Home > Republicans Blast President Bush on Environment
By Erik Stetson
Concord, New Hampshire - One of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s earliest leaders, flanked by
Republican state politicians, blasted the president’s
record on the environment Monday during a news
conference organized by an anti-Bush environmental
group.
Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA’s second chief
under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. But he
said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting his
presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.
"It’s almost as if the motto of the administration in
power today in Washington is not environmental
protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find
this deeply disturbing."
Bush supporters defended the president’s record. Tom
Thomson, owner of Thomson Family Tree Farm in Orford,
praised the Healthy Forests Initiative as good
legislation that protects loggers as well as forests.
He predicted current policies would have positive long-
term effects.
Bush "has made progress over the last four years giving
us cleaner air, water and land," Thomson said in a
statement.
Officials with the state’s Bush-Cheney campaign said
sulfur dioxide emissions are down 9 percent, while
nitrogen oxide emissions are down 13 percent. They
added that the 2002 Farm Bill set aside more than $40
billion in conservation funding.
Environment2004, the environmental group, released a
report Monday titled "Damaging the Granite State." It
criticizes presidential policies on energy, global
warming, toxic waste and air and water pollution.
"It is the worst record in modern history,
unfortunately," said Aimee Christensen, the group’s
executive director. "They are systematically weakening
our keystone public health protections and undermining
decades of bipartisan leadership on the environment."
The report faults Bush’s energy policy, for example,
for slashing renewable energy funding. According to the
report, the cuts are holding back New Hampshire, which
could produce 43 percent of its energy from wind power.
The report also claims the state could add 5,000 jobs
by 2020 with more renewable energy and efficiency
investments.
The report cites such sources as federal and state
agency reports as well as newspaper articles and
advocacy-group studies.
The two Republican state politicians who spoke - Rep.
Jim Pilliod, a pediatrician, and former Sen. Rick
Russman, who once headed the Senate Environmental
Committee, did not endorse Kerry. They said they
participated to stress the importance of environmental
issues.
Russman said funding was cut for cleanup work at two of
the state’s 19 Superfund sites. He also said the
administration’s standards would delay mercury
emissions cleanup until at least 2018. Pilliod added
that mothers and children are particularly vulnerable
to mercury pollution.
Train also accused Bush of letting weakening the Clean
Air Act. The record, he added, falls short of those set
by former Republican presidents ranging from Theodore
Roosevelt, who advocated creating national parks and
forests, to George H.W. Bush, who supported new anti-
air-pollution standards.
The Bush record is "appalling, with very, very few
exceptions," Train said. He described presidential
policies as "geared to rolling back environmental
protections."
Environment2004 has been actively campaigning against
Bush policies and has released a national report on its
Web site criticizing them. (AP)