04-01-2000

ENVIRONMENT: Presidential Positions On The Environment

It is taken as fact in environmental circles that one of Texas Gov. George
W. Bush's worst political fears is that Houston will have code-red air
quality problems this summer. Ever since Houston overtook Los Angeles last
year as the smog capital of the nation, environmentalists have urged
Democrats to take advantage of a hazy day in Houston to illustrate their
charges that Bush cares more about corporate polluters than he does about
children with asthma.


The "greens" predict that Houston will be the Republican
presidential candidate's "Boston Harbor." The reference is to an
appearance by Bush's father at the polluted waterway during the 1988
presidential campaign, when he stood at the harbor's edge and chastised
his Democratic opponent, then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, for not
cleaning it up.


But Republicans are quick to counter that Democratic presidential
contender Vice President Al Gore has his own potential albatross: Earth in
the Balance. Republican Party officials argue that Gore's 1992 book on the
environment provides ample evidence of their claims that Gore is an
environmental extremist. Gleeful Republican National Committee staffers
have been faxing some of the book's more controversial passages to
reporters. For example, in mid-March, after gasoline prices soared
nationwide, the RNC issued a statement arguing that Gore favors high fuel
costs. They quoted Gore's book as saying: "Higher taxes on fossil
fuels ... is one of the logical first steps in changing our policies in a
manner consistent with a more responsible approach to the
environment."


During this presidential election season, Bush and Gore have yet to face
off on environmental issues. Neither campaign has laid out its candidate's
environmental blueprint for the future-and it is not clear that either
will. But aides to both candidates agree that environmental issues provide
plenty of ammunition for the campaigns' relentless war of words.


So far, Bush has found himself primarily on the defensive, forced to
counter accusations from Gore and others that he's anti-environmental. In
countless interviews, Bush has asserted that during his five years in
office he has improved the air and water quality in Texas and successfully
persuaded companies to voluntarily restrict their emissions of toxic
chemicals. But in a March 22 speech, Gore charged that of all the states,
Texas is "No. 1 in water pollution, No. 1 in air pollution, No. 1 in
land pollution."


Bush's environmental record is a mixed bag. In 1999, Bush blocked state
legislation that would have required the dirtiest manufacturing plants in
Texas to meet tougher air pollution standards. Those plants, grandfathered
under a 1971 Texas environmental law, emit about a third of the state's
air pollution. Instead, Bush pushed for and won passage of a voluntary
pollution control program for the plants. On the other hand, Bush brags
that in May 1999, the state Legislature passed an electricity deregulation
bill that will require grandfathered coal-fired electric power plants in
Texas to cut their toxic emissions.


Early in his term, Bush postponed implementation of the state's car
emissions inspection program. But in recent months, he suggested that
Texas, like California, should require carmakers to sell lower-emission
vehicles. He also supports new fuel standards that would lower the sulfur
content of gasoline. Bush has said that he believes global warming is
occurring, but he opposes the United Nations' 1997 Kyoto agreement, which
would impose strict pollution control limits and deadlines on the United
States. He also opposes environmentalists' calls to save local Pacific
Coast salmon populations by tearing down several hydroelectric dams on a
stretch of the Snake River in Washington state.


American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research President
Christopher DeMuth, one of Bush's top environmental advisers, said that if
elected President, Bush would focus on giving the states more control over
environmental policy decisions. "In a lot of states, we now have
energetic and smart agencies, certainly in the major states," DeMuth
said. "And increasingly, like welfare reform 10 years ago, the
strictures of the national rules are an impediment to state innovation.
That doesn't mean that we want to get rid of them. But they have to be
changed in such a way that permits the states more flexibility to do
better jobs than they are now."


During his 24 years in elected office, Gore has been far more closely
identified with environmental issues than Bush has. Some environmental
activists complain that Gore has been more talk than action. But Debra
Callahan, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, says that
Gore is among the "most knowledgeable on the environment" of any
presidential candidate ever.


