Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) isn't known for his honesty.  His latest blatant lie takes the cake, though.  The NC Netroots, led by Scrutiny Hooligans, WataugaWatch and BlueNC has been working to fight the unprecedented sale of 300,000+ acres of our national forests.  Taylor put out a press release(no link, but it is printed below) saying he had shut the sale down, which resulted in a newspaper article and the cancellation of a big push to oppose the sale in North Carolina. (Update: Macon News has already updated the article while I was writing this.)

Imagine how surprised the USDA Forest Service communications office was this morning when I called them to verify that the sale was off.  I could actually picture the woman's head spinning. She replied emphatically, that the Bush administration still wanted to sell this land to support rural schools and that Mr. Taylor was wrong, the sale was not off.

Why would Charles Taylor be so interested in curbing the tide rising up against this proposition?  Find out below the fold....

Charles Taylor is chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee the very subcommittee that would handle the budget request of the USDA Forest Service for 2007.  Charles Taylor wants to squelch the netroots and grassroots push to oppose the sale of this land so he can hand the Bush administration a victory on this issue.  If enough people fail to comment(PDF) against the sale during the public comment period at this email address - SRS_Land_Sales, then the sale will probably move forward and Charles Taylor will have his victory.  As you can see at this page, Taylor has not released any "official" news about the land sale proposal being called off.

I spoke with the reporter from the Macon County News this morning and she was very apologetic about her first article.  She had trusted that what Charles Taylor had sent in his press release was true.  They are planning an updated article this week and it should be online later today.(already up...sorry it replaced the earlier article)

This is a national issue, not a North Carolina issue.  About 10,000 acres of the more than 300,000 proposed for sale are from this state.  The rest is coming from the national forests in other states.  We all need to take action to stop this unprecedented sale.  While I've seen other diaries on this issue, I've also seen them move down the page with very little attention.

The fact is we only have until March 30th to get those emails SRS_Land_Sales opposing the sale of National Forest lands and Taylor wanted to curb our big push.  I for one am not about to let him.  I realize that this might not be the hottest issue facing our nation, but it is one of those issues that will slip under the radar and we won't know what has happened until the land is razed and the new mall or water park replaces a beautiful tract of forest land that we thought was protected.

A professor at UNC-Asheville has put together a great compilation of information from the Forest Service, NC media sources, NC blogs, a MyDD blog post and newspapers from across the country.  I have linked to it above.

If you need some help knowing what to say, you can visit the Daily Action Plans at BlueNC.  You will find the Tuesday Action plan most helpful.

I have never written a diary and asked for a recommendation.  I am asking for that today - not because I want you to agree that Charles Taylor is a low-down, dirty-rotten, big-fat liar, but because you too want to save our beautiful national forests and preserve what is left for the future of this country.

Once again, the email address is: SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us

Body of email "press release" sent to media sources and bloggers. 

"Yesterday, U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth testified on his agency's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request before the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which I chair. During this hearing, I told Chief Bosworth directly and plainly that the Administration's proposal to dispose of 300,000 acres of national forest lands was not going to happen. Any sale of forest land affects the communities and counties in which those forests are located. It is unthinkable to put out a plan to sell off this much land, all across the nation, without first sitting down with each of those local communities and talking about their priorities and their goals. Decisions about land use should be set by stakeholders at the local level, not nameless, faceless bureaucrats in Washington who can't tell Franklin from Fargo."