Category: Rebecca Evans
Leavitt’s Environmental Record Challenged at Confirmation Hearing
by Becky Evans
WASHINGTON – During his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee repeatedly asked Utah Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt why he had signed on for the “very difficult position” of Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
His answer: “I do so because I passionately believe that this nation deserves to have a clean, safe and healthy environment.”
Whether or not Leavitt will be able to deliver a cleaner, safer and healthier environment has been the source of debate since President Bush announced in August he was nominating the governor to head the EPA.
One critic, Senator John Kerry, D-MA., said in a statement Tuesday that he will “place a hold on Gov. Leavitt’s nomination until I receive a sufficient response as to how this Administration” will address the EPA’s decision to delay the cleanup of 10 Superfund sites, including Atlas Tack in Fairhaven.
“The unfortunate truth is that it doesn’t matter who heads the EPA under this Administration, because they will be nothing more than another pawn for the corporate polluters who control the White House’s agenda,” Kerry said. “Gov. Leavitt may eventually be approved by the Senate, but I cannot in good conscience allow that process to even move forward without getting the answers that the people of Fairhaven, Mass., New York City, and communities across the nation deserve.”
In a phone interview, Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, called the Bush administration’s environmental policies “disastrous” and expressed concern that air and water quality in Massachusetts could suffer because of Bush’s “exploitation mentality.”
Frank agreed with other critics that any nominee for the position of EPA administrator would have trouble pursuing a pro-environment agenda.
“The Bush administration wouldn’t let them do anything anyway,” he said.
Leavitt’s supporters applaud what they describe as his unique approach to solving environmental problems. Rather than merely enforcing environmental regulations, they say, Leavitt prefers to negotiate specific neighborhood solutions. Using a policy he terms “en libra,” which he defined as moving toward balance, Leavitt tries to find the middle ground between industry and environmental interests.
“He really has the ability to bring people together, to sit down and work toward a solution,” said Frank Maisano, spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of utilities, power companies, unions and businesses. “His consensus-building mode will be a viable part of him succeeding at the EPA.”
Environmental activists, however, say they care more about Leavitt’s environmental record as governor of Utah than his managerial style.
“We are firmly opposed to Mike Leavitt’s nomination,” said Janet Domenitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG), a statewide environmental and consumer watchdog group. “We think if Leavitt gets in, it will be all bad news for the environment.”
Earlier this month, MASSPIRG joined a coalition of environmental organizations in sending a letter to the Senate stating the groups’ opposition to Leavitt’s nomination. In the letter, they accused him of manipulating science for political purposes, failing to enforce environmental standards, eliminating protections for public lands and conducting secret negotiations to undermine environmental protection.
The letter pointed to an EPA report that said Utah has the second-highest volume of toxic chemical releases in the nation and another EPA report that listed Utah as tied for last place on enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act.
“Gov. Leavitt’s record reveals little to assure the public that, as EPA administrator, he would change the Bush administration’s pattern of manipulating science to serve political and policy ends,” the letter concluded.
Maisano says environmental groups have failed to recognize Leavitt’s environmental achievements, such as his opposition to the building of a nuclear weapons site in Utah and his efforts to make the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City more environment-friendly.
“Environmental organizations have a selective memory,” he said. “They forget the good things that he’s done and put a negative spin on bad things.”
Senators Hillary Clinton, D-NY, Joe Lieberman, D-CT, and John Edwards, D-NC, have joined environmental activists’ opposition to Leavitt’s nomination. Their reasons, however, have more to do with the Bush administration’s environmental policies than with Leavitt himself.
At the hearing, Clinton accused the Bush administration of undermining the EPA’s credibility by forcing the agency to tone down its report on the air quality at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
“Many of us are a little concerned about the administration that you’re attempting to join, and the policies that it has taken toward the environment,” Clinton told Leavitt.
Kennedy-Feinstein Lose Battle to Stop Nuclear Weapons Study
by Becky Evans
WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward Kennedy was 13 years old when the Enola Gay dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. Senator Dianne Feinstein was 12.
"It terrified me," said Feinstein. "I remember seeing the photographs, and all during my youth it's fair to say, at least in California, that the greatest fear a youngster had was that of an atomic bomb. It had been used."
Fifty-eight years later, the two Democratic senators on Tuesday lost their fight to prohibit the study and possible development of a new generation of nuclear weapons.
The Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, which the Senate defeated by a vote of 53- 41, called for the elimination of $21 million for research of low-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons.
The amendment also would have prohibited spending to reduce U.S. test readiness -- the time it takes to get a nuclear facility ready to test after being dormant -- from the current 24 to36 months to 18 months. And it would have put a stay on site selection for a new production facility for plutonium pits, which Kennedy described as "factories for new nuclear warheads."
"The Bush administration pushed us recklessly down the path to war with Iraq without considering the consequences. Now it is doing it again," Kennedy, of Massachusetts, said in a press conference before the vote. "It is recklessly pushing us down the path to the use of nuclear weapons and all the disastrous consequences that may follow."
