Some environmental groups have launched a petition drive to oust a top interior department official. However, their prospects of success are questionable. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Wheelhouse reports:
Transcript
Some environmental groups have launched a petition drive to oust a top interior
department
official. However, their prospects of success are questionable. Bill wheelhouse
reports:
Earth First, Greenpeace and the Common Assets Defense Fund are using an internet
petition
drive to try to get Interior undersecretary, Steven Griles, fired. The groups say
Griles close
association with the gas and coal industries demonstrates the Bush administration is
unfriendly to
the environment.
However, Michael Kraft, who tracks environmental policy at the University of
Wisconsin, Green
Bay, says the effort is unlikely to succeed.
“There clearly will be an effort to gain media attention to highlight what
environmentalists
believe to be unacceptable policies in the Interior Department and elsewhere within
the Bush
administration and my guess is the Bush White House will find it very easy to
respond to those
criticisms much as they have for the last three years.”
Kraft says the drive might get more attention if larger environmental groups, such
as the Sierra
club, Audubon Society and Wildlife Federation took part.
But even if they did, he says it likely would not affect Griles standing within the
administration.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Wheelhouse.