Are The Environmentalist Wackos Going To Get Their Due ?

The Justice Department is seeking information about whether lawsuits by environmental groups hindered efforts to improve New Orleans levees, an effort the Sierra Club and Democratic lawmakers say is aimed at shifting blame for the massive flooding.

Excuse me Sierra Club and Democrats, it's already been established that improvements to the levees were in fact blocked by environmentalists because of concern for impact on wetlands. As I said in an earlier post, they got their wetlands, and it now includes the city of New Orleans.

"Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation," said the communication, which was read to The Associated Press on Friday by Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

David Bookbinder, Sierra Club senior attorney, said the administration "is more interested in building a case to deflect blame than actually underscore what went wrong before, during and after the crisis."

Well of course he would say that. He knows that the law suits brought on by groups such as his did have a direct impact on improvements to the levees.

Some conservatives have complained that environmental groups have escaped blame for their opposition to levee projects. The Competitive Enterprise Institute posted on its Web site an article noting that "the opposition of environmental activist groups to building levees in the first place" has drawn little attention in the hurricane's aftermath.

It cited two groups, American Rivers and the Sierra Club, for their federal suit in 1996 to block an upgrade of 303 miles of levees in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Most of those levees are on the Mississippi River and did not fail during Katrina.

Separately, an environmental lawsuit in 1977 stopped an Army Corps project designed after Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to protect New Orleans from storm surges.

Hopefully when this all comes out the Environmental Nazis will be discredited in the eyes of the American public.