This is not enough to change your vote? This is a MAJOR issue.

1) Despite findings by the EPA that mecury threatens the health of
more Americans than previously believed, Bush's EPA Administrtor Mike
Leavitt announced a plan that would allow three times more mercury in
our air than simply enforcing the Clean Air Act as currently written.
And it would give utilities 10 years more to reach these standards.
The EPA estimates that one in six women of childbearing age has
mercury levels in her blood high enough to put her babies at risk.

2) You make a mess, you clean it up. That's what the 1980 Superfund
law intended for our nation's worst toxic messes. But the current
Bush Administration has rejected the "polluter pays" policy. Earlier
this year, the Bush Administration announced that it would not seek
re-authorization of the taxes levied on oil and chemical companies
that go into the Superfund trust fund which is used to pay for
cleanups of toxic waste sites. On October 25, 2002, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General found that the Bush
Administration has failed to provide adequate funding to clean up 55
toxic waste sites in 25 states. In 1995, taxpayers paid 18% of the
cost of cleaning up abandoned toxic waste sites. In 2004, because the
Bush Administration failed to re-authorize the tax, taxpayers will pay
the entire cost of cleaning up toxic waste sites. The EPA has asked
for $150 million in cleanup funds for the past two years but received
just $23 million last year. Superfund's current budget is lower than
at any time since 1988.

3) The Bush Administration is now allowing polluting power plants to
emit even more soot, lead, mercury and other contaminants. Their
dismantling of the Clean Air Act affects 17,000 factories and power
plants found in every state of the nation. Old facilities emit up to
ten times more pollution than modern ones. New Bush Administration
rules would allow almost unlimited changes to be classified by plant
operators as "routine maintenance". So the operators of an aging $1
billion power plant can replace approximately $2000 million worth of
generating equipment each year without having to install modern
pollution controls.

4) The Bush Administration's so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative"
is really a gift to the logging industry, allowing the harvesting of
old-growth trees deep in forests, far from communities affected by
forest fire.

The Bush Administration bill calls for the thinning of 190 million
acres of forest land. But according to USA Today, "there were only
about 1.9 million acres of private and federal forest land - 1% of the
Bush Administration's estimate - that are both at high risk of fire
and close enough to communities to ignite homes." (article of July 2,
2003).

5) The secret Cheney energy task force meetings produced the energy
bill supported by the Bush Administration. This bill calls for
subsidies and tax credits to the coal, oil, and nuclear industries
totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, but does virtually
nothing to reduce our dependence on oil. It threatens coastal areas
with offshore oil drilling, encourages methane drilling on land owned
by farmers and ranchers, and protects the makers of the cancer-causing
chemical MTBE from being prosecuted. All this without raising fuel
economy standards for cars, trucks and SUVs or making meaningful
investments in renewable energy sources. The bill has been rejected
twice by the Senate, but Administration allies continue to push for
its passage.

6) Despite massive amounts of air pollution discharged into our air
by huge factory farms operated by giant meat producers, the Bush
Administration is entering into backroom deals with factory farm
representatives. Factory farms would pay a minimal fine and be able
to continue emitting toxic gases and noxious odors, such as ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide and dust in dangerous quantities. In exchange for
this immunity, only a handful of facilities would submit to air
emissions monitoring.

7) Despite the fact that 63% of public lands in the West are already
available for leasing without restrictions, the Bush Administration
has turned over control of an additional 5 million acres to oil and
gas companies. This includes some of the nation's most
environmentally sensitive and beautiful places, like coastal Alaska,
the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, and the Rocky Mountain
Front. In spring 2003, the Bureau of Land Management approved
drilling of 82,000 new oil and gas wells in the Powder River Basin
alone.

8) During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush vowed to
address carbon dioxide emissions, the main compound that causes global
warming, but once in office, the Bush Administration has refused to
set limits on the pollutant.

After dismissing the Kyoto Protocol - which was signed by 155 other
nations - as flawed, the administration offered no alternatives. Then
in late 2003, in response to a suit filed by the Sierra Club and other
advocacy groups, the EPA acknowledged the dangers of global warming,
but claimed it lacks the authority to do anything about it.

9) After 9/11, the White House instructed the EPA to hide potential
health risks in lower Manhattan after the WTC collapse. On September
14, the EPA sent a proposed press release to the White House,
emphasizing that its tests had shown dangerous asbestos levels. Yet
the Bush Administration's edited version, released to the public and
media on September 16, was altered to read: "Our tests show that it is
safe for New Yorkers to go back to work". Much more information
about this is available at http://www.911ea.org/Front_Page.htm

10) Every administration since Teddy Roosevelt's has left office with
more lands protected than when it entered, except the Bush
Administration, which has weakened protections on an incredible 234
million acres of America's land, an area equivalent to the states of
Oklahoma and Texas. The Administration weakened the Clinton
Administration's Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protected
almost 60 million acres of national forests by exempting the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska. The Administration is now working to
exempt the Chugach National Forest and to give governors a loophole to
exempt national forests in their states.