sapped some of his political support among 
traditionally Republican hunters and anglers; this tour will be an 
opportunity for him to talk up his clean-air and healthy-forest initiatives, 
said a White House spokesperson.  Bush spends several weeks a year at his 
ranch -- between his inauguration and September 2001, he spent part or all 
of 54 days there -- often hacking away at the cedar brush he says saps water 
from his hardwoods.  A spokesperson for Democratic presidential candidate 
John Kerry -- who himself hunts and would like to win over the hunter 
demographic -- used the ranch tour as an opportunity to attack Bush's record 
on conservation, saying that the president is "systematically dismantling, 
neutralizing, or defunding virtually every meaningful law, regulation, and 
program that protects or restores fish and wildlife."

straight to the source:  Houston Chronicle, Associated Press, 08 Apr 2004
http://www.gristmagazine.com/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=2281

straight to the source:  Reuters, Jeremy Pelofsky, 08 Apr 2004
http://www.gristmagazine.com/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=2280

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