Kennedy and Feinstein proposed to amend the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which includes $6 million for the study of low-yield nuclear weapons, or "mini-nukes.". It also contains $15 million for the study of a robust nuclear earth penetrator -- a weapon designed to destroy deeply buried and hardened targets.
In July, a House appropriations subcommittee agreed to cut funding for low-yield nuclear weapons and took $10 million out of the program to develop a robust nuclear earth penetrator. Kennedy and Feinstein urged the Senate to do the same.
They said that development of these new weapons could fuel a nuclear arms race, lower the threshold for possible use of these weapons and blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
"We believe that the American public needs to know what is happening," Feinstein said.
Kennedy added that the smaller size and increased usability of low-yield nuclear arms would be "an invitation to terrorists." He said research and development of such weapons "makes absolutely no sense with regards to our national security and regards to our war against terrorism."
"As we wage this war on terror it seems to me that we should do everything we can to make nuclear weapons less desirable, less available and less likely to be used," Feinstein said. "Does anyone not believe that if the U.S. goes down this path, other nations will not follow? It is crucial that we lead the way in word and deed and that we reduce the risk of nuclear weapons throughout the world."
Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said he wasn't surprised that the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment was rejected.
"These issues have already been debated in the House and Senate, and we won," he said, noting that in May, Congress lifted a 1993 ban on researching low-yield weapons.
Wilkes said that opponents of nuclear weapons funding are missing the point. "This is just a feasibility study. We are not talking about developing or testing anything," he said. "No nuclear weapons can be produced without [an] additional congressional decision. Period."
During Tuesday's debate, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) defended the Bush administration, saying that funding would only be used to study, not develop or test, low-yield weapons.
"There is nothing in the bill that will produce a single new nuclear weapon," he said.
Domenici argued that if the amendment passed, it would "put blinders on scientists" and prevent them from thinking about and designing new nuclear weapons - even if they never are built.
But Kennedy and Feinstein pointed to policy statements by the Bush administration that referred specifically to the "research and development" of low-yield weapons.
Kennedy said nuclear-arms research undoubtedly would lead to development and testing of the weapons.
"I believe a nuke is a nuke is a nuke," he said.
Youthbuild Seeks More Funding for Americorps
by Becky Evans
WASHINGTON - Supporters and alumni of YouthBuild USA, a national program to help teens earn high school diplomas, spoke out Thursday night during the 59th hour of a four-day rally to win more federal funding for AmeriCorps, the cash-strapped national service program.
YouthBuild alumni joined 700 speakers from 47 states in the 100-hour Voices for AmeriCorps testimonial, which began Tuesday afternoon. AmeriCorps, a volunteer program created under President Clinton, provides money and workers for YouthBuild and other community organizations nationwide.
"AmeriCorps and YouthBuild are lifesavers," Bernard Scott told 30 supporters who gathered in a building near Capitol Hill. "Without them, I know personally, I'd be locked up or even dead."
Scott is a 1995 graduate of YouthBuild, a nonprofit organization that helps teens earn their GEDs while building low-income housing in their communities. He now works at a youth center in Philadelphia.
When the Congress slashed the AmeriCorps budget from $240 million to $175 million for the current fiscal year, YouthBuild lost 1,600 of the 2,000 volunteers that had been funded by AmeriCorps, said Dorothy Stoneman, President of YouthBuild USA.
"They will not get the $2,300 part-time education award they would have gotten without the cuts," she said. "For many of them, it feels like they have lost the hope, the promise and the resources for going on to higher education."
The funding cuts forced YouthBuild New Bedford to cancel its Grad Corps program, which provided college tuition assistance to high school graduates who volunteered at local schools, food pantries and service organizations. Members who performed 1,700 hours of community service received a grant of $4, 700.
Temistocles Blessed, 29, community service coordinator and GED instructor at YouthBuild New Bedford, said he is concerned that the loss of the Grad Corps program would have long-term implications for New Bedford, a city already suffering by a high crime rate and unemployment.
"It's sad," he said. "There is more of a sense of hopelessness. We always looked to YouthBuild as light for youth in this community and now it's gone."
In July, the Senate approved $100 million in emergency funding for AmeriCorps, but the House failed to vote on the measure before taking its summer recess. Voices for AmeriCorps organizers hope the four-day service testimony will convince Congress and President Bush to provide the money. But Stoneman doesn't expect that to happen.
"I am not in the least bit confident that our voices will be heard and that change will be made. There has been ample time for Congress to do this," she said. Still, she said, the rally was a valuable way to "strengthen our own movement. We know it is the right thing to do _ not to go quietly into the night."
Blessed said he was hopeful YouthBuild and other service programs would survive the budget cuts.
"We are going to continue doing what we are doing," he said. "We are committed to it regardless of what happens. There are always ups and downs."
