political nonsense

Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, waived several environmental laws to resume building the Mexico border fence; meanwhile President Bush announced he will ask Congress to approve a $500 million package to help Mexico fight drug cartels, the largest international anti-drug effort by the United States in nearly a decade.

Citing “unacceptable risks to our nation’s security” if the fence along the border with Mexico was further delayed, Mr. Chertoff invoked waiver authority granted him under a 2005 bill that mandated construction of the fence.

He ordered work to continue on 6.9 miles of fence along the border through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona.

In a ruling on Oct. 10, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the federal court for the District of Columbia held up construction of the fence, finding that the government had failed to carry out the required environmental assessment. The decision came in a suit brought by the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife.

In a statement yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security said it “disagrees with the court’s ruling” and was confident of eventually winning the case. It noted that two federal land management agencies had authorized the department to proceed with the fence.
wapost
nytimes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 pm and is filed under big business, homeland security, latin america, main, mexico, the bush administration, the environment, the rest of the world. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.