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“The President’s announcement to commit one billion dollars so other countries can manage 
their forests is offensive. First, America does not have an ‘extra billion dollars.’ We would need to borrow it from the Chinese. Second, the President cannot make an appropriation commitment, only the Congress can appropriate. Third, our public forests here at home are in desperate need of restorative work and maintenance. That work includes watershed maintenance, fuel-load reductions and the eradication of a beetle infestation that plagues much of the West. We simply cannot send money to other countries so they can manage their forests when we lack the funding to take care of our own”/U.S. Sen. Jim Risch re: Obama’s pledge at the Copenhagen Climate Conference of $1B over the next three years go to preserve rainforests in other countries.
Question: Do you agree w/Risch or President Obama re: the pledge of $1B to help rainforests?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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hmoffsuite on December 16 at 4:46 p.m.
Gee, I’ll have to think about that for a while.
hhuseland on December 16 at 5:00 p.m.
Risch makes a very sound case for another attempt at buying friends at the expense of our own. Perhaps the administration is taking lessons from the Microsoft Foundation.
JamesBond on December 16 at 5:04 p.m.
I completely agree with Risch on this one. This is horrible. We are running huge deficits, planning more, and will be seeing massive tax increases soon. There is no justification whatsoever for this kind of crap.
IdahoDad on December 16 at 5:20 p.m.
Take care of things at home first.
bpoole on December 16 at 5:20 p.m.
We have a stake in the rest of the world, not just here at home. Risch needs to move on.
HatTrick09 on December 16 at 5:22 p.m.
No question that Risch is right on this one… Absolutely ridiculous. Of course, this is just one of a million examples of how our government wastes money through these types of handouts so I guess it’s really nothing new…
HatTrick09 on December 16 at 5:26 p.m.
Sorry Bpoole, we have a larger “stake” in spending those tax dollars here at home than in the rest of the world!
spokelooneh on December 16 at 5:38 p.m.
This doesn’t strike me as much different than when Bush proposed $15B over three years to African countries for anti-AIDS programs and drugs. Bush did this in his 2003 SOTU address.
Was Risch claiming then that Bush didn’t have appropriation authority, and that the US didn’t have $15B just lying around?
Pure grandstanding and posturing.
sue on December 16 at 5:59 p.m.
We don’t have enough information to make an rational decision, based on Risch’s comments. I’m sure we’d all be aghast at what has been given to other countries in the past 10 years, but it’s funny I’ve never heard anything about it until now. Instead of grandstanding and politicizing, it’d be nice to have a representative who actually informed.
hmoffsuite on December 16 at 7:27 p.m.
Sue >> “. I’m sure we’d all be aghast at what has been given to other countries in the past 10 years, but it’s funny I’ve never heard anything about it until now.”
In fact, our economy can less afford non necessary expenditures now, than almost anytime in our history. These are difficult times and we must be more fiscally conservative than we have been in the past. The administration has spent too much money of late and is placing our Country in a tenuous financial position.
fortboise on December 16 at 8:11 p.m.
I think Risch sounds a bit shrill.
The U.S. provides a lot of foreign aid and “incentives” in many different ways. I’m sure we lose a $billion a month in rounding errors on the accounting with our defense contractors.
Not that it isn’t a lot of money, but our fate may well turn out to be tied to the fate of the rainforests.
Escapee on December 16 at 8:33 p.m.
I’d rather spend a billion on rain forests than on wars where people have to Die.
Me on December 16 at 10:00 p.m.
Yeah - what fort boise said - a billion here a billion there - no biggie. Just print some more, borrow some more - who cares? They probably won’t come after ME to collect - it will be a legacy left to my children and grandchildren - I’ll be lonnnnggg gone after that - so no cares.
Norther on December 17 at 11:07 a.m.
i would be far more inclined to give creedence to our esteemed Senator, had he written a bill to do just the things he said we should be doing. All talk and no action makes this one a cranky conservative. I have multitudes of respect for Senator Risch. However, I really, really wish our elected officials would start trying to do something instead of just sending soundbites.