So much for EPA chief?s promises...
When Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt resigned to become Environmental Protection Agency administrator, he vowed to transform the Bush administration?s stubbornly hostile environmental attitudes with a Leavitt special--?Enlibra.?
Coined by Leavitt and then-Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon at a Western Governors Association conference, the word Enlibra means ?moving toward balance,? or, collaboration over confrontation.
So, with Leavitt?s first anniversary on the EPA job this week, how has he done with his promise to moderate Bush policies with Enlibra to show respect for the environment?
Not very well, according to the first report cards.
A Montana-based group that tilts to the right, the Property and Environmental Research Center, gave the EPA and Bush a failing ?F? on air quality, but a C-plus overall.
And the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress and OMB Watch issued a report asserting that industry has been given unhindered power to rewrite EPA pollution regulations.
The Bush White House?s misnamed ?Clear Skies? policy, according to OMB Watch, allows ?three times more toxic mercury, 50 percent more sulfur and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides.?
Obviously, EPA administrator Leavitt has had no influence.
Leavitt leaves critics with several choices about his promises that went nowhere. He?s (a) the most naïve bureaucrat ever to join the strictly-scripted, lock-step Bush administration or (b) President Bush told Leavitt what to do with Enlibra when he suggested moderation.
Clean air and clean water should not be political footballs?no matter who is president or which party is in power. They are some of the most precious of America?s resources.
Instead of assenting silently to their destruction, Leavitt should be howling like the coyotes in his home state.