During the past six months, Gore has taken advantage of his position to
announce several high-profile Clinton Administration environmental
initiatives-everything from $5 million in aid to fishing communities in
New England to $30 million for wetlands protection and restoration
programs. On the campaign trail, he has floated environmental proposals to
stop all new oil drilling off the shores of California and Florida,
provide tax cuts to help preserve open lands threatened by suburban
sprawl, and impose tougher controls on water pollution from large
"factory" farms. Gore also has proposed increasing mining fees
on federal lands, with the cash to be used to acquire more open-space
lands.


But Gore's signature issue, which was the subject of his 1992 book, is
global warming. In 1997, he helped pave the way for the international
global-warming agreement at the U.N. talks in Kyoto, Japan. That pact is
supported by the Administration but opposed by the congressional
Republican leadership. Last year, Gore opposed a congressional budget
rider that now prevents federal regulators from requiring carmakers to
produce more-efficient vehicles. Nonetheless, Clinton signed the budget
bill, and the rider became law.


On the Stump


Bush


NBC's Meet the Press, Feb. 13, 2000


Tim Russert: The Environmental Protection Agency says that while you've
been governor, [air pollution] emissions have gone up 11 percent in
Texas.


Bush: We're making good progress. Part of the reason why we have ozone
issues is because we're a fast-growing state with a lot of automobiles.
Houston, Texas, has got a lot of automobiles. And part of the reasons why
we had ozone exceedances is because [of] the weather patterns, as the EPA
noted. Now, we've got to do a lot of work in a state like Texas to make
sure we meet clean air standards, and we're working hard to do so. We've
got tailpipe emissions. I believe there ought to be lower sulfur in
gasoline across America. I believe that we ought to continue to work with
our industrial plants to make sure they conform to 1972 clean air laws. I
have called in the CEOs of companies and said, "Get in line with the
Clean Air Act." We have deregulated our electricity industry in
plants and we put a novel way ... to set the highest of standards at their
plants for toxic emissions. We're making progress, but this is a
fast-growing state.... Ultimately, technologies are going to help us all
deal with it.


Gore


Presidential primary debate in New York City, Feb. 21, 2000


I've worked on this environmental problem for a long time, including the
problem of environmental justice. When I was in the United States Senate,
I was the principal sponsor, along with Congressman John Lewis in the
House of Representatives, of the Environmental Justice Act. And I argued
successfully that President Clinton ought to issue the executive order on
environmental justice. And, yes, I think that it can be strengthened. But
I think that it's doing some good things right now. I think that we ought
to have clean air and clean water, and we ought to have a President who is
willing to fight for them. And, incidentally, we can improve our economy
and create millions of good new jobs if we go about building the new
technologies that can help us clean up the environment. We also have to
reclaim the abandoned brownfields that are in urban areas that often have
some environmental problems associated with them-clean them up, have a set
standard, and then give tax incentives to bring new jobs into the
communities that have been abandoned and bring back economic hope.


Position


Bush


* supports greater state control over environmental policies


* opposes the international Kyoto global-warming agreement


* supports curbing the sulfur content of gasoline


Gore


* supports the Kyoto global-warming agreement


* supports federal initiatives to preserve open space and combat
sprawl


By the Numbers


Do you think that protection of the environment should be given priority,
even at the risk of curbing economic growth; or economic growth should be
given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent?


Environment	   70%


Economic growth    23


SOURCE: Gallup for CNN-USA Today, 1/16/00


Allies and Advisers


Bush


* Christopher C. DeMuth, president, American Enterprise Institute


* Mary A. Gade, former director, Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency


* Gale A. Norton, former Colorado attorney general


Gore


* George Frampton, acting chairman, White House Council on Environmental
Quality


* Katie McGinty, former chairwoman, White House Council on Environmental
Quality


Margaret Kriz

National Journal