| WASHINGTON
- October 25 - Ralph Nader said today that he would welcome any
public discussion or debate with Vice-President Gore about environmental
issues, and the two candidates’ environmental records. On Monday,
in response to a reporter’s question about Nader’s appeal
to voters concerned with theenvironment, Gore said: “I’ll
stack my record against anyone, including him.”
“Al
Gore is suffering from election-year delusion,” Mr. Nader told
reporters today, “if he thinks his record on the environment is
anything to be proud of. He should be held accountable by voters for
eight years of principles betrayed and promises broken. A broad spectrum
of voters from diverse political persuasions are willing to stand for
stand environmental policies and against the corrupt corporate politics
of the two-party system.”
In
this campaign, Nader has proposed the following environmental initiatives,
among others:
·
Increasing the use of renewable energy such as solar,
wind, and biomass, and diminishing use of fossil fuels; ending subsidies
to the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries, in order to combat
global warming and air pollution.
·
Withdrawing from the WTO and promptly re-negotiating global
trade treaties so that the new agreements raise global environmental
standards necessary to ensure to ensure protection of our air, water,
forests and climate.
·
Ending commercial logging on US public lands and road-building
in all 60
million acres of large forest tracts remaining in the National Forest
system
·
Improving air quality standards in urban areas, and passing
a Defense of the Environment Act that would make it more difficult for
anti-environmental riders to pass Congress
·
Allowing our farmers to grow industrial hemp, that our
country now has to import, which will reduce the need for importing
oil, cutting down trees for paper, among many other benign environmental
uses from this versatile plant that Washington and Jefferson grew.
In
a recent letter to voters concerned with environmental issues, Nader
offered a detailed critique of Gore’s environmental record, and
throughout the campaign has strongly criticized the Vice-President for
abandoning environmental principles.
Keeping
in mind that Clinton handed the Administration’s environmental
portfolio to Gore upon taking office, consider the following aspects
of the Administration record:
·
The dangerous WTI hazardous waste incinerator was permitted
by the Gore EPA, despite his promise in 1992 that it would not be granted.
The incinerator burns 60,000 tons of waste every year, making it one
of the largest incinerators of its type in the world. Today, the incinerator,
which is located very near an elementary school, continues to pollute
the environment with dangerous emissions. Gore claimed that the Bush
administration allowed the first permit there, but Bush EPA head William
Reilly has said he was advised by the Gore staff during the transition
to go ahead with the trash burn permit.
·
The Administration has not proposed any across the board
increase in CAFE
standards, breaking a specific 1992 campaign promise. Average fuel
efficiency is now down to 24.5 mpg, the lowest it has been seen since
1980. This freeze in standards contributes to air pollution and global
warming, while costing consumers at the pump.
·
Gore’s support for clean alternative fuels has never
matched his promises. Instead of fighting for expanded solar energy
and conservation budgets, he and Clinton have wasted around $1.5 billion
in a giveaway to GM, Ford and Chrysler to produce a fuel efficient “Super
Car” the prototype for which has not even been developed. Taxpayer
subsidies to fossil fuel and atomic power companies also continue unabated.
·
Gore agrees with George W. Bush on continuing the so-called
“Clean Coal”
subsidy, which wastes millions of dollars finding ways to clean up the
burning of domestic coal, such as “sequestering” the resultant
CO2 in sea beds or oil wells, while ignoring the environmental harm
that comes from mining. Meanwhile, he has failed to take a stance on
mountaintop removal in West Virginia and in his home state of Tennessee.
·
The Administration has allowed grazing, helicopter logging,
and even hard rock mining in National Monuments. Logging in National
Forests has continued under this “earth-friendly” administration:
Clinton-Gore signed the “salvage rider” that suspended the
Endangered Species Act despite claiming they opposed it. Logging subsidies
in the Tongass (Alaska) and White River (Colorado) have been dutifully
given to timber companies, and one in six old-growth trees that existed
when they took office has been cut and sold for below cost.
·
At the behest of the food industry, the Administration
signed away the Delaney Clause
which prohibited any cancer-causing pesticides or ingredients in food,
and
made a mockery
of advisory committee set up to help implement the badly misnamed Food
Quality Protection Act by allowing it to become controlled by agribusiness
corporations and pesticide manufacturers.
·
Wetlands destruction is no longer properly tracked, and
the Administration
blocked the protection for functioning wetlands that are currently farmed,
even refusing to have the Army Corps of Engineers implement section
404 of the Clean Water Act, which would protect wetlands. This shatters
a 1992 promise of Clinton and Gore’s to “base wetlands policy
on science rather than politics.”
·
As Ozone depletion continues, Gore has equivocated his
stated opposition to ozone-depleting chemicals, as the Administration
cut deals over the pesticide Methyl Bromide, and even encouraged DuPont
to slow its phase out of CFC production.
·
Prosecutions of environmental crimes have declined by
as much as 50% since the Bush Administration according to Public Employees
for Environmental Responsiblity, despite a specific promise from Clinton
and Gore to crack down on environmental crime.
“If
this record demonstrates success, then what might constitute failure?”
Nader asked.
“The best
case Al Gore has made to any environmentalist in this election year
is that he is not George W. Bush,” Nader said today. “But
Gore cannot even attack George W. Bush’s record in Texas with complete
credibility,” Nader noted, “since his administration has broken
its promise to clean up the maquiladoras that suffer from the rank environmental
problems along the Mexican border, problems that have only gotten much
worse since the passage of NAFTA. The decaying corporatist Democratic
party has becoming very good at electing very bad republicans.”
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