Candidate Review

 

The Environment

 

General Wesley Clark

 

Here's Clark's plan from a speech in New Hampshire, December 9, 2004.

"We need a President who protects the public's health, not polluters' pocketbooks. We need a President who will tell the truth to the American people about the risks posed by air pollution, not one who hides data and distorts the science. We need a President who understands that clean air and a healthy economy go hand in hand.

My Clean Air Plan will improve America's health and America's economy. Compared to the Bush administration's policies, my Clean Air Plan will prevent more than 100,000 premature deaths and more than two million asthma attacks through the year 2020.

Specifically, my four-part plan will:

Set tough standards for the worst sources of air pollution, starting with electric power plants;

Crack down on corporate polluters;

Use American technology and market-based approaches to meet air pollution challenges with innovative, job-creating solutions; and

Restore trust in the environmental stewardship of the White House."

 

Former Governor Howard Dean

 

This is from a speech Dean made in San Francisco, July 31, 2003.

"We will finally make the EPA a cabinet-level agency with a Secretary, not an Administrator, who will have not just the symbolic support of the Administration, but the actual support as well. And we’ll ensure that the agencies created to oversee our precious environmental and natural resources aren’t co-opted by the very forces they’re supposed to be guarding against.

We’ll place tighter controls on air pollution immediately. New legislation will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, mercury and carbon dioxide. We’ll strengthen New Source Review requirements to undo the damage done by the Bush Administration. And I’ll ask Congress to close the loophole in federal law that allows old, polluting power plants to continue to foul our air."

And from the section of his website detailing his position on air pollution.

"To reduce these health threats, one of the first actions Dean will take as President is to reduce power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, mercury, and carbon dioxide by fully enforcing the Clean Air Act and seeking new legislation to further strengthen that law. (In contrast, President Bush has dramatically weakened clean air safeguards and proposed so-called ‘Clear Skies’ legislation that would actually allow more power plant pollution than current law. Bush also refuses to curb carbon emissions that cause global warming despite his pledge to do so in the 2000 campaign.) A Dean administration will also protect our health by directing the EPA to accelerate adoption of health-based standards for other toxic air pollutants.

Dean will also faithfully enforce the Clean Air Act’s provisions to clean up disproportionately high pollution from older power plants and other industrial facilities. The Bush administration has violated the Clean Air Act and created a huge new regulatory loophole allowing power companies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in rebuilding old power plants without installing modern pollution controls. "

 

Senator John Edwards

 

This is Edwards reaction to a proposal of the Bush administration to exempt large hog farms froms and other farming polluters from clean air standards.

""This plan was a bad idea when it was first considered, and it's still a bad idea today. The only safe harbor here is the one the Bush administration gives to big corporate interests everyday, while regular Americans lose out," Edwards said. "There's something wrong in America when the EPA wants to give amnesty to factory farms that pollute and drive families from their homes, instead of making sure they abide by clean air and water standards. It's time for a real policy that cleans up factory hog farms by imposing strict standards and tough penalties."

And this is from the environmental section of his website.

Lead the Fight Against the Bush Administration
Senator Edwards has led the fight against increased air pollution resulting from the administration’s rollback of the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moved to make it much easier for old factories and power plants to increase their pollution levels without having to clean up the air. Edwards led the fight on the Senate floor to block the Bush administration’s rollbacks.

Work With Our Allies
Edwards supports U.S. leadership to establish international agreements to tackle world problems, including climate change, and to ensure that our competitors meet minimal environmental standards. Edwards opposes measures that empower closed tribunals to overrule America’s environmental laws.

 

Senator John Kerry

 

These are comments from a speech made on October 20, 2003, at the University of New Hampshire.

"As President, I will put environmental justice center stage. For too long, poor and minority communities have been overlooked when it came to the environment. And for too long, polluters thought they could get away with breaking the law as long as it was in someone else’s back yard. Those days need to end. Under a Kerry Administration, no community will have their environment overlooked. They will have the power to fight back. And the polluters won’t get away with it any more.

What will America look like when we are done? We will have pollution-free cars drawing their energy from redesigned fueling stations. We will see gleaming high speed trains carrying passengers from city to city. Our oceans and rivers and forests will move out of intensive care and back into health, so that they are once again teeming with life. In rural America, people will be as connected as anyone living in the city; and our cities will see almost as much green as out in the country.

America faces a choice: do we wish to be remembered as the last generation of the foolish – those who believed that the earth could be stripped without conscience – or as the first generation of the wise?

George Bush has offered his answer – time and again.

We need to offer a better answer. We need to unlock the force of invention and imagination. We need a President who will lead the country and the world in tackling the challenges we face. We need a President who’ll protect our rivers and lakes, our oceans and forests. We need to make sure our children’s children know the true meaning of “America the Beautiful.”

And from his webpage on his environmental platform.

"John Kerry understands the connection between air pollution and public health. As President, he will immediately reverse the Bush-Cheney rollbacks of our nation’s Clean Air laws, plug loopholes in the laws, and vigorously enforce them. He will take bold steps to protect the health of all Americans – particularly our most vulnerable seniors and children – by adopting an aggressive program to meet ozone and air quality standards, stop acid rain, and reduce mercury emissions. His plan also includes addressing global warming emissions through a combination of innovative programs that will drive technology change and create jobs."

 

Senator Dennis Kucinich

 

Dennis Kucinich under the section of his platform that covers the environment and clean air.

"The EPA under Bush stands for Every Polluter's Ally. The air and the water and the land are viewed by this administration as just another commodity to be used for private profit. We have to be about what one writer called 'the great work' of restoring our air and our water and our land. We have to look at it as the common property of all humanity - as the commonwealth, rather, of all humanity. And so my candidacy arises from a philosophy of interdependence and interconnection which respects the environment as a precondition for our survival.

I'm not tied to any corporate interests that would strip our forests, that would pollute our air or water. Throughout my career, I have worked for structures of law that protect the environment, and the principles that animate my campaign are principles of sustainability. The principles that animate my life are principles of sustainability.

. . . My administration will act on the fact that the air we breathe is essential to life. Even unseen pollution harms all our lives and destroys some of our lives. All of us pay for the pollution of others. Pollution is not necessary and the price of pollution is not something we need to pay to maintain our lifestyles. In many cases, the cost of cleaning up the pollution is less than the medical costs of treating the effects of pollution. I will continue to cleanse the air and drive down the cost that everyone pays for a dirty atmosphere."

 

Senator Joe Lieberman

 

This is from an Op-Ed published in the Financial Times, written by Joe Lieberman.

The record on this is as clear as the sky is blue: voluntary programmes like the one proposed by the president simply do not work. At the 1992 summit in Rio de Janeiro, the US agreed to the convention on climate change and signed up to a "voluntary" goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. Voluntary programmes were attempted. But US greenhouse gas emissions instead increased by 14 per cent between 1990 and 2000.

In fact, under the logic of the Bush administration's plan, the faster the US economy grows, the more greenhouse gas emissions will be allowed to increase. This perverse result reflects precisely the wrong-headed, zero-sum approach that has been rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike in recent years.

. . . Senator John McCain and I have a legislative plan to start reducing harmful emissions immediately by harnessing US private sector innovation. The plan is called "cap and trade". The government sets an overall limit on the amount of greenhouse gases nationwide, then businesses have total flexibility to cut their own emissions as they see fit. They buy and sell credits to other companies on the open market instead of paying penalties to the authorities."