[A-List] US corporate state: greenwash

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Bush cuts into green laws by stealth

Regulation changes favour party's industrial backers

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday January 17, 2003
The Guardian

The White House is quickly but quietly undermining environmental protection
laws with dozens of small administrative changes in favour of landowners and
corporations, according to a report yesterday.

While the US rejection of the Kyoto treaty on global warming focused world
attention on President Bush's environmental policies, many of the
administrative changes have gone almost unnoticed, although they may have
just as much impact.

Last week, the environmental protection agency (EPA) announced it would
review how many US streams and marshes it would continue to protect. Small
isolated streams and ponds which dry up in hot weather - up to 60% of the
formerly protected habitat - might be excluded.

There has been no final decision yet, but Tim Searchinger of the
Environmental Defence Fund, said the fact that the EPA was reviewing the
policy at all did not augur well. "They've led us up to the top of the
mountain but they haven't said whether we're here for the view or they're
going to push us off the edge," he said.

The EPA announcement did not ignite a national debate because it did not
involve a formal change in the law. It merely addressed a "reinterpretation"
of guidelines.

A survey by the Knight Ridder newspaper group dug up more than 50 such
administrative tweaks and policy changes in the first two years of the Bush
administration, the overwhelming majority of them in favour of industry.

"The list of rollbacks is endless," Andrea Durbin, Greenpeace's campaign
director, said, calling the cumulative changes in policy "an assault on the
environment".

The oil and gas industry donated $17m (£10.6m) to the Republican party in
last year's congressional elections, while President Bush's election
campaign was underpinned by nearly $2m from oil and gas companies.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a watchdog based in
Washington, the party also received $3.2m from the logging industry in the
2002 campaign. It, too, has won a loosening of regulations.

The thinning of forests, intended to cut the threat of fires, can -
according to a recent administrative change - be carried out with
environmental impact reviews, which would, for example, examine the impact
of logging on endangered species.

In November, the EPA allowed more than 17,000 old coal-fired power stations,
oil refineries and factories to expand or renovate without installing
pollution filters, as had previously been required.

The EPA has also redefined what could be legally emptied into rivers and
lakes, to include waste from mines. A federal judge called the redefinition
"an obvious perversity" of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

According to the Knight Ridder survey, the Bush administration is cleaning
up 31% fewer seriously contaminated sites than President Clinton's
administration, while polluters are paying 64% less in fines each month.

Mining and drilling for oil has also risen rapidly on federal land in Utah,
Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Montana. In a deal with the President's
brother, Jeb Bush, the Florida governor, the administration bought oil
companies out of their options to drill off the Florida coast, but it is
still in favour of drilling off the coast of California.

Another possible change under consideration is a blanket exemption from
environmental laws for US armed forces, a potentially significant move as
there are sprawling US bases across the country.

The environmental impact of a bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of
Vieques triggered a wave of protests that led to the closing of one range
and possibly Roosevelt Roads, the nearby base. "The military is one of the
country's biggest polluters," Ms Durbin said.

The White House did not return calls for comment, but Scott McClellan, a
spokesman, told Knight Ridder that the administration had embraced "a new
way of thinking that is results-oriented".

"It's based on working in a cooperative way," he said. "Environmental
protection and economic growth can go hand in hand."