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Groups Criticize Bush's Earth Day Visit

Posted on: Thursday, 22 April 2004, 06:00 CDT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- President Bush's Earth Day visit to a nature reserve Wells has some Maine environmentalists riled up about what they see as the way his administration's policies are polluting the state's air and water.

Bush's Thursday morning speech at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve is expected to focus on the role of citizen stewardship and conservation partnerships in protecting the country's natural resources. He will also tour the Wells reserve and will sample water quality with volunteers.

Maine environmentalists said the visit is a "greenwashing" of Bush's environmental record, which they say is regressive and harmful to public +health+. Several groups plan demonstrations outside the reserve to coincide with Bush's visit.

"This administration has undertaken a concerted, systematic, very vigorous effort to undermine or repeal every important environmental law protecting the people and the environment of the United States," said Brownie Carson, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

Clean air has perhaps received the most attention in Maine. More than 13 percent of Maine children have asthma and the state has the second-highest rate of adult asthma in the country.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed more than 100 coastal Maine towns, including Wells, as places where there is a serious summer smog problem.

Environmentalists have protested what they say is a weakening of a key provision of the Clean Air Act by the Bush administration that requires aging coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to install upgrades in pollution controls when those plants are modernized or expanded.

The state of Maine has filed two lawsuits to fight a proposed change in the Clean Air Act that would give industry more leeway on when it needs to add pollution controls. Maine also has filed a suit over regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.

"I don't think since Sen. (Edmund) Muskie wrote the Clean Air Act that there has been a worse record by a president on air," said Conrad Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force in Brunswick.

Bush's Clear Skies Initiative would eliminate the section of the Clean Air Act that allows states like Maine to petition the EPA to crack down on out-of-state polluters, according to the Maine Attorney General's office.

"If the rule is finalized as it's currently proposed, it's likely a significant number of states would file a lawsuit about that, including Maine," said Assistant Attorney General Jerry Reid.

Jonathan Reisman, associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine in Machias, said he believes Bush's policies are important for a healthy economy. He said environmental groups are playing on peoples' fears when they talk about issues.

"The reality is the air and water are substantially cleaner than they were 30 years ago, but you wouldn't know it by listening to our environmental groups," he said.

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On the Net:

Natural Resources Council of Maine

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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