Going to Ground on Earth Day

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Going to Ground on Earth Day
by James Hall, Associate Editor

April 24, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall "Our landmark environmental laws face the gravest challenge since the assaults of the Newt Gingrich Congress of 1995, and perhaps the gravest ever. The threat this time is more insidious and potentially more dangerous. The Bush administration is quietly subverting federal agency rules that translate environmental laws into specific requirements for industry." -- Gregory Wetstone, Natural Resources Defense Council

President Bush spent Earth Day doing the usual environmental photo op--in this case, walking through the snowy Adirondack Mountains--which are plagued by acid rain from Midwestern smokestacks. But one gets the feeling that Bush really wanted environmentalists to take a hike, instead. Earth Day isn't big with this administration--you get the feeling they'd much prefer celebrating a Drilling Day, a Logging Day, or a Coal Digging Day, instead.

It used to be that Republicans cared about the environment. Teddy Roosevelt set up America's first National Parks. Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the Endangered Species Act. Even Dubya's Daddy approved an enhanced extension of the Clean Air Act and signed the Rio Declaration, which first recognized (in 1990) the problem of global warming and volunteered efforts by the industrial nations to make amends for burning greenhouse gases.

So why has it been lately that his son seems to be in the forefront of efforts to stop activities to reduce global warming, shed protections on endangered species, and eliminate environmental impact statements for corporate development, while promoting efforts to mine and drill and log in our national parks? Why did Bush start off by breaking his campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide in emissions, and why did he alienate much of the world by canceling Kyoto without coming up with a better plan?

Of course not every Republican shares this administration's views on the environment. Eight Republican Senators joined most Senate Democrats in blocking drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, set aside by another Republican--President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But enough Republicans do, particularly in the ideological House of Representatives, to make one assault after another on our environment. These attacks include:

*Cancellation of a cooperative government-business program with Detroit's Big Three to create internal combustion engines with improved gas mileage. The administration instead supports a decade or longer research program into hydrogen-fueled automobile engines.

*Bush's so-called "Clear Skies" program which sets emission caps but allows business to decide how to meet them. The major drawback here is that the caps are not significantly higher than the historical reduction of emissions created by technological innovation. The caps would also permit more pollution than the current Clean Air Act does, including more airborne sulfur, mercury, and nitrogen oxide.

*The resignation of Eric Shaeffer, chief of civil enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency and a G. H. W. Bush appointee who charges that the EPA is taking a "back seat" to energy corporation lobbyists in this administration.

*In Montana and Wyoming the administration is putting on the fast track a proposal to drill 50,000 gas wells over the objections of both environmentalists and ranchers.

*ANWR isn't enough. The administration wants to "streamline" permitting and environmental impact statements (in other words, ignore them) to drill in 50 areas in the lower 48 states, especially in the West, the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico. The shortcutting of permits would permit more building of pipelines, refineries, dams, and nuclear plants without worrying about cumbersome obstacles like property rights, endangered species, and environmental impacts on the surrounding population.

*The administration supports efforts by the GOP Congressional leadership to cut off the corporate taxes that paid for the Superfund cleanup of bankrupt corporate pollution sites, thousands of which still exist around the country. The Superfund's cash on hand has plummeted from billions to less than 40 million dollars, putting most cleanup projects on hold. Who will have to end up paying for these corporate dumps? It's beginning to look like it will be the average taxpayer, not Mr. Bush's corporate friends.

Even when committing acts of environmental good, this administration seems to find ways to limit their usefulness. In submitting the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to Congress, a treaty already approved by 127 nations that eliminates production of the twelve most dangerous and persistent chemicals in the environment, the administration scratched out a treaty provision that would add new chemicals to the list if scientific scrutiny found them to be equally as dangerous and as persistent.

The environment shouldn't be a Republican or a Democratic issue. Both parties have played significant roles in protecting our air, water, and natural resources from pollution and depradation. But ideologues have taken over the debate, and many now declare environmentalism to be a Democratic issue, while Republicans must act to save the interests of businesses and corporations. In particular it's this administration which has allied itself most closely to those interests.

In Texas, Governor Bush was known as a man who would put corporate executives in charge of the state agencies that regulated them. As a result, air and water pollution increased in Texas and the city of Houston became the most polluted city in the nation. Now President Bush wants to bring his corporate-friendly pollution approach to the rest of the nation. Maybe we ought to tell him to take another hike. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files