MotherJones
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Date:� January 2000
Title:� Bush's Foul Air Act : The yellow skies of Texas belie
���������� George W.'s newfound eco-conscience.
Author:� Mark Francis Cohen
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In a classically expedient moment last spring, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, then new to the presidential campaign trail, declared for the first time that he believes "there is global warming." Such yawn-yawn statements usually get zero attention, but in Bush's case this was news--big news.
Bush rarely talks about the environment. He rarely-if ever-challenges business interests. And even more curious, Bush's libertine business policies in Texas have exacerbated the kinds of air pollution that cause global warming. So when the governor began posing as a tree hugger, his usual friends in the business community--such as the American Petroleum Institute--were taken aback. Peggy Venable, director of the Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy (an organization that claims the Kyoto Protocol on global warming would be a disaster for Texas), was quoted as saying Bush's new stance was a sign "that many of us need to visit with the governor."
Environmental advocates, meanwhile, were highly skeptical of Bush's green turn. "It's ridiculous," says Teri Shore, the campaign director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. "He has nothing of an environmental record in Texas."
The truth is, Governor Bush has an abysmal environmental record-which, come election day, may not serve Candidate Bush well. To get around his failures, George W. began adopting environmentally correct positions and spin-doctoring his record. Such election-inspired reinventions are nothing new in politics, but Bush's turnabout is especially noteworthy.
During Bush's five years in office, air pollution in major Texas cities, from Dallas to El Paso, has worsened. In 1999, the state logged more than 20 of the nation's worst smog readings.
As governor, Bush has repeatedly refused to close a loophole that allows many industrial plants to continue belching noxious fumes with impunity. While Texas factories have to operate under strict pollution standards passed by the state in 1971, 830 of them do not because of a grandfather clause that exempted existing facilities and those under construction. In recent years, urgings from local politicians and every major newspaper in Texas to end the polluters' free ride have been rejected by Bush.
Instead, the governor took action by pushing a program that would only encourage the unaccountable plants to follow the 1971 laws. Bush and his team heralded this voluntary measure as a major feat, touting Bush as the first governor to face down industrial polluters. But thanks to the work of some Texas environmentalists, Bush's people were caught engaging in classic backroom machinations.
According to documents obtained by the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Bush asked executives from Exxon and other oil and chemical companies to draw up the voluntary program with state officials. The industrial group developed a plan after meeting numerous times in 1997.
Only after the plan was drafted did Bush assemble the Clean Air Responsibility Enterprise Committee-a public commission that included environmentalists and corporate executives-to consider how to deal with the grandfathered plants. The commission members were unaware of the industry draft, but their goal was clear. According to Dan Eden, chief policy adviser to Ralph Marquez (a Bush appointee to the state environmental regulatory commission), the governor gave a strong suggestion. "Bush told the commission to put together a voluntary program," says Eden. "That was the direction he gave." What came out of the public committee was essentially the same program that industry executives had developed in secret. The legislature soon passed the measure, and the governor signed it into law.
"It was a dog-and-pony show for a policy that was written by Exxon," says Peter Altman, director of the Austin-based SEED Coalition. Last May, the coalition sued Bush for withholding public documents relating to his air pollution policy. "This is a function of a guy who worked in the oil business," says Altman. "That's his peer group. He doesn't pay attention to science, but pays attention to Exxon."
Judging from information gathered by Public Research Works (PRW), a Texas environmental and government watchdog group, the grandfathered companies were eager to back Bush. PRW found that in March 1999-while the Texas legislature was mulling the final version of Bush's voluntary program, and Bush was testing the waters for a presidential run-the exempt corporations and their corporate lawyers gave Bush $316,300 for his exploratory efforts.
Robin Schneider, PRW's executive director, has called on the governor to return the contributions, citing Texas campaign finance laws forbidding politicians from taking money from businesses during a legislative session in which those businesses might be affected.
"We fear for what will happen on the national level if Bush wins," says Schneider. "Polluters know if they give to Bush, they'll get polluter- friendly policies."
Bush may, in fact, be on the right side of the law, in that the donations are funding his run for a federal office, not a Texas post. Still, it seems that the appearance of impropriety hasn't hindered his fundraising. By July he had reportedly taken in $1.5 million from the very companies he secretly asked to develop the voluntary pollution-control law.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Foundation for National Progress