A Resounding Vote for Open Space

November 19, 2008

Editorial, The New York Times
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Excerpts:

Across the nation, voters approved $7.3 billion in new spending for parks and open-space preservation. Sixty-two of the 87 referendums to acquire or otherwise protect open space were approved. And the support came in rural, Republican areas, as well as in those that lean toward the Democrats.

….These votes are an explicit rebuke to President Bush, who failed miserably to honor his 2000 campaign promise to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the government’s main vehicle for buying open space. They should give Congress a strong push to approve a public lands measure that, among other things, would grant permanent wilderness protection to two million acres of public land.

We had hoped that Congress would approve the legislation in the current lame-duck session.