Trapping the Fox in the Henhouse

I have written several posts about this guy in the past months (here, here and this one), but in case you've not read them, or somehow forgotten what a total ratfart he is, let me refresh your memory:

...an even bigger priority for enviros is thwarting the reelection of Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Resources Committee and a zealous advocate of major environmental rollbacks -- among them, weakening the Endangered Species Act, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf, selling off national parks and monuments, and changing mining law to allow thousands or even millions of acres of public land to be transferred into private hands.

"Pombo hasn't met a part of the country that he doesn't want to drill, mine, or develop," says Mark Longabaugh, former political director for the League of Conservation Voters who is now spearheading a Defenders of Wildlife campaign against Pombo. "He tops the list of history's most ruthless environmental bad boys." But Pombo's transgressions, eco and otherwise, are catching up with him, Longabaugh says: "He's gotten himself mired in a number of ethical dustups, and this year faces the most difficult election of his career."

So, Richard Pombo is a congressman from Tracy, CA, and head of the House Resources Committee, a position that puts the most vicious of foxes in charge of the environmental henhouse. The above quote is from Amanda Griscom's excellent piece in Grist Magazine's Muckraker column: Get Richard or Die Tryin'. Enviros plot to beat Pombo in November.

In addition to the Grist column, The LA Times today has an article, A Donor Who Had Big Allies, linking Pombo to some of the congressional/lobbying scandals currently causing many of our elected officials to duck and cover. Pombo has ties to both DeLay and Abramoff, and I for one am fervently hoping to see him as one of their many cronies caught in this net.

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