US environment groups see threat to green rules
Date: 23-Aug-02
Country: USA
Author: Christopher Doering
The groups expect the administration to move to open up more Western land to oil and gas drilling, and to push to roll back water pollution programs and air pollution limits on utilities.
"Given Bush's track record on everything from global warming to forest protection to energy policy, their record says that they are listening to the special interests at the expense of the environment," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, spokeswoman for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
"I fear they have more attacks looming on the horizon."
Environmental issues will figure in many of the November elections that will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Green groups are expected to buy advertisements in a dozen key races to emphasize Bush's ties to the energy industry.
President Bush, prompted by a series of massive wildfires that scorched more than 6 million acres of U.S. forest land this year, yesterday proposed easing environmental reviews to allow the removal of small trees and underbrush.
Under the plan, logging companies would sign contracts with the government allowing them to keep timber in exchange for thinning areas of unhealthy trees and brush.
Green groups said the proposal would further weaken the National Environmental Policy Act, a 30-year-old law that governs how the federal government must assess potential damage to forests, water and other resources.
Bush's environmental record has been under intense criticism since his decision last year to reject U.S. participation in a global treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The administration maintains it is simply taking a fresh look at environmental rules that it says are unfair, too costly or impede the development of new energy supplies.
"The president has a strong commitment to the environment," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. "Today's initiative demonstrates how strongly committed to protecting and promoting forest health is to this administration."
NEW LAWSUITS IN COLORADO, FLORIDA
Bush administration environmental actions in Colorado and Florida were challenged in lawsuits earlier this week.
A federal judge in Denver on Tuesday agreed to temporarily stop several large trucks from conducting seismic oil and gas soundings in sections of a national monument known as Canyons of the Ancients. The Interior Department maintains that the seismic work, which involves sending shock waves into the earth, would not harm the environment.
Separately, environmental groups went to court this week to block limestone mining on more than 5,000 acres of Florida Everglades wetlands. The Bush administration has issued a dozen mining permits since April in an area that green groups say is an important habitat and is next to drinking water sources.
The White House also recently was criticized for agreeing to land swap in Utah, in which the federal government could lose $100 million. The known oil, gas, coal and tar sands deposits on the government land involved in the swap were not counted as having any value, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.
In Congress, Democrats have criticized the Environmental Protection Administration for failing to fund two dozen top-priority Superfund clean up sites.
Yet to come, according to green groups, is an expected White House proposal to shift federal oversight of a water pollution program to the states.
Clean air advocates said the Bush administration will likely push forward with relaxing air pollution rules for aging U.S. utilities that are repaired or expanded.
"The handwriting is on the wall" to weaken the utility pollution rules, said Mark Wenzler, a lawyer for for National Environmental Trust. "We expect that rollback could happen as soon as September."
The new program, a change in the federal Clean Air Act, would alter the way air emissions are calculated by utilities.
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