Anglers and Air Pollution

Clear Skies would replace the EPA's court-ordered 2007 implementation of mercury-regs with credit trading until 2018. And Bush's own Department of Energy has released a report showing that the Clear Skies initiative won't even remove the modest amount of mercury the administration says it will. Clear Skies fails to address carbon pollution, the main cause of global warming. Finally, in October, 2003 the White House directed the EPA to set mercury reduction targets that could commit the agency to supporting standards even weaker than those the President had called for. Apparently, the strategy is to weaken the Clean Air Act to the point that Bush can claim Clear Skies is stronger. "We're very pleased to see that the president has given us until 2018 to make these reductions," says the National Mining Association. I'll bet it is.

It's not just that air polluters have a direct line to the Bush administration; it's that they are part of the administration. The President, Vice President, commerce secretary and national security advisor are former oil executives (and please bear in mind that, through their refineries, oil/gas companies are right up there with coal-fired power plants as the nation's worst air polluters). Whitman's replacement at EPA is Michael Leavitt, who before becoming Utah's anti-regulation, pro-air-pollution governor, had served on the boards of PacifiCorp and Utah Power and Light. James Connaughton, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, provided legal representation to the Aluminum Company of America, ASARCO, Atlantic Richfield, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and General Electric. Jeffrey Holmstead, an EPA assistant administrator, provided legal representation for front groups called the Ad Hoc Industry group on Regulatory Reinvention and the Alliance for Constructive Air Policy.

At Bush's Interior Department alone the following officials were part of North America's air pollution problem: J. Steven Griles, deputy secretary-gas, oil and mining lobbyist; David Bernhardt, director of congressional and legislative affairs-lobbyist for the gas and oil industry; Rejane Burton, director of the Mineral Management Service-gas-and-oil exploration executive; Matthew Eames, chief congressional and legislative affairs for the Bureau of Reclamation-lobbyist for Idaho Power; Paul Hoffman, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks-a leading voice in promotion of snowmobiles in Yellowstone; Jeffrey Jarrett, director, Office of Surface Mining-coal executive; Kit Kimball, director Office of External and Intergovermental Affairs-head of the Western Regional Council where she promoted utilities and coal companies; Conrad Lass, chief of staff to BLM director-utility executive; Patricia Morrison, deputy assistant secretary, Land and Minerals Management-attorney for oil and gas industry; Drue Pearce, senior advisor for Alaskan affairs-consultant for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; Edward Shaw, special assistant to the Minerals Management Service-ARCO executive; James Tate, science advisor to the Secretary-Atlantic Richfield executive; Camden Toohey, special assistant to secretary for Alaska-director of Arctic Power; Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary of Land and Minerals Management-provided legal representation for oil, gas and mining companies.

What makes the assault on the Clean Air Act even more disturbing is the duplicity with which it is being conducted. Administration officials have consistently concealed and changed data to fit industry's desires. And they've secretly enlisted the help of anti-environment, ultraconservative lobby groups, such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to undermine good science paid for by the public and to discredit their own people, including Christine Todd Whitman. White House officials-among them Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality-asked the Competitive Enterprise Institute to help them play down an EPA report which, for the first time, admitted that global warming is partially caused by humans. In an e-mail leaked to the press Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, thanked Cooney for "calling and asking for our help" and observed: "It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible. . . . Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired." Whitman, a decent, competent official who had fought bitterly with the administration over its effort to gut the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and who had had it with this sort of sleazy maneuvering, stepped down (by choice, she claims) in June 2003.

Another leaked EPA memo discusses methods of dealing with White House rewriting of the climate-change section of a national environmental survey and states that, because of the rewriting, the section "no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change." In the draft edited by the White House the following statement was missing: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." Also missing were sections on the ecological effects of global warming and its impact on human health, a temperature record for the last millennium and sentences calling for research into global warming. What's more, the White House sprinkled in waffle words like "may" and "potentially," eliciting the complaint by the EPA that "uncertainty is inserted where there is essentially none." When the report came out last June the entire section on global warming had been deleted by the EPA because it was no longer scientifically credible. The administration has consistently made it clear to scientists at the EPA and other agencies that they will be punished for finding and publishing information it doesn't want the public to know. As a result morale is at an all time low.

Publishing information on air and water quality suppressed by the administration should be one of the main responsibilities of the outdoor press; but, with few exceptions, it hasn't risen to the occasion. As a result, the environmental record of President Bush astonishes sportsmen who aren't still in denial about it. Apparently they hadn't been reading the right publications (such as newspapers). Even when Bush was governor of Texas he was keeping his state's air filthy by implementing a system of voluntary pollution controls for oil refineries.

Perhaps the most influential outdoor writer/publisher/promoter alive is Ray Scott, founder of the 600,000-member Bass Anglers Sportsman Society. Scott has done all sorts of wonderful things for conservation, not the least of which is almost single-handedly establishing bass-fishing's catch-and-release ethic. And yet in September 2000 he was able to write the following about candidate Bush: "Fishing clears the mind and connects you to the Creator. It's not complicated nor too sophisticated, but personally I welcome the leadership of a president who understands that. . . . George W. Bush understands the real meaning of fishing. . . . He knows what it is to be in Nature. . . . Having a fisherman's friend-an outdoorsman-in the White House is vital to the understanding of the outdoors and conservation concerns."

I've known Scott for 24 years and have always been impressed with his savvy, so I dared to hope that the reality of a Bush White House had helped him see through all the campaign rhetoric and PR smog of four years ago. After all, if he could educate himself, maybe other outdoor media people could do the same. Then, perhaps, we all could educate sportsmen. So on October 29, 2003 I phoned Ray Scott to ask if he still considered George W. Bush "a fisherman's friend."

"Absolutely," he told me.