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'Clear Skies', clear lies, and intimidationby Plutonium Page
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Sat Feb 19th, 2005 at 14:44:47 PST
Clear Skies will bring Americans much cleaner air, and healthier forests, lakes, and estuaries. Many cities and towns will meet air quality standards for the first time in years. We will virtually eliminate the problem of acid rain, which affects so many lakes and forests in the Northeast. We also will dramatically reduce urban smog and nitrogen and mercury deposition. Clear Skies will reduce air pollution from power plants by 70 percent -- the most significant step America has ever taken to address this problem -- while using a market-based system to keep electricity prices affordable for hardworking Americans. -- President George W. Bush, July 1, 2002
What George didn't say was "We will intimidate groups who oppose us by making them turn over their tax and financial records..."
... which is exactly what Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is doing.
More below the fold.
Diaries :: Plutonium Page's diary ::
The LA Times has the story:
The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees environmental issues has directed two national organizations that oppose President Bush's major clean-air initiative to turn over their financial and tax records to the Senate.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, asked for the documents 10 days after a representative of the two groups criticized Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal before a Senate subcommittee. Inhofe is the leading sponsor of the administration bill, which is deadlocked in his panel. The executive director of the two organizations, which represent state and local air pollution control agencies and officials, charged that the request was an attempt to intimidate critics of the measure.
Supposedly, the records were requested to rule out any special interests' influence over the environmental groups.
Well, Republicans are the experts on special interests, right?
Anyway, there's more:
On Jan. 26, John Paul, an environmental regulator from Ohio, testified on behalf of both pollution control organizations. He told the Senate subcommittee that "Clear Skies" "fails on every one of our associations' core principals," was "far too lenient" on polluters and would undermine "states' abilities to protect air quality."
After the testimony, several senators sent a letter to Paul with follow-up questions; Inhofe included a request for financial statements, membership lists and tax returns for the last six years for both groups. Paul is the vice president and incoming president of the local air pollution group. Inhofe's request was first disclosed by Cox News Service on Friday. The Senate committee asked for the information because it had long-standing concerns about the decision-making process of the state air pollution group, and was pursuing those questions as part of its oversight responsibility, Wheeler said.
What does Rep. Waxman have to say about this?
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said: "There is not even any subtlety about this. This is a blatant attempt at intimidation and bullying so that experts will be afraid to speak out about a bill that rolls back air pollution protections for all Americans."
Just to give you an example of what the Clear Skies legislation really means, you might want to take a look at this article in the February 3, 2005 Washington Post:
The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general. Staff at the EPA were instructed by administrators to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then had to work backward from the predetermined goal to justify the proposal, according to a report by Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
The part in bold (my emphasis) is a reference to the Clear Skies legislation. An explanation of this "cap and trade" approach to limiting pollution is here.
More things to read
[Subscribe]
Sat Feb 19th, 2005 at 14:44:47 PST
Clear Skies will bring Americans much cleaner air, and healthier forests, lakes, and estuaries. Many cities and towns will meet air quality standards for the first time in years. We will virtually eliminate the problem of acid rain, which affects so many lakes and forests in the Northeast. We also will dramatically reduce urban smog and nitrogen and mercury deposition. Clear Skies will reduce air pollution from power plants by 70 percent -- the most significant step America has ever taken to address this problem -- while using a market-based system to keep electricity prices affordable for hardworking Americans. -- President George W. Bush, July 1, 2002
What George didn't say was "We will intimidate groups who oppose us by making them turn over their tax and financial records..."
... which is exactly what Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is doing.
More below the fold.
Diaries :: Plutonium Page's diary ::
The LA Times has the story:
The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees environmental issues has directed two national organizations that oppose President Bush's major clean-air initiative to turn over their financial and tax records to the Senate.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, asked for the documents 10 days after a representative of the two groups criticized Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal before a Senate subcommittee. Inhofe is the leading sponsor of the administration bill, which is deadlocked in his panel. The executive director of the two organizations, which represent state and local air pollution control agencies and officials, charged that the request was an attempt to intimidate critics of the measure.
Supposedly, the records were requested to rule out any special interests' influence over the environmental groups.
Well, Republicans are the experts on special interests, right?
Anyway, there's more:
On Jan. 26, John Paul, an environmental regulator from Ohio, testified on behalf of both pollution control organizations. He told the Senate subcommittee that "Clear Skies" "fails on every one of our associations' core principals," was "far too lenient" on polluters and would undermine "states' abilities to protect air quality."
After the testimony, several senators sent a letter to Paul with follow-up questions; Inhofe included a request for financial statements, membership lists and tax returns for the last six years for both groups. Paul is the vice president and incoming president of the local air pollution group. Inhofe's request was first disclosed by Cox News Service on Friday. The Senate committee asked for the information because it had long-standing concerns about the decision-making process of the state air pollution group, and was pursuing those questions as part of its oversight responsibility, Wheeler said.
What does Rep. Waxman have to say about this?
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said: "There is not even any subtlety about this. This is a blatant attempt at intimidation and bullying so that experts will be afraid to speak out about a bill that rolls back air pollution protections for all Americans."
Just to give you an example of what the Clear Skies legislation really means, you might want to take a look at this article in the February 3, 2005 Washington Post:
The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general. Staff at the EPA were instructed by administrators to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then had to work backward from the predetermined goal to justify the proposal, according to a report by Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
The part in bold (my emphasis) is a reference to the Clear Skies legislation. An explanation of this "cap and trade" approach to limiting pollution is here.
More things to read
- You can trust the White House website to come up with unbeatable levels of bullshit on their "Protecting the Environment" web site.
- More stuff to make you hurl: the White House web site's page on global climate change
- The Sierra Club's Clean Air page
