Bush cabinet appointees
Defenders of private property, not environment
By Gery
Armsby
George W. Bush's selection of Gale Norton for the post of
secretary of the interior and Christine Todd Whitman to head
the Environmental Protection Agency provides additional
evidence that the incoming administration is trying to assemble
a right-wing, pro-corporate cabinet masked by a "diversity" of
women and people of color.
The primary qualification these appointees possess is not
their experience as women in a society that still views women
as private property, despite progress. Rather it is their
tested reputations for defending and protecting the owners of
private property and the system of capitalist exploitation.
Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, has
distinguished herself as a reactionary. Like other "state's
rights" advocates in the political establishment, Norton
espouses a racist, revisionist, pro-Confederacy view of U.S.
history.
As attorney general Norton refused to defend the state of
Colorado against a lawsuit challenging an affirmative action
program that gave preference to minority contractors. In a 1996
speech at the ultra-conservative Independence Institute, Norton
said that slavery was just "bad facts" and that "we lost too
much" in the Civil War.
She also opposes equality for lesbian, gay, bi and trans
people. Norton appealed a Supreme Court injunction against
Colorado's Amendment 2--the notorious anti-gay ballot
initiative that narrowly passed in 1992. Norton later confirmed
that Paul Cameron, a rabid fascist ideologue who advocates
concentration camps for lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, had
been paid $10,125 by the state at her discretion to testify in
defense of Amendment 2.
Norton was also a strong advocate of a "self-audit" Colorado
law that allowed businesses to police their own environmental
conduct. She fought minimal federal regulations affecting
public lands on the basis of state's rights. Whitman supports
similar measures.
In 1998, Norton founded the Council of Republicans for
Environmental Advocacy to work with corporations that support
"multiple uses" of public lands--meaning the right of industry
to exploit these lands for profit. The first CREA sponsors
included a host of corporate energy interests.
She has advocated property owners' "right to pollute" and
favors compensation for corporate losses related to meeting
environmental standards. She also advocates opening the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Norton has followed in the footsteps of her former boss and
mentor, James G. Watt, also from Colorado. Watt was interior
secretary under Ronald Reagan. If Norton's long association
with him is any indication, she will also willingly serve the
interests of Big Oil once installed.
Black and Latino leaders urge rejection of
Whitman
On Jan. 14, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
spoke out against Whitman's selection to head the EPA. Three
days earlier, 11 members of the New Jersey Legislative Black
and Latino Caucus had urged Congress to reject Bush's pick for
the EPA job. The caucus members said they were concerned about
police and environmental policies implemented during Whitman's
seven years as governor.
This opposition to Whitman from the Black and Latino
communities should come as no surprise. New Jersey's reputation
for racist profiling under her administration tells much of the
story. State Police there are currently under federal
monitoring for their racist practices. Figures released
recently show that police profiling of Black motorists in New
Jersey has actually gone up in the last year.
Whitman supported the two white state troopers who shot four
unarmed Black and Latino men after pulling them over on the New
Jersey Turnpike in 1998.
In 1999, when the popular band Rage Against the Machine gave
a concert in New Jersey to support Black journalist and
death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, Whitman joined
police "unions" in calling a boycott of the event and made
anti-youth statements to the media. She is a vocal supporter of
the death penalty.
Whitman was the first woman to serve as New Jersey governor.
It's often noted that she is considered a moderate, pro-choice
Republican.
But it's worth remembering what Whitman did for other women
in New Jersey. She presided over an administration that forced
more than half of New Jersey's welfare recipients off the rolls
and instituted the "Work First" workfare plan. Like many other
governors who launched similar anti-woman, anti-poor campaigns
in the last half-decade, Whitman disguised these roll-backs as
measures to "restore dignity and self-reliance" to people
"caught in a cycle of dependency."
Whitman bragged about job growth during her recent "State of
the State" speech. But she failed to mention that many of New
Jersey's newer jobs are non-union. And they are heavily
subsidized by "business incubation" tax breaks that come out of
workers' pockets and line the coffers of private companies.
As head of the EPA, what can Whitman be expected to do? Just
ask Black and Latino people who live in Camden or Newark--two
New Jersey cities that have among the nation's highest density
of brownfields. Brownfields are hazardous industrial sites
abandoned by companies and awaiting decontamination before they
can be redeveloped.
Many of these sites are desperately needed for housing and
neighborhood development projects. But because of hazards like
toxic underground storage tanks, urban brownfields have
languished under the Whitman administration.
Whitman rests her reputation as an environmentalist on
having increased the acreage of New Jersey's protected lands,
mostly on the Atlantic shore and inland in the wealthiest
counties. At the same time working-class and poor areas
continue to face a range of environmental problems.
Efforts by the environmental movement to address the
problems of pollution and eco-crisis have won some gains and
have helped focus the spotlight on corporate greed and
government complicity. And solutions to many of the
environmental crises have already been developed. Safe,
alternative energy sources, for instance, could easily be
developed with technology that already exists.
But under capitalism, these ideas are dismissed as "too
costly" and the environment, as well as the people, continues
to be exploited in the drive for profits.
Until the real needs of society are given priority over the
bottom line of the corporations, the workers and oppressed
should demand that the job of protecting the environment
belongs to the people, not the hirelings of oil billionaires
like Whitman and Norton.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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