Six Lies and Videotape
By Italia Federici
October 20, 2004

It is commonplace these days for so-called environmental issues groups to levy charges and make pithy sound bites without fear of being asked to defend their position. Much of the time, the issues are simply too complex for busy Americans to study them in depth, and rarely do words and images come together to paint a perfect picture. These are the truths, and this is the video, that John Kerry and his "environmental" friends at the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and Sierra Club hope you don't see. These groups are rarely exposed for misleading the American public. However, their hypocrisy is unveiled with the six examples and startling videotape described herein.

Lie number one is about mercury. The LCV and Sierra Club have repeatedly insisted President Bush is "rolling back" mercury reductions. In reality, President Bush is the first President to regulate mercury by proposing a 70% reduction in mercury emissions. These groups were silent as the Clinton Administration stood by and did nothing to address this issue. Finally, after being sued, and with less than a month remaining before President Bush's swearing-in, former EPA administrator Carol Browner simply announced that mercury should be regulated. Clinton's lack of action and Browner's belated timing have never been addressed by the above special interest groups.

Lie number two is about our national parks. These same organizations tell the American public the Bush Administration is cutting funding for our national parks. At a meeting hosted by the LCV and others in Albuquerque, they actually said the President and Interior Secretary Norton are firing park service employees because of budget cutbacks. Untrue. There have been 850 new full-time park service employees hired as part of the President's funding increase for the National Park System, the largest budgetary increase in history. It is one component of President Bush's promise of four years ago to reduce the maintenance backlog within our nation's parks by investing nearly $5 billion. Again, there was no mention from the LCV or the Sierra Club of this issue during Clinton's watch, while the backlog was increasing and infrastructure was decaying.

The third lie concerns the infamous Clinton Roadless Rule. "Environmentalists" left Clinton to sit back for seven years, eleven months and three weeks before he signed an executive order banning roads in national forests. The ban is no longer in effect because two federal judges struck it down. US District Judge Lodge said of the order that the input process was "grossly inadequate" and that the rule itself was "an obvious violation" of federal law. US District Judge Brimmer stated the rule was made in "political haste." Both agreed the ban violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Wilderness Act. In another example of partisanship and hypocrisy, the LCV and Sierra Club continue to maintain that President Bush overturned this ill-conceived regulation.

The fourth deception is about global climate change. There is great focus on Republicans as detractors of the Kyoto Protocol. Yet, the US Senate voted 95-0 against the Protocol's principles, and the Clinton Administration didn't even submit it to the Senate for ratification. This summer, when the Democratic National Committee dropped the pro-Kyoto plank from its platform, there was not a hint of protest from the LCV or anyone else. President Bush, however, was able to succeed where others failed. His Administration not only addressed the issue of global climate change with the International Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) charter, but, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, China, India and Brazil joined the U.S. in signing it.

The fifth lie concerns wetlands. President Bush committed to improve and restore three million acres of wetlands over the next five years. Yet, a recent "report" by the Sierra Club, the NRDC, and others attacked the President on grossly inaccurate grounds. The report creates the impression that President Bush is trying to eliminate the Army Corps of Engineers regulatory program. In reality, President Bush increased the budget for this program by more than 7% in FY '05. Remarkably, they further advocate that the President ignore an important Supreme Court Ruling, the SWANCC decision, because the ruling was not unanimous.

Lastly, these groups present themselves as environmental organizations. They are not. They are partisan special interest groups determined to undermine Republicans at any cost. Take for example the public chastising the NRDC received when one of its officials praised President Bush's non-road diesel rule as "the biggest public health step" in decades. That achievement should have been good news for all in the environmental community. Instead they played politics with it.

The hypocrisy is unsettling - and rampant. Footage from a fuel efficiency rally where Kerry and leaders of major "environmental" groups appeared - which can be seen at the crea-online.org website - shows them railing before the cameras against Congress, and employers, and soccer moms with SUVs. Behind the scenes, these self-proclaimed environmentalists stepped off-stage to congratulate each other in the shadow of their stretch limousines and the very SUVs they denounced moments before. Status quo behavior for groups so accustomed to getting away with decades of shading and deception.

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Italia Federici is the President of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Video footage can be found at (web site)

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.