By Liane Casten

George W. Bush is trashing most environmental oversight, colluding with major contributors on public policy decisions, obstructing investigations on matters that should be open to the American people, while lying in the process and turning a budget surplus into a budget deficit. Now he wants more money for defense and less oversight for nuclear regulations.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's financial ties to the pro-repository nuclear industry pose a clear conflict of interest. In late January, watchdog group Public Citizen sent a letter to Abraham, urging him to recuse himself from responsibilities related to a proposal to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada because of campaign contributions he has received from the nuclear industry.

The commercial nuclear industry is a long-time supporter of the controversial proposal to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and would directly benefit from the project if approved.

Abraham accepted $82,728 from the nuclear industry (1995-2000). Political Money Line's coverage of Federal Election Commission data shows that in 1999-2000 alone, Abraham's contributions from major nuclear operators included $9,000 from Florida Power and Light, $5,000 each from Southern Company and DTE Energy, $3,000 from PECO (now Exelon), and $4,000 from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying association.

As Energy Secretary, Abraham is required to evaluate the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. Abraham has shown that he intends to favorably recommend the site to the president. Nevada's congressional delegation, governor and state legislature, as well as public interest, consumer advocacy and environmental organizations across the country strongly oppose the project on the basis of unresolved safety, environmental and policy issues.

On August 19, 2001, the New York Times noted how Bush appointments enhance the president's real anti-environment agenda: "President Bush has been quietly filling key sub-cabinet posts with conservative activists and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers criticizing the laws they are now sworn to uphold. These appointments should dispel any doubts about Mr. Bush's intention to weaken the strong environmental protections he inherited from the Clinton administration.

"Unlike his father, who reached into academia and even the environmental community for some of his appointments, Mr. Bush seems determined to return to the Reagan era, when ideologues like James Watt ran the Interior Department and most of the important regulatory jobs were filled with representatives of the businesses being regulated."

Bush appointed J. Steven Giles – a top oil, gas, and coal lobbyist – as Deputy Secretary of the Interior. Giles helped create the energy strategy that aims to open public land for drilling.

Bennett Raley, the new assistant secretary for water and science, "is likewise a longtime servant of the big landowning and irrigation interests," according to the New York Times. He advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act.

Bush appointed recycling opponent Lynn Scarlett as the new Interior Department assistant secretary for policy. Scarlett was president of the libertarian think-tank, the Reason Foundation.

Donald Schregardus, appointed to be Christie Whitman's enforcement officer at the EPA, was notorious for his poor enforcement job when he ran Ohio's EPA. He strongly opposed a 1998 Clinton administration plan to reduce smog-forming emissions from Midwest utilities.

Bush appointed William Myers III as his new solicitor. Myers worked for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, where he sued the government for grazing subsidies to the cattle industry.

The Agriculture Department's top natural resources post, controlling the Forest Service, goes to Mark Rey. Rey has been through the revolving door as a Senate staffer and lobbyist for the timber industry. In 1995, he pushed for the "salvage rider" which suspended environmental laws to increase clear-cutting in old-growth forests. He strongly opposed President Clinton's plan to put one-third of national forests off limits to new roads.

Bush appointed Linda Fisher – an executive with Monsanto and a proponent of genetically engineered foods – for the number-two job at the EPA.

In the Justice Department, environmental laws will be enforced by Thomas Sansonetti, a member of the right-wing Federalist Society and a lobbyist for coal mining companies. Sansonetti once noted about Interior Department head Gale Norton: "She understands the system. There won't be any biologists or botanists able to come in and pull the wool over her eyes."

Mike Parker, head of the Army Corps of Engineers, earned three zero ratings from the League of Conservation Voters when he was in Congress. He attacked the Clinton administration's efforts to restore the Everglades and protect endangered salmon. A lobbyist for barge companies, Parker claimed it was "astounding" that anyone would put environmental protection ahead of commercial projects.

Mike Smith, the new assistant secretary for fossil fuels at the Department of Energy, told the Independent Oil and Gas Association that he would "work to ensure that the oil, natural gas and coal industry's interests are heeded in Washington." He said, "The biggest challenge is going to be how to best utilize taxpayer dollars to the benefit of industry."

Thomas Dorr was appointed to be USDA undersecretary for rural development. His support for large agribusiness would spell disaster for rural America. Last May, over 160 rural, environmental, civil rights and labor organizations joined the family farm movement to block Dorr's nomination. Dorr favors the factory farm model of hog production, and will use his post at the USDA to further the expansion of giant factory farms that pollute the environment, disrupt rural communities, and force family farmers off the land.

At Iowa State University in 1999, Dorr made comments suggesting that ethnic and religious diversity hinder rural economic development. There remain unresolved allegations that Dorr was involved in a payment scheme several years ago to collect farm subsidies for which he knew he was ineligible. The FSA and the USDA still refuse to release information and documents related to this alleged fraud, even after repeated Freedom of Information Act appeals by members of the National Farm Action Campaign. His appointment is pending and the opposition continues to keep the pressure on.

Bush has also taken steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality, an act that symbolizes his administration's commitment to corporations over the quality of America's environmental health.

Back to The War in America