An excerpt from Doug Holdread's letter to the Colorado Springs Independent regarding an article they published (read the article here) :
There’s a big problem with the current EA; it depends upon an earlier PEIS, which depends, in turn upon the earlier Grow The Army EIS. And all of these documents rely upon yet another, earlier EIS, the 2007 Transformation EIS. They all rest like a shoddily built edifice upon an unsound foundation; baseline data within the Transformation EIS. That EIS was successfully challenged in federal court by Not-1-More-Acre. It was vacated by court order. So, the whole structure that has been built upon it, the GTA EIS, the PEIS, and the CAB EA is nothing but a house of cards. The Transformation EIS has been pulled out and all of the other cards have nothing to support them.
The public has been left standing at the station, watching as the NEPA train chugs on down the tracks, but it's not too late. No accumulated mass of flawed EAs, PEISs and EISs is sufficient to determine things. The NEPA process simply produces a proposal. The final determining factor is funding. Yes, in terms of the NEPA process, the CAB is a “done deal.” But our elected representatives still have to appropriate the money to make it happen. If our Senators, Udall and Bennet decide that they'd rather not abuse flawed NEPA documents to justify the abuse of our land and airspace for military expansionism, they can still pull the plug on the CAB.
The public can't influence the CAB decision through the NEPA process, but we can tell our senators that we want our Colorado public and private lands and our airspace to be used to contribute to energy independence so that future wars will be less likely. We can send them the message that we don't want our lands and skies used to further militarize our state, increasing the likelihood of future wars for oil.
Udall and Bennet have an ethical and economic choice to make. There’s a battle going on over who will control the airspace between the surface and 500 feet. Will it be used for expanded military training, or for the development of wind energy? If we remain silent the persuasive powers of the corporate, defense contractors will be the only voices that our senators hear. We need to urge them to promote an economic future based upon alternative energy, agriculture and tourism; not upon the further federalization and militarization of our state’s economy.
