Bangor Daily News, Dec.2
Just getting those in the forest product industry, the conservation realm and outdoor recreation business to talk to one another is an accomplishment. Getting them to agree to a vision for Maine’s woods will be another matter.

So, while it might not sound like much on paper, Gov. John Baldacci’s recently announced plan to bring all those involved in economic development and resource conservation together as part of the Maine Forest Legacy provides a new approach to the decades-long debate over the future of the state’s woods. With the forest product industry in distress – paper mills continue to shed jobs and forest land continues to trade hands at a rapid pace – it is clear that a different approach is needed. Tying forestry to conservation and recreation is a natural.

Although the groups representing these interests have often been at loggerheads – whether it be over forestry rules, land sales or certification standards – they in fact have a lot in common. Jobs in the woods, whether they be cutting trees, guiding hunters or housing snowmobilers, are important to the communities on the edge of the state’s vast forests.

Because of mill closures and layoffs, these communities now face uncertain futures. As Gov. Baldacci said last week, “We must replace that uncertainty with confidence.”

His initiatives have a long way to go to reach confidence, but putting people on the right path is a good start. …


About time for justice


News Chief, Winter Haven, Fla., Dec. 2
The Bush administration is finally beginning to resolve the fate of the prisoners held in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It is overdue.

Published accounts say that more than 100 – one account says 140 – will be released in December and January to their home countries. …

The administration has insisted that neither U.S. laws nor international treaties, such as those governing prisoners of war, apply to the detainees, and it has asserted its right to hold them indefinitely and largely incommunicado.

That assertion has outraged world opinion and badly damaged the United States’ reputation as an upholder of the rule of law and a champion of due process. Many of the prisoners, most of them captured in Afghanistan, have been in custody since January 2002…

The Supreme Court just recently agreed to hear an appeal on behalf of 16 of the detainees two Britons, two Australians and 12 Kuwaitis seeking the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. If the court finds for the detainees, the administration will lose its rationale for running Guantanamo as it does.


Battling MTBE


The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 1
It hardly qualifies as a tragedy that the U.S. Senate, after failing by two votes to overcome a filibuster on the administration energy bill, decided to give up the effort for the year. The bill contained almost nothing attractive and a good deal that was objectionable.

Senate leaders have vowed to try to revive the bill next year, though it will be tough to get a compromise in an election year. Instead they should relegate this mess to the scrap heap of history.

The bill foundered in part on a proposal to give manufacturers of a fuel additive called MTBE an exemption from certain lawsuits, which some in Congress are calling a form of corporate welfare. But it’s worth remembering that MTBE was added to gasoline not at the behest of these manufacturers, but in response to a congressional mandate meant to help reduce air pollution.

The mandate seemed OK with Congress until it was discovered that MTBE was itself a significant pollutant, forcing a panicky reverse course. And now farm state lawmakers are trying to force the use of more ethanol to meet the mandate, and fill the void left by a phase-out of MTBE in perhaps an even more noxious form of corporate welfare.
Give peace a chance


Khaleej Times, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 27
When Pakistan made the cease-fire offer on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr and India responded positively to it, we thought that the developments augured well for peace negotiations. …

However, Wednesday’s rejection of the cease-fire by the rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedin, is bound to thwart progress toward restoration of normalcy in Kashmir, especially in the tense border areas. …

What is necessary is nothing less than major surgery. The Hizbul says that the situation inside Indian-administered Kashmir is “tense and the struggle will continue with full force.” One reason for the groups frustration could be the security fence being built by the Indians along the Line of Control, which will separate relatives and friends in an already divided province. …

But no matter how well founded the apprehensions of the fence’s critics, the rebels and their political backers who oppose the cease-fire should give the deal a chance. For, above all, the cease-fire benefits ordinary Kashmiris, who can now more freely venture out of their homes, whether to visit relatives and friends or to pray. In short, it has given them a taste of normal life after years of continual tension and bloodshed.