November 23, 2002 7:14 AM

Hey, if it was good enough for Texas....

Critics: Federal clean-air plan recycles state's

No matter how much Shrub may whine to the contrary, no one is ever going to accuse him of being "The Environmental President". Anyone who lived in Texas during his tenure as governor should be able to vouch for that. If you owned a business, and you needed a break so that your plant or refinery could belch the byproducts of your manufacturing process into the air, you didn't have to worry about much under Shrub's watch. Now, the Shrub Administration is taking that disdain for the environment nationwide.

The new federal rules -- which will loosen requirements governing when industrial plants need to install new pollution equipment -- read like Bush-backed legislation that passed in Texas, but failed to slash emissions.

"We are recycling an air pollution code that in Texas didn't work and turning it into a national model," said Ken Kramer, director of the Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter. "It seems like a backward approach to cleaning up our air."

Peter Altman, executive director of the environmental group Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition said, "Industry has used Bush's presidency to ram through the same provisions."

I remember standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in late August, and being appalled at the extent of the pollution that obscured a good portion of the North Rim from view. We need to be able to find a way to allow businesses to operate without polluting our air to the point where places like Houston, Los Angeles, and the Grand Canyon are becoming the rule. Shrub seems so enamored of Big Business that he longers understands (if he ever did) that what is good for business is not necessarily good for the environment.

The sad reality is that Shrub has always talked a good ballgame when it comes to the environment. The words coming out of his mouth seem to demonstrate the right degree of concern. His numerous environmental photo ops seem to portray him as a concerned environmentalist. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Hell, he has a ranch. Doesn't THAT make him an environmentalist??)

It's his actions that are alarming, and Americans seem to be unable to notice what is being done to the environment in the name of the Almighty Buck. Of course, with his approval ratings being what they are, Shrub could probably outlaw all environmental protections and get away with it.

Before long, much of the country's air could resemble that of the Grand Canyon. Is that what we really want??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on November 23, 2002 7:14 AM.

Democrats adrift was the previous entry in this blog.

Stoopid is as...ah, hell; why even bother?? is the next entry in this blog.

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