But he and Lamar deserve great praise here.

What about the 76,000 people who submitted comments during the EIS process? According to the NPS press release, those comments are what drove this decision.

Shuler and Alexander are followers on this issue. Many people have been battling for years to kill this project, and it is only still alive because Charles Taylor represented the tiny sliver of landowners and contractors who would cash in if the road were built better than he represented the majority of his constituents.

Someone on Michael Silence's blog asked him where the unattributed quote he used to announce this news came from, and he hasn't answered. Why should Shuler and Alexander get any credit for this? If they can influence decisions within the EIS process, it just means that process is corrupt. Until they usher an actual settlement through Congress, they have done nothing more than any other citizen who wrote in favor of the monetary settlement. And until Congress pays Swain County, the road is not "officially dead."

The decision, if based on the merits, is a no-brainer. I feel sure if Taylor were still in office we'd still be waiting to hear it, tho.

Knowing that two local Rs, Shuler & Alexander, were supporting this probably gave NPS the balls to go ahead and release the finding. The fact that public comments were overwhelming in one direction didn't hurt, but excuse my cynicism for not thinking that was the determining factor.

BTW, I'm not really bitching about NPS; like every other agency, they've been politicized and neutered by the Bush administration.

Shuler and Alexander deserve praise for getting "nearly all Tennessee and North Carolina House and Senate members to sign a letter endorsing the settlement," but their stance is hardly courageous. Public sentiment is overwhelmingly against this unneeded, expensive and hugely destructive road, and it's only the pervasive corruption among politicians that makes us feel like we owe them gratitude.

Shuler was rewarded for his stance with a seat in Congress, and Alexander owns land that would potentially lose value were the North Carolina side of the park get more commercialized. The people who really deserve praise are the Swain County commissioners who voted for the settlement and probably will have to again before this road really dies.

Shuler deserves some credit for speaking during his campaign about the economic potential of small-scale development that preserves the natural charm of the wilder side of the Smokies. That sort of growth is too diversified to be championed by lobbyists and big donors, so we don't often hear politicians talking about it. Good for Heath for seeing the value of sustainable, democratic and conservation-oriented growth.

I still find it a bit odd that Micheal Silence would take a press release that does mention any federal representative and use an unattributed quote to spin it in favor of Shuler and Alexander.

The deadline for public comment was April 2006, but government agencies are sometimes loose with such restraints, especially when there is a lot of interest in a project. A letter signed by several members of Congress would probably be given consideration, even way past the deadline, so perhaps that letter was submitted to the staff conducting the EIS and entered into the record.

N.C. Senator Burr, the one who says he needs to talk to people before he makes up his mind, needs to keep in mind that 76,000 people have already stated their position, and the representatives of a couple million more have done some talking too.