Bush's Environmental Record

BUSH'S ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD

Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert is a New York Times columnist.

Do you remember the character "Pig-Pen" in the "Peanuts" cartoons? He was always covered with dirt and grime. He was cute, but he was a walking sludge heap heap, filthy and proud of it. He once told Charlie Brown, "I have affixed to me the dirt and dust of countless ages. Who am I to disturb history?"

For me, Pig-Pen's attitude embodies President Bush's approach to the environment.

We've been trashing, soiling, even destroying the wonders of nature for

countless ages. Why stop now? Who is Bush to step in and curb this venerable

orgy of pollution, this grand tradition of fouling our own nest?

Oh, the skies may once have been clear and the waters sparkling and

clean. But you can't have that and progress too. Can you?

Last week we learned that the Bush administration plans to cut funding

for the cleanup of 33 toxic waste sites in 18 states. As the New York

Times' Katharine Seelye reported, this means "that work is likely to grind

to a halt on some of the most seriously polluted sites in the country."

The cuts were ordered because the Superfund toxic waste cleanup is running

out of money. Rather than showing the leadership necessary to replenish

the fund, the president plans to reduce its payouts by cleaning up fewer sites.

Pig-Pen would have been proud. This is not a minor matter. The sites targeted by the Superfund program are horribly polluted, in many cases with The sites targeted by the Superfund program are horribly polluted, in many cases with cancer-causing substances.

Millions of Americans live within a few miles of these sites.

The Superfund decision is the kind of environmental move we've come

to expect from the Bush administration. Mother Nature has been known to

tremble at the sound of the president's approaching footsteps. He's an environmental disaster zone.

In February, a top enforcement official at the Environmental Protection

Agency, Eric Schaeffer, quit because of Bush administration policies that he

said undermined the agency's efforts to crack down on industrial polluters.

Schaeffer said he felt he was "getting a White House that seems determined

to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce."

That, of course, is exactly what this White House is doing.

Within weeks of Schaeffer's resignation came official word that the administration

was relaxing the air quality regulations that applied to older

coal-fired power plants, a step backward that delighted the administration's

industrial pals.

During this same period the president broke his campaign promise to

regulate the industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, a move that, among

other things, would have helped in the fight to slow the increase