Our
View: EPA appointee irks liberals
We
all know about the Bush administration and
their wonderful environmental policy. Drill
in Alaska, cut down federal forests and
generally disregard decades of legislation
laid down to protect our environment from
people just like Bush.
Bush's
appointee for Secretary of the Interior
Gale Norton, has a record a mile long with
her disregard for the environment. She might
as well be on a Bush's leash because even
though her job is to protect the nation's
environment, she does whatever his interests
want. Big oil, big lumber and big business
have all the power over the environment
in Bush's administration.
So
you can guess the kind of trepidation environmentalists
and Mother Nature felt when Bush announced
who he was appointing for the next Environmental
Protection Agency chief. Who would it be?
The owner of a factory? An energy guru?
A logger?
Everybody
prepared for the worst. The democratic senators
prepared to delay the vote, but gave up
when they realized they were so overpowered
by the GOP that they would never stand a
chance.
Bush
decided to nominate Utah's Gov. Mike Leavitt,
who apparently agrees with Bush on his pulling
back of the central government, also agrees
with Bush in leaving environmental policies
up to local government. But apparently,
the environmentalists are going to have
to grin and bare it since the only people
with any real power backed down from the
fight.
What
do the citizens have to look forward to
now? The EPA may seem like a hassle for
many businesses and workers, but often what
we dump down the drain at work may come
back to haunt us out of our own tap at home.
And although it may be easier not to care,
we need a more powerful entity to ensure
that businesses do what is best for the
greater good, and think about more than
just the next paycheck.
Without
a responsible leader for the EPA, and let
us reiterate the "protection"
part of the name, who knows who will take
control of our environmental wellbeing.
We
all know how Bush stands on the environment,
so lets take that a little further and figure
out how this new chief is going to handle
it. Utah is not the most environmental friendly
state, rating only above Nevada on toxins
in the state. Leavitt, when governor, proposed
to build a huge freeway project extremely
close to the Great Salt Lake. This action
was, thankfully, stopped by legislature
and environmentalists within the state.
Bottom
line, what are we going to be stuck with
thanks to Bush's choice? We may not know
now, but by looking at the past actions
of Bush's other appointees we can take a
pretty good guess. Hopefully, Leavitt will
forget his evil ways, remember that this
is our Earth too. And whatever his political
party may be, he should remember that there
are other people living in this nation who
like to go swimming without catching viral
infections and who enjoy a good sunset without
smog permeating every view.
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