The dirty truth on 'Clear Skies'
By Joyce Chediac
President George W. Bush has discovered Earth Day. He
commemorated the 32nd anniversary of this anti-pollution marker
in front of the media by romping in the snow in New York
state's Adirondack mountains, and by pushing his environmental
initiative.
"With Clear Skies legislation," he said, "America will do
more to reduce power plant emissions than ever before in our
nation's history."
The White House claims its initiative is much better than
the Clean Air Act, now in effect. Environmental groups,
however, say just the opposite is true--the Bush proposal
allows more emissions than under the Clean Air Act. What's
needed, they say, is for the government to enforce the Clean
Air Act.
"It is now painfully clear that this is the most
anti-environmental presidential administration ever," said
Gregory Wetstone of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "On
issue after issue, federal agencies have been promoting the
agenda of corporate polluters at the expense of our clean air,
clean water, protected lands and forest, and even our planet's
climate."
On the question of power plant emissions, the Bush plan
allows three times more toxic mercury emissions than current
law would allow, and postpones forthcoming mercury limits by a
decade.
It would allow 50 percent more sulfur emissions--which cause
acid rain and premature death from respiratory disease--than
current law. And it would push back clean-up standards from
2012 to 2018.
It would also allow hundreds of thousands of tons of
additional smog-forming nitrogen-oxide pollution, and delay
their cleanup for a decade beyond current requirements.
"Delaying cleanup of these plants will cause more asthma
attacks and more cardio-pulmonary disease for thousands of
Americans. And we will see thousands more premature deaths,"
John Walke, director of NRDC's Clean Air program, said.
Bush pro-polluter policies
Bush has been so openly pro-big-business at the expense of
the environment that a top Environmental Protection Agency
official resigned in February to protest the administration's
so-called clean air policies. Eric Schaeffer, head of the EPA's
Office of Regulatory Enforcement, drew the line at White House
efforts to weaken tough emissions standards for power
plants.
In his resignation letter, Schaeffer said he was tired of
"fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the
rules we are trying to enforce." He expressed particular
frustration with the administration's close relationship to
industries that the EPA is supposed to regulate, and at Bush's
unwillingness to pursue legal action against polluters.
Meanwhile, the White House's energy policy calls for $34
billion in tax subsidies to polluting energy industries.
Origins of Earth Day
Earth Day began 32 years ago as a campus-led movement to
protect the environment. This movement has grown worldwide,
targeting profit-hungry corporations and the imperialist
military as the biggest polluters--from the deforestation of
the Amazon basin to the depletion of the ozone layer to the
many toxic dumps in communities of color.
It is the cheapest of shots for the Bush administration to
try to expropriate Earth Day to push a pro-big-business,
pro-polluters agenda. This attempt will surely backfire, and
make enviroment-conscious people even angrier at the Bush
administration and the corporate powers it so shamelessly
represents.
Reprinted from the May 2, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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