Editorial: Bush fawns over large polluters

Friday, Aug. 29, 2003 | 5:46 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: August 31, 2003

Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules that will enable thousands of industrial plants to modernize their facilities without having to install new pollution controls. Owners of power plants, refineries, chemical plants and other large industrial facilities were elated by the decision. The reason for that is the Bush administration's rules that disregard the intent of the Clean Air Act, which requires industrial plants to install the latest anti-pollution devices when they upgrade their facilities.

Environmentalists denounced the plan and a number of state attorneys general say they will file lawsuits to overturn the rule that effectively overrides the intent of Congress to reduce pollution by these plants. "The Bush administration is giving the green light to major industrial plant operators to spew millions of tons more in air pollution without being held accountable," Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly said.

President Bush is making a mockery of the Clean Air Act, and that lack of concern for the environment, distressingly, isn't unusual for this White House. This is the same administration that dismisses the real threat of global warming, at one time considered weakening arsenic standards for drinking water, wants to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge even though it would harm that pristine land in Alaska, favors more logging of our national forests and is determined to increase the nation's use of nuclear power despite the fact it generates deadly radioactive waste, which the White House wants to ship to Nevada. In all of these cases the Bush administration has disregarded evidence that has proved that there is a clear harm to the environment and, in the instance of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, poses a threat to public safety. I t's a sorry environmental record, one that the public shouldn't forget next year at election time.