Q. What does the Admin. do when it can't get the EPA to lie?

[mburbank]

A. Just pretend there is no EPA.

Excerpts of the GOP memo on environment


Gannett News Service
March 23, 2004
Excerpts of a memo e-mailed last month to press secretaries of all Republican House members by the Republican Conference leadership office. The points made in the memo are compared with information from the Environmental Protection Agency Web site on the same topics.

AIR QUALITY AND ASTHMA

Memo: Links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy. The California Air Resources Board conducted a study examining children living in "high ozone" areas who actively participated in three or more sports.

Results showed that the chance of developing asthma was 3.3 times greater for those children engaging in three sports than for those not playing sports at all.

The study also said, "the risk of developing asthma was not greater overall in children living in the six high pollution communities than in the six low pollution communities." (Source: Pacific Research Institute).

EPA: Environmental factors may increase the severity or frequency of asthma attacks in children who have the disease. Children with asthma are particularly sensitive to outdoor air pollutants, including ozone, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. These pollutants can exacerbate asthma, leading to difficulty in breathing, an increased use of medication, visits to doctors’ offices, trips to emergency rooms and admissions to the hospital. One study reported a relationship between exposure to hazardous air pollutants and increased chronic respiratory symptoms characteristic of asthma.

GLOBAL WARMING

Memo: Global warming is not a fact. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate." (Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen)

EPA: According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

(Over the next 50 to 100 years), evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent. Sea level is likely to rise two feet along most of the U.S. coast.

WATER QUALITY

Memo: The EPA reports that 40 percent of U.S. streams, 45 percent of lakes and 14 percent of ocean shoreline miles are "impaired," meaning "the water body does not support one or more of its intended uses." However, the EPA also notes that only a small portion of these waters were even assessed: 19 percent of rivers and streams, 43 percent of lakes and ponds and 6 percent of ocean shorelines.

So the percent "impaired" should actually be: 7.6 percent of streams, 19.3 percent of lakes and 0.84 percent of ocean shoreline.

EPA: Despite impressive progress, many of the nation’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters do not meet water quality goals. Some waters face the threat of degradation from diverse pollution sources which affect citizens’ quality of life by reducing recreational opportunities, undermining local economic prosperity and threatening drinking water supplies and impairing public health. States report that close to 40 percent of the waters they surveyed are too polluted for basic uses like fishing or swimming. The number of fish-consumption advisories and beach closings is rising each year, and new threats, such as the toxic microorganism pfiesteria, demand effective responses.

[mburbank]

GOP split by environment strategy
Talking points rile moderates as party looks to fight with Democrats

Gannett News Service
March 23, 2004
WASHINGTON -- Republican House leaders are warning their members that "Democrats will hit us hard on the environment" this election year.

Their advice? Tell voters that global warming has not been proved, that there are no clear links between air pollution and childhood asthma and that America’s rivers and lakes aren’t nearly as polluted as the Environmental Protection Agency says they are.

Moderate Republicans fear the "talking points" in a memo from the House Republican Conference could make their party appear indifferent to the health threats of smoggy skies or mercury-contaminated fish. And that could hurt them in tight races where they must appeal to middle-of-the-road voters.

Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican Party in 2001 to become an independent partly because he didn’t think the GOP was pro-environment, called the memo "outlandish" and an attempt to deceive voters. He said he hopes moderate Republicans will help thwart the conservatives’ strategy.

Republican House leaders recently sent the memo to GOP press secretaries to use to beat back accusations from Democrats and conservation groups that Republicans are anti-environment. The memo charges Democrats with trying to hype pollution problems to frighten voters into supporting them.

Among the memo’s assertions: "Global warming is not a fact," "links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy" and the EPA is exaggerating when it says at least 40 percent of U.S. streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming.

"Republicans can’t stress enough that extremists are screaming ‘Doomsday!’ when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day," says the Feb. 4 memo put out by the communications office of the House Republican Conference.

Every GOP House member belongs to the conference, which is led by Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and conference chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio.

But the leaders’ message is meeting resistance from Republican centrists, who dispute key details and don’t like its tone.

Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who won high marks from the League of Conservation Voters for his pro-environment votes, says the strategy is too negative and defensive and doesn’t address the fact that pollution continues to be a health threat.

"If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I’d be booed," said Castle, who heads a group of 69 moderate House members, senators and governors.

The communications director for the Republican House Conference said lawmakers don’t have to use the talking points.

"It’s up to our members if they want to use them or not," said Greg Crist. "We’re not stuffing it down their throats."

He said the memo was spurred by concerns that environmental groups were using myths about the poor state of the environment to try to make Republicans look bad.

"We wanted to show how the environment has been improving," Crist said. "We wanted to provide the other side of the story."

But Jeffords -- the ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- said the memo distorts reality.

"It’s so incredible that they have this denial of any responsibility for the serious situation we have in this country as far as the environment goes," Jeffords said. "They have a head-in-the-sand approach to it. They’re just sloughing off the human health impacts -- the premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power plant pollution."

The Vermont senator said he believes moderate Republicans -- such as Castle in the House and Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- won’t go along with the plan.

Jeffords and Snowe recently introduced legislation to increase funding to fight water pollution.

"We have hopes that there are enough people in Congress who care more about the people hurt by pollution than about the money polluters give to political campaigns," Jeffords said.

The memo’s statement that the link between air pollution and childhood asthma is cloudy is what really upset one leader of a group of pro-environment Republicans, including elected officials.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

The silver lining here, Max, is that moderate Republicans who aren't completely crazy, dishonest, and evil like Tom DeLay will get to see just how far the crazies in this party will go to merely win elections. They are in power, and they will do anything to maintain that power. This will catch up with them.....

[mburbank]

Everybody bitches about how we need to break the two party stanglehold. I think we have three prties. Democrats, Republicans and these bastards.

Bit by bit, traditional Republicans are waking up to how badly their party has been hijacked.