The Bush administration has already sent the special forces in — to our wetlands and, to use that classic term of counter-guerrilla warfare, they’re hard at work “draining the swamp.” Of course, as Paul Koretz and Joan Hartmann point out in a piece that appeared on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times today, while we await an announcement of war, this administration has long been at war, an unnoticed war against our environment. And it’s been unnoticed largely because the mainstream newspapers, while reporting most of the raids (usually on the inside pages of the daily paper), have never on any front page I know of, declared this a war, or produced a single series, even a single summary piece, on the Bush assault on our lands, waters and air.
The need for such a piece, or series, might seem, on the face of it, so wildly obvious that any good news editor would long ago have rushed to assign a crack team of reporters to it. And yet, in the present period, when you finally get such a piece (as below), it’s due to the good judgment of an op-ed page editor, who has the nerve to assign (or at least print up) necessary reporting on the topic. The general meekness, the timidity, of the news pages of our major papers, when faced with our government’s war on our national well-being is nothing short of mind-boggling. Tom
War on the Wetlands Is Bush’s Latest Environmental Assault
His definition of ‘waters’ would extend a free hand to industrial polluters
By Paul Koretz and Joan Hartmann
The Los Angeles Times
January 31 2003The Bush administration issues daily communiques on a seemingly inevitable war with Iraq, but beneath the radar it is engaged in an assault on the nation’s environmental laws. The Kyoto treaty on global warming, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and provisions to protect public lands have been attacked. An obscure notice in the Jan. 15 Federal Register listed the latest target, the Clean Water Act.
While President Bush tries to convince the average American of his commitment to the “no net loss” wetlands policy of his father, his administration’s actions show his real intentions. He is now seeking a review of how the “waters of the United States” should be defined under the Clean Water Act, the first step toward limiting the water bodies subject to federal protections.
Paul Koretz is a Democratic state assemblyman representing the 42nd District, which includes West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and part of Los Angeles. Joan Hartmann, an adjunct professor with the environmental studies program at USC, is on the assemblyman’s environmental advisory committee
To read more of Koretz and Hartmann click here
The Bush administration issues daily communiques on a seemingly inevitable war with Iraq, but beneath the radar it is engaged in an assault on the nation’s environmental laws. The Kyoto treaty on global warming, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and provisions to protect public lands have been attacked. An obscure notice in the Jan. 15 Federal Register listed the latest target, the Clean Water Act.
While President Bush tries to convince the average American of his commitment to the “no net loss” wetlands policy of his father, his administration’s actions show his real intentions. He is now seeking a review of how the “waters of the United States” should be defined under the Clean Water Act, the first step toward limiting the water bodies subject to federal protections.
Paul Koretz is a Democratic state assemblyman representing the 42nd District, which includes West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and part of Los Angeles. Joan Hartmann, an adjunct professor with the environmental studies program at USC, is on the assemblyman’s environmental advisory committee