Under fire for its ongoing campaign to weaken environmental protections, the Bush Administration has received an unequivocal heads-up from the leading Republican pollster advising that undermining clean water safeguards is politically dangerous, and goes against the overwhelming sentiment of the American public.
"Young and old, Democrat AND Republican, the demand for clean water is universal" declares a February 2004 memorandum prepared by The Luntz Research Companies, headed by GOP opinion guru Frank Luntz.
Based on its extensive polling about clean water issues, the Luntz organization found that the American people consider safeguarding clean water to be "a national problem requiring a national solution" and "the public is willing to pay for it." Indeed, 83% of those polled supported the idea of a trust fund for clean water infrastructure.
Addressed to "interested parties," the memo concludes with the warning: "I'll be blunt...this issue is NOT going to go away. The environment is an area in which Americans expect progress to be made, and when they do not see progress being made, they get frustrated."[1]
"From more toxic pollution, to sewage discharges, to mountaintop removal mining, this administration is the worst for clean water since the Clean Water Act was passed 30 years ago," Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earth Justice, told BushGreenwatch.
The Bush Administration's systematic assault on the Clean Water Act, one of the nation's most important environmental laws, has included weakening programs that maintain water quality, huge cuts in funding for water protection, and reduced enforcement of regulations.
One EPA draft proposal would weaken regulations and oversight of the program responsible for cleaning up the 45% of the nation's waters that are still too polluted for swimming, fishing, drinking water, and other uses.[2]
"The most significant threat" noted Mulhern "is the directive the administration issued in January, 2003, declaring that many wetlands and streams should have no Clean Water Act limits on pollution at all."
In a parallel effort, the Interior Department has been rolling back protections to make it easier for coal companies to bury streams and valleys with waste, in the process of mountaintop removal strip mining. The Bush Administration's own studies show that this type of mining has already destroyed more than 1,200 miles of streams and 380,000 acres of Appalachian mountains and forests.[3]
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SOURCES:
[1] Luntz Research Research Companies memorandum on Clean Water Trust Fund, Feb. 2004.
[2] Earth Justice report, "Bush Administration Efforts to Dismantle Clean Water Act."
[3] BushGreenwatch, Jan. 5, 2004, Mar. 4, 2004.
