"The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation's largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions."

"The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide..."

"We have 40 years of Forest Service hisrtory that has been reversed in the last three months," said Pat O'Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter."

Later in the story it says "Missoula County officials say their objection is not to change....but to being blindsided by Rey's announcement of a far-reaching change negotiated in secret."

Then there is that little part about the paved roads to the developments disrupting habitat for grizzly bears, lynx and other endangered species in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem."

So that's all A-O-K with you, huh?

People are getting sick of all this backdoor, in secret, no-bid bullshit. If you don't think these are top down decisions from Darth Cheney & Co. but just coming from low level bureaucrats at the Bureau of Logging and Real Estate Sales, keep on dreaming. They only have a few more months left to rape and plunder so I expect they will be stepping it up a notch.