GeorgeW. Gore

...ing up the Hudson River in a manner that is environmentally sound and is responsive to the concerns of the affected communities;'Whitman claims...

...Even if it did, EPA admits that its PCB reduction goal--allowing consumption of a halfpound of Hudson-caught fish every other month--will not be met under the dredging plan until 2031...

...Wow...

...This Superfund-mandated fiasco is neither sound nor responsive...

...Susan Sieber of the National Cancer Institute has stated that her agency--the Federal clearinghouse for cancer researchmknew of"no evidence" that eating fish from the Hudson River posed a human cancer risk...

...Just how smart is it to go green...

...I don't believe in command and control out of Washington, D.C"Asked by moderator Jim Lehrer whether he believed"the federal government still has some new rules and new regulations and new hws to pass in the environmental area" Bush responded:"Sure.Absolutely, so long as they're based upon science and they're reasonable, so long as people have input)' Oh, well...

...Is Bush hurting himself and Republicans by running against the great green tide...

...It's also payback to New York Gov...

...The pro-dredgers claim that PCBs embedded in the river bottom pose a grave human cancer risk...

...E NVI RON M E NTALIS M IS A RED H ERRING BY GROVER G. NORQUIST W hY would George Bush stand firm on Kyoto, then turn around and sock GOP bulwark Jack Welch's GE with a half a billion dollar bill for dredging specious PCBs from the Hudson River...

...Not all wisdom is in Washington, D.C...

...If these five groups direct only one-tenth of their budgets into politics in an election year, they would command $320 million in each two-year election cycle, more than the National Rifle Association and the Republican National Committee combined...

...Or is Bush caving for no good reason, conceding on issues that will not move votes...

...With money and numbers like these, green groups should be a political armada, unstoppably rolling a new slate of enviroDems into power in the House, Senate, state governoriii ill II III Ilillllllllllll Grover G. Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform...

...We're the backbone of the American economy, and we thought Bush and his people would be a lot friendlier.They decided to take the easy way out...

...In 1999, 64 percent of Americans agreed: "Environmental standards cannot be too high, and continuing improvements must be made regardless of cost...

...Nonsense...

...Still, if the Bush administration refuses to respond to objective scientific indicators and local opposition now, why should residents believe the reds would call it quits once the muck (and contract money) starts actually flowing...

...A majority of Americans have agreed with that statement every year since 1981...

...Tim Havens, president of the anti-dredging group CEASE, noted with exasperation: "We're staunch Republicans-working-class citizens, small businesspeople, farmers, homeowners and housewives...

...It will damage the landscape, disrupt aquatic habitats and ruin local economies in scores of blue-collar communities along the river...

...Studies of workers exposed to high PCB levels and of people who regularly eat PCB-contaminated fish show no increased cancer risk when compared to nonexposed populations...

...Bush admonished Gore during the second campaign debate...

...Why push for new oil drilling in Alaska, then ratify Bill Clinton's deliberately destructive arsenic water standards that will bankrupt small Western towns...

...One study of GE workers found that although they had higher-than-normal levels of PCBs in their blood, they had significantly fewer cancer deaths than national or regional averages...

...16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9 SEPTEbIBER/OCToBER 2OO...

...The EPA's toxic formula for dealing with negligible environmental risks is depressingly familiar: Junk science plus bureaucratic empire-building plus anti-corporate statism equals a massive misallocation of resources.The late, great science and economics journalistWarren Brookes put it best a decade ago: "The problem is not that we are making too great an effort to make the environment cleaner or our lives safer...The trouble is that we are making the wrong efforts, with results all too oSen the opposite of what is intended" Some Bush defenders say this dredge-ful plan is a diversion to get radical environmentalists opposed to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" off the White House's back...

...The largest five groupsmthe Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited and Sierra Clubmhave combined budgets of $1.6 billion and 3,000 employees...

...Environmental groups raised and spent nearly $3.5 billion in 1999...

...K WHY GO GREEN...

...So, to recap: In the spirit of responsible stewardship, the Bush administration is moving forwardmagainst the will of local residents, and in defiance both of science and of economic common sense--to force a company that has merely followed the law to pay a half-billion dollars to disinter trace levels of a chemical that causes no known health risks to humans.AU so that 30 years from nownifall goes according to plannpregnant women (the single theoretically most PCBendangered group) can eat Hudsoncaught striped bass more than the currently advised limit of once a month...

...Whitman promises to be "responsive" to the community and establish "objective scientific indicators" during the dredging process, "to determine at each stage of the project whether it is scientifically justified to continue" So maybe this is all an elaborate charade, fully expecting to discover some show-stopping obstacle downstream...

...For their own good, of course...

...George Pataki, a Bush ally and vocal dredging proponent up who's for reelection next year...

...With money, organization and high poll numbers, the green machine on paper looks fearsome indeed...

...Either way, it's a deal with the green devil that sells out upstate New York citizens who had looked to a l~epublican administration for relief...