It's the Economy Environment, Stupid
Leavitt, David I.
MOST STRATEGISTS agree that it will be easier for Democrats to fight George W. Bush on domestic issues than to dwell on his post—September 11 national security policies. One obvious, but as yet...
...Voters see those issue areas as related...
...While the Bush team put the Clinton-era arsenic standards on hold, Senate Democrats seized the chance to be on the right side of a popular issue and began discussing ways to force implementation of the regulations through new legislation or use of the Congressional Review Act...
...Bush had placed his regulatory hold very quietly, hoping that it wouldn't be noticed, so the first thing most Americans heard on this topic came from environmentalists...
...Although Clinton proposed reinstating the tax when he was president, Congress has refused to reauthorize it since 1995...
...But in November 2003, the EPA decided not to pursue additional NSR enforcement cases unless an industrial facility was believed to have violated the program under the Bush administration's new interpretation of the law...
...These studies provided good arguments for environmentalists, but by framing the issue as one of economics and jobs, Bush took away the chance for a debate on the environmental consequences of the drilling proposal...
...Cleaner air means fewer children with asthma...
...And in framing the general election debate, Democrats have no shortage of options...
...But when owners of the older plants decide to update the generating units—or undertake what Title 1 of the Clean Air Act calls "modification"—the law requires them to install state-of-the-art pollution control devices...
...Let's examine four environmental issues that show how this reframing can be done...
...Democrats need to turn the tables on Bush...
...But they will be most effective if they keep the campaign simple...
...Voters care about, and will vote for, more money in their pockets, jobs, better health for their children, and removal of dangers to everyone's health...
...In an interview on ABC's 20-20 during his first summer as president, Bush defended his team's actions by saying that they had "pulled back a rushed piece of regulation to look at it, to make sure the science was sound, and therefore we got labeled for being for arsenic in water...
...DAVID I. LEAVITT is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who writes on environmental and energy issues...
...So Democrats can either go along with the administration's plans for the Alaska refuge or put the country $2.4 billion deeper in debt...
...The trust fund generated by the taxes reached $3.8 billion in 1996 but has fallen to a projected $36 million this year...
...Score one for the environmentalists...
...NSR is an environmental issue, but it is also an issue of public health, and that connection has to be made IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT more apparent to voters...
...Under President Clinton, the EPA began to investigate power plants and oil refineries that had modernized their facilities...
...Essentially, the "grandfather clause" allows polluting power plants built before the Clean Air Act became law to remain out of compliance...
...In an AP/Ipsos poll, only 3 percent of respondents list the environment as one of the most important problems facing the United States...
...The fight over arsenic in drinking water proved that Americans do care about federal environmental policy...
...The issue would have staying power if Democrats were to treat Superfund as a money issue and not only as an environmental issue...
...Bruce Buckheit, who stepped down in December as director of EPA's air enforcement division, said the freeze has led to the sealing of cases referred to the Justice Department and undermined ongoing settlement negotiations...
...This won't mean abandoning the environment as a campaign theme, but it will mean framing it differently...
...For that matter, journalists have trouble writing news reports on this subject...
...Superfund Throughout Bush's presidency, environmentalists have called on his administration to reinstate a tax on oil and chemical companies to fund the Superfund program, which pays for DISSENT / Spring 2004 n 51 IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT the environmