-Caveat Lector-
Thursday, January 11 8:31 PM SGT
Battle brewing over Bush and environment
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (AFP) -
A battle of attrition between Green activists and US conservatives is poised
to burst into open political warfare,
sparked by George W. Bush's selection of hardcore Republicans for crucial
cabinet posts.
Just over a week before Bush becomes president, lobby groups are girding for
an assault on Bush nominees
and a strike against his free-market approach to environmental policy.
Several Bush picks, including John Ashcroft for attorney general, Gale Norton
for interior secretary and Spencer
Abraham for energy secretary, have been given damning report cards by the
environmental lobby.
Ashcroft for example, who will be charged with carrying out environmental
laws, "has an exceedingly poor
environmental record, and is openly hostile to most environmental laws," said
a report card issued by the Sierra
Club, an environmental watchdog.
Bush's nominee for the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd
Whitman, escapes with a "mixed"
rating.
It is difficult to think of a president more likely to enrage
environmentalist than former oil executive George W.
Bush.
For many activists, Bush and his oilmen cronies are plotting the rape of the
environment, are certain to side with
big business over pollution and are bent on ignoring the signs of looming
global ecological disaster.
Exhibit number one is his plan to prospect for oil in parts of the pristine
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska
-- a project Republicans say will ease US dependence on foreign energy
reserves.
The new president's opponents also point to national surveys which rank the
state of Texas, where he was
governor, at the bottom of many smog and pollution league tables.
At the heart of the environmental debate is the perennial argument over the
use and limitations of the US
government.
Conservatives, who revile government intervention, say liberal environmental
crusaders want to add more
federal rules to the statute books.
They brand many Green activists as crisis mongers, who always seize on the
latest oil slick or flash flood to
demand more federal control over business and individuals.
"Republicans are concerned about the environment -- to suggest otherwise is
quite frankly an insult," said
Angela Antonelli, a specialist in the area at a conservative think tank, the
Heritage Foundation.
Conservatives argue that environmental management can best be carried out
under local control, by using
financial penalties and incentives for polluters and big business to clean up
their act.
"It is basically a philosophical difference in the role of government in
environmental protection," said Antonelli,
who believes many environmental groups are mounting scare campaigns to boost
fundraising.
"We should be doing far better than we have been doing -- the Federal
government is impeding progress," she
said, referring to regulations which she says impede initiative and decision
making in areas where pollution and
land use issues are most crucial.
Environmentalists scoff at that line of thinking.
"Pollution doesn't know boundaries. Air pollution from the Midwest is
creating havoc with people on the east
coast," said a senior member of a second environmental group.
"That's why federal laws are needed."
The environmental lobby largely praises President Bill Clinton, who up until
the final days of his administration
has used federal powers to safeguard millions of acres (hectares) of land
from development.
The battle between the two camps has so far been played out across policy
fora, in Congress and the inside
pages of newspapers, but has been brought to the fore by energy shortages and
oil price hikes.
Starting with the confirmation process for Bush nominees the environmental
battle looks set to rumble
throughout his presidency.
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