- Leaders of 13 national environmental groups -- from
Friends
of the Earth to Republicans for Environmental Protection -- marked the
eve of America's 35th Earth Day by calling on President Bush to halt his
administration's unprecedented rollbacks of the entire panoply of laws
and regulations that protect the nation's air, water, natural resources
and public health.
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- "The Bush Administration continues to allow big
corporations to weaken our environmental laws so they can pollute our air
and poison our water, cut down our national forests and make taxpayers
-- rather than polluters -- pay to clean up toxic wastes," said Gene
Karpinski, executive director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group,
at a Washington, DC press conference.
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- Speakers rattled off a seemingly endless stream of
environmental
and health protections being undermined by the Bush Administration, from
a polluter-friendly energy bill to suppression or distortion of federal
scientific analyses. Referring to the latter, Alden Meyer of the Union
of Concerned Scientists said "This pattern of behavior is widespread,
affecting issues from climate change and air pollution to forests,
endangered
species, reproductive and workplace health, and nuclear weapons
policy."
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- Noting that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) "is
a safety net..the checks and balances part of the conservation
equation,"
Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife,
said President Bush "has literally set record for abuse of the
Act."
While President Reagan added an average of nearly 32 new ESA listings each
year, and President Bush's father averaged 58 per year, the current
president
has averaged only eight per year -- and every one of them by court
order.
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- "The Republican Party has an obligation to do
better,"
said Martha Marks, president of Republicans for Environmental Protection.
Recalling that "Republicans helped create the environmental
movement,"
Marks said "That made us proud. But we are not proud of our leaders
today." Instead of extending a record of responsible stewardship,
"They have chosen an ideological path."
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- Decrying the Bush Administration's "shameful and
abysmal record on clean water," Brent Blackwelder, president of
Friends
of the Earth, said "Bush has given the OK to allow mining companies
to dump waste directly into waterways; destroy over 20 million acres of
wetlands; pump untreated sewage directly into our nation's rivers, lakes
and other waters; and pollute with impunity because they don't enforce
the law -- with the result that 60 percent of industrial facilities
nationwide
are now in violation of Clean Water Act discharge limits." Moreover,
added Blackwelder, the administration has proposed cutting half a billion
dollars from sewage plant construction.
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- Several reports and a new TV ad, were released at the
press conference.
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- The TV ad, dramatizing the administration's auctioning
off of America's public resources, will air in Albuquerque, Columbus
(Ohio),
Concord and Manchester (NH), Lansing (Michigan), Raleigh (NC), Tallahassee
and Washington, DC. For details, see www.saveourenvironment.org.
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- Copyright © 2003 Environmental Media Services
- http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000101.php
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