Log in
The Lorax said he speaks for the trees, “for the trees have no tongues.”
asserted
trees → log → tongues
That job is now for a federal judge in Washington, D.C.
District Judge Ana C. Reyes invoked Dr. Seuss’s environmental fable after ordering Donald Trump’s administration to stop work on a public golf course, where crews and tractors ripped out hundreds of trees over the weekend.
Reyes unloaded on Department of Justice lawyers in a tense hearing this week after the government failed to alert the court and preservation groups about imminent plans to raze the public golf course, where more than 400 trees were knocked down.
“Breakneck speed to clear trees that posed no harm.
asserted
that → invoke → harm
The urgency? None,” Reyes wrote
asserted
Reyes → write → ?
Without her intervention, the “the ground, landscape and vistas will be irrevocably altered” because “destroyed trees cannot be replaced,” preservationists warned in a lawsuit against the administration.
asserted
preservationists → alter → administration
“Just ask the Lorax,” Reyes added.
asserted
Reyes → ask → Lorax
In a footnote, Reyes said she recently learned that Dr. Suess worked “late into the night” over his depiction of a “smallish gopher-like creature called the Lorax” for “a full year,” citing an article about the author from 1979.
asserted
Suess → say → 1979
“But then, while on vacation in Africa, Dr. Seuss — inspired by the sight of a herd of elephants— ‘picked up a laundry pad and wrote the whole book that afternoon,’” she wrote.
asserted
she → inspire → book
“The Court has seen no elephants.
asserted
Court → see → elephants
And it has certainly had less than a year to write.
asserted
it → have → year
But it very much appreciates that her clerks know something of late-night work and industrious afternoons,” she added.
asserted
she → appreciate → work
Trump’s proposed overhaul of the public golf course — part of his extensive plans to remake the nation’s capital with sweeping changes to the landscape and public monuments — was happening “faster than anticipated,” according to preservation groups who are suing to stop the deconstruction.
uncertain
who → propose → deconstruction
The lawsuit from the D.C. Preservation League and two D.C.-area residents calls on the court to halt the Trump administration's Washington National plan, the National Park Service’s proposed efforts to replace the public park with what the president is calling “one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World.”
asserted
president → call → World
The government had previously stated that it would not take irreversible action without completing a legal and environmental review process as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
asserted
it → state → Act
But shortly before 5 p.m. Friday, the administration announced plans to begin clearing hundreds of trees.
asserted
administration → announce → trees
Tractors and heavy equipment tore down dozens of trees the next day, according to the plaintiffs.
uncertain
Tractors → tear → plaintiffs
The administration claims that the “Tree Management Plan” is “but one step in the Government’s Washington National Plan, which, as Plaintiffs put it, seeks to ‘destroy East Potomac Golf Course,’” Reyes wrote Tuesday.
uncertain
Reyes → claim → Course
“It is a coincidence, the Government seems to suggest, that [the Department of Interior] cut down hundreds of trees at the Course weeks after the President asked [the agency] to cut down trees at the Course, and not, say, any other time in the last seven years,” she added.
asserted
she → seem → years
“That asks rather a lot of coincidence.”
asserted
That → ask → coincidence
The administration has done “precisely” what the preservations feared, the judge said.
asserted
judge → do → what
Tree removal plans moved from “removing only hazardous, dead, dying, or invasive trees to removing hundreds of healthy, non-invasive trees” — and did so without providing any “meaningful” notice to the plaintiffs and the court, Reyes wrote.
asserted
Reyes → move → plaintiffs
Administration officials “raced” to tear down the trees, because the president “demands haste on his redesign, and not because of some newfound zeal to implement a small part” of a seven-year-old plan, she added.
asserted
she → race → plan
Kevin Griess, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, who was hauled Monday into the courtroom, testified that the trees were removed to return the course to “the original state of a links-style golf course,” which had “very, very, very few trees on it at all.”
asserted
which → haul → it
But asked by the judge whether there is any urgency whatsoever to continue pulling down the trees, Griess said “not that I’m aware of.”
asserted
I → ask → trees
Rebecca Miller, executive director of the D.C. Preservation League, said in a statement that the government’s short notice of the tree removal “fails to honor previous commitments of timely communication made to the court and the plaintiffs.”
asserted
notice → say → court
She called the government’s “sudden execution” of the plan “a deliberate effort” by the National Park Service and Department of the Interior to bypass the courts and “jeopardize a protected historic resource.”
asserted
She → call → resource
“Filing late on a Friday and cutting trees at dawn the next morning sure seems to skirt everything this court asked of the administration,” said Alex Dickson, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
asserted
Dickson → file → case
“They seem to be moving forward any way they can, and looking for loopholes to get there.”
asserted
they → seem → loopholes
The Aporia
