[CPEO-MEF] Congressman buys into environmental about-face

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

New Hampshire
PORTSMOUTH HERALD
Congressman buys into environmental about-face
EDITORIAL
June 1, 2003

Environmental organizations, and cities and towns across the country -
including Portsmouth, Newington and North Hampton here in New Hampshire
- have spent decades and millions of dollars trying to hold the U.S.
military responsible for environmental damages it has caused in the
past. One only has to remember the military’s involvement in the
contamination of the Coakley Landfill and the continuing problems with
pollutants coming from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to see what the
Pentagon is capable of doing if left to its own devices.

Now there are moves under way in Congress to exempt the military from at
least two 30-year-old environmental laws that will undoubtedly open the
door to more abuses in the future. The provisions of these laws could be
rolled back as a result of amendments to the House and Senate version of
this year’s defense appropriations bill.

"Provisions tacked onto the House version of the defense appropriations
bill would weaken the nation’s laws protecting endangered species by
giving new discretion to the interior secretary in enforcing them and
exempting the military from following them," wrote Jim Carlton in a May
21 article in The Wall Street Journal.

Sadly, our own 1st District Congressman Jeb Bradley, who ran his
campaign as an advocate for the environment and worked on environmental
issues while a member of the New Hampshire House, has bought into the
questionable rationale behind these changes, even without knowing the
details of how the potential impacts would be monitored.

It appears our freshman congressman has been "Rumsfeld-ized" - he has
accepted the Bush administration’s vision that environmental
protections, as well as human rights, are expendable because the nation
is in a state of perpetual war against terrorism.

This editorial can be viewed at:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/06012003/opinion/31876.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~