Charles Trentelman brings up a great point on his Standard Examiner Blogging the Rambler blog about the doublespeak Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is giving on the environment.
On one hand, Bennett is applauding completion of rail construction to allow the first transport of a tailings pile away from the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Site in Grand County.
On the other, Bennett consistently criticizes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for holding up oil developments in the southern part of the state.
Trentelman says it best.
In short, Bennett is doing now what the federal government did in the 1950s, while at the same time deriding the damage that the policies of the 1950s did.
It is a contradiction that can only be explained by pondering the political mind: Cleaning up a mess is good because the public likes messes cleaned up, hang the cost.
But allowing messes to be created if they are part of industrial development is also good because it makes the developers happy and, hey, later on you can look like a hero by cleaning up that new mess.
Hat tip to Marshal Thompson
Tentleman captured it perfectly. The government never made a mess that it didn’t enjoy cleaning up (nor has it ever cleaned up a mess that it didn’t enjoy making).