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Bush Chips Away at Environmental Policy
Mike Magner's Column
2/4/2004
Just because President Bush didn't mention the environment in his State of the Union speech doesn't mean his administration has no environmental policy.
In fact, a clear description of the Bush program was offered on Capitol Hill a few days before the president went there to deliver his environment-free address.
The chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., told AP reporter Erica Werner that rather than seek a sweeping overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, he will attempt to dismantle the law little by little.
"I think it's just a lot easier and a lot more practical to break it down," Pombo said.
Lest there be any doubt that Republican leaders in Congress and the White House are on the same page, the Environmental Protection Agency did its part to assist Pombo's effort on Jan. 30 by publishing a rule that would gut a key section of the ESA.
Under the proposed rule, the EPA, when considering whether to approve pesticides for use, would no longer be required to consult with experts at the Fish & Wildlife Service on whether the chemicals could harm endangered species.
Not surprisingly, the regulations were drafted for EPA by the chemical industry, which was stunned in 2002 when a federal judge ruled that dozens of pesticides were improperly registered because EPA failed to have them reviewed by Fish & Wildlife.
Had the pesticides been appropriately screened by wildlife biologists, the judge in Seattle ruled, EPA might have prevented widespread damage to fish in the Klamath River by restricting chemicals used in the basin. EPA had to acknowledge that it rarely, if ever, consulted with Fish & Wildlife when registering pesticides, in clear violation of the Endangered Species Act.
Faced with the prospect that scores of pesticides could be restricted because of threats to birds, frogs, insects and other annoying critters, the chemical industry quickly offered a solution: Give EPA exclusive authority over pesticide registrations. Of course, EPA officials loved the idea and moved to cut other agencies out of the picture by embracing the regulations written entirely by an industry lobbyist, the Natural Resources News Service learned.
Lobbyists have long had a hand in drafting regulations in Washington, but the practice has become standard procedure in the Bush administration. EPA's new proposals for reducing mercury from power plants — mainly aimed at giving utilities an extra decade to significantly reduce their toxic emissions — include language taken verbatim from a memo written by a top energy law firm, Latham & Watkins, the Washington Post reported.
The administration's environmental proposals seem to have one thing in common: They relax or eliminate requirements that industry considers onerous. Scrap runoff controls at construction sites; shortcut studies of logging plans; streamline permitting for mountaintop mining — the list goes on and on.
No wonder Bush didn't mention his environmental policy in the State of the Union. Polls consistently show that middle-aged, college-educated voters — the type who can swing elections — are strongly opposed to weakening environmental regulations. Yet that is exactly what the president is doing as he chips away, bit by bit, at several decades of protections.