U.S. Environmental Groups Battle Bush Policies

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, January 15, 2004 (ENS) - President George W. Bush has the worst environmental record in American history and shows no signs of changing his tune, environmentalists said today at a press briefing.

The panel of experts from many of the nation's major environmental organizations said the administration is enacting a broad agenda to relax federal environmental laws and limit the ability of federal agencies to protect the nation's air, water and public lands.

"We are very worried the administration will live up to its reputation again this year," said Debbie Boger of the Sierra Club.

Environmentalists at the briefing said the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated during the past three years its willingness to override public opinion and public health concerns to weaken environmental regulations.

"They have a pattern of telling the American public one thing and then doing another," Boger said.

The environmental groups cite regulatory revisions and proposals by the administration to weaken the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

President George W. Bush says he is committed to safeguarding the environment. (Photo by Paul Morse courtesy the White House)

Administration officials dispute such criticism and say the President is intent on using sound science to support its decisions, which reflect a desire to balance the need for economic growth and development with environmental protection and conservation.

In a speech last month, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Mike Leavitt said the administration is committed to creating a "faster tempo of improvement using improved technology, better partnerships and markets."

"We will continue to protect and safeguard," Leavitt told EPA employees. "We will do it faster, better and more collaboratively than has ever been done before. We will be the builders of a 21st century network and the keepers of a 30 year ethic."

But the administration's rhetoric does not mesh with reality, said Anna Aurillio of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"The only sound science they will use is the science that sounds good to polluters," she said.

Any of the major candidates seeking to unseat the President would be better stewards of the environment, said Betsy Loyless, a lobbyist with the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).

The LCV is one of the few environmental organizations that can endorse candidates and contribute to campaigns. Loyless said the organization plans to redouble efforts to ensure the public knows the difference between the President and his opponents and to explain to voters the local impacts of federal environmental laws.

The environment can be a useful issue for opponents of the President, Loyless said, and even the Bush administration acknowledges "the public links them to oil, gas and other corporate interests."

The administration is not just undermining environmental protections through administrative rules and legislative initiatives, said John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, federal officials are trying to relax environmental laws through favorable legal settlements and by appealing court decisions that uphold longstanding interpretations of federal statutes.

Conservationists are upset with Bush administration for allowing continued logging in the Tongass National Forest. (Photo courtesy the U.S. Forest Service)

The nation's highest court could rule this session on cases involving federal clean water and clean air rules, as well as Vice President Dick Cheney's appeal of a court ruling that would force him to disclose details of meetings of his controversial energy task force.

The Supreme Court will also hear an appeal by the administration to overturn a ruling that blocked the Bush plan to open U.S. borders to Mexican long haul trucks - environmentalists successfully argued that the Bush administration did not consider the environmental impact of the plan.

In addition, the court will hear an appeal by the Bush administration of a ruling that found the courts can force the Interior Department to protect Wilderness Study Areas from damage caused by off road vehicle use.

The case could have far reaching implications, as it centers on whether federal agencies can be sued by the public for failing to comply with a Congressional mandate.

Lower courts are slated to consider legal challenges to the Bush administration's revisions to federal clean air rules and its plans to accelerate coal bed methane development in the Powder River Basin, in addition to its regulatory and legal positions on issues that include: nuclear waste cleanup; hazardous waste storage; factory farm pollution rules; protection of roadless areas in national forests; protection of endangered species; strip mining regulations; and oil spill rules.

Environmentalists acknowledge a difficult road ahead but say they have been lifted by several recent decisions supporting their positions.

Last month federal courts blocked some of the administration's revisions to clean air rules as well as its effort to scrap a ban on snowmobiling in Yellowstone.

This week a federal appeals court rejected a Bush plan to ease air conditioner efficiency standards

Those decisions are the "chickens coming home to roost on unlawful actions by the administration," Walke said.

Critics believe the administration is not serious about cleaning up the nation's toxic waste sites and is trying to shift the burden to states and local governments. (Photo courtesy Pennsylvania Department of Environment)

The current Republican leadership in Congress has been "hostile to environmental laws," said Sara Zbed of Friends of the Earth.

Zbed says there is a systematic attempt by the Bush administration and some Congressional leaders to use the budget and appropriations process "to fundamentally cripple agencies charged with enforcing environmental laws."

The highway bill contains provisions that roll back clean air rules, Zbed said, and the spending omnibus and other appropriations bills are natural vehicles for anti environmental riders.

But the energy bill, which the administration helped craft, may be the worst of all, says Aurillio.

The 1,200 page bill, which proponents will attempt to revive in the U.S. Senate next week, was crafted behind closed doors, contains a slew of anti environmental policies and does nothing to shift the nation's energy future away from fossil fuels or nuclear energy, Aurillio said.

"It is like a dead fish," she said. "The longer it sits around, the more it stinks."