George W. Bush, for his part, is trying to paint Al Gore as partially responsible for high gas prices, and is pointing out that the Veep’s book Earth in the Balance calls for higher taxes on fossil fuels. The Gore campaign responds that Gore was calling for increased taxes on oil companies, not consumers. Meanwhile, Bush is outlining sweeping changes he would like to make to public lands policies if he wins the presidency, including allowing more trees to be cut down in national forests. Bush says he would reverse, if possible, Pres. Clinton’s initiative that would ban road-building on 43 million acres of national forests. The Texas governor is calling for oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and an end to talk of breaching dams on the Snake River in Washington to help salmon. He has also criticized Clinton’s designations of a number of national monuments in the West, but says he doesn’t know if he could undo them.
