*JimH* wrote:

So explain how the Republicans specifically caused the water quality in the
Bay decline.

Just for you and Fritz, to show how narrow minded you a

By Osha Gray Davidson

September/October 2003 Issue



As The World Burns
A Mother Jones special project on global warming

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May 24th lunch and book signing with author.


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IN THE EARLY 1980s you didn't need to be a member of EarthFirst! to
know that Ronald Reagan was bad for the environment. You didn't even
have to be especially politically aware. Here was a man who had, after
all, publicly stated that most air pollution was caused by plants. And
then there was Reagan's secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who saw
no need to protect the environment because Jesus was returning any day,
and who, in a pique of reactionary feng shui, suggested that the
buffalo on Interior's seal be flipped to face right instead of left.

By contrast, while George W. Bush gets low marks on the environment
from a majority of Americans, few fully appreciate the scope and fury
of this administration's anti-environmental agenda. "What they're doing
makes the Reagan administration look innocent," says Buck Parker,
executive director of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.
The Bush administration has been gutting key sections of the Clean
Water and Clean Air acts, laws that have traditionally had bipartisan
support and have done more to protect the health of Americans than any
other environmental legislation. It has crippled the Superfund program,
which is charged with cleaning up millions of pounds of toxic
industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and vinyl chloride in
more than 1,000 neighborhoods in 48 states. It has sought to cut the
EPA's enforcement division by nearly one-fifth, to its lowest level on
record; fines assessed for environmental violations dropped by nearly
two-thirds in the administration's first two years; and criminal
prosecutions-the government's weapon of last resort against the worst
polluters-are down by nearly one-third

It goes on:
So why aren't more people aware that George W. Bush is compiling what
is arguably the worst environmental record of any president in recent
history? The easy explanations-that environmental issues are complex,
that war and terrorism push most other concerns off the front pages-are
only part of the story. The real reason may be far simpler: Few people
know the magnitude of the administration's attacks on the environment
because the administration has been working very hard to keep it that
way.

And this:
JUST BEFORE SHE STEPPED DOWN last summer, EPA head Whitman issued a
"state of the environment" report that fairly rhapsodized about the
significance of environmental protection: "Pristine waterways [and]
safe drinking waters are treasured resources," one passage declared.
"The nation has made significant progress in protecting these resources
in the last 30 years."

What Whitman did not mention was that the administration has spent two
years attempting to eviscerate the law that brought about most of that
progress-the Clean Water Act of 1972. In January 2003, the
administration proposed new rules for managing the nation's wetlands,
removing 20 percent of the country's remaining swamps, ponds, and
marshes from federal protection. And wetlands are only the beginning: A
close reading of the proposed rules shows that the administration is
attempting to change the definition of "waters of the United States" to
exclude up to 60 percent of the country's rivers, lakes, and streams
from protection, giving industries permission to pollute, alter, fill,
and build on all of these waterways (see "Down Upon the Suwannee"). "No
president since the Clean Water Act was passed has proposed getting rid
of it on the majority of waters of the U.S.," notes Joan Mulhern of
Earthjustice-and Bush might not have tried either, had he been forced
to justify the move in congressional debate rather than burying it in
bureaucratic rule-making.


Get it now, Jim?

Do you really think Republicans always vote against and Democrats always
vote for stronger environmental laws?

Hmm, did I say that Jim? But, alas, I can say ALMOST always.