Bush Rejects Trendy Environmentalism

John Heilprin / AP 24apr01

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Tuesday he's committed to clean air and clean water but will ``make decisions based upon sound science, not some environmental fad or what may sound good.''

Bush used an awards ceremony for youths taking part in environmental activities to defend his efforts to strike what he calls a balance on environmental issues against accusations that his administration is more interested in promoting the interests of landowners and energy developers.

``Ours is a policy that truly believes that technologies have advanced to the point where we can have economic growth and sound environmental policy go hand-in-hand,'' he said.

In recent weeks, Bush has endorsed a treaty seeking a worldwide phase-out of a dozen highly toxic chemicals and upheld Clinton administration regulations requiring cleaner diesel fuels and engines and requirements that thousands of businesses report releases of toxic lead.

But he also has reversed a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants as a pollutant, withdrawn from a global warming treaty, rescinded new arsenic standards for drinking water and eased environmental requirements on mineral mines in the West.

Bush said Tuesday that his biggest mistake since taking office was ``allowing people to define me as somebody who's not friendly toward the environment.''

``Somehow I get tagged for not wanting to reduce arsenic in drinking water,'' Bush told ABC's ``Good Morning America.''

An ABC-Washington Post poll Monday showed that only 47 percent of the public approve of Bush's handling of the environment while 52 percent said they favor protecting the environment over economic growth. The poll also said 55 percent of those questioned opposed Bush's proposal to drill for oil and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

``We need to be good stewards of the land,'' Bush said at the White House. ``But we've also got to understand that if we don't bring more natural gas to the market, we're going to have blackouts. ... We're going to make decisions based upon sound science, not some environmental fad or what may sound good.''

Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, said Bush has ignored the views of climatologists, biologists and the National Academy of Sciences supporting regulating CO2 emissions, tightening arsenic standards and protecting more endangered species.

``This administration has shown an almost unprecedented disregard for the opinions of the mainstream scientific community,'' Pope said. ``I invite the president to allow scientists to shape his environmental policy. It would be a very different environmental policy than the one we've seen to date.''

Meanwhile, senators in both parties who control Congress' purse strings rejected many of Bush's budget priorities and told Interior Secretary Gale Norton during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Interior and Related Agencies subcommittee that they intend to restore his cuts in reclaiming coal lands and boost spending on native Americans.

Norton defended Bush's 7 percent proposed cut from this year in spending on natural resources and the environment. She pledged to work with Congress in assuring that whatever the figures ultimately negotiated, the money will be spent in better coordination with state and local governments.

``I agree with much of your budget but there are a number of detailed concerns,'' Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., who chairs the Interior subcommittee, told Norton at a two-hour hearing.

Bush's budget calls for spending $26.6 billion in the next fiscal year starting Oct 1. on natural resources and the environment -- $1.9 billion less than the current fiscal year. The House calls for $26.7 billion, while a Senate-passed resolution would spend $29.6 billion.

West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, the Appropriations Committee's senior Democrat, protested Bush's proposal to cut this year's $171 million for reclaiming abandoned coal mines by 27 percent.

``I'm going to do what I can to stop you,'' Byrd warned Norton. ``You better come up with a better justification than you have so far.''

• Interior Department: www.doi.gov/
• Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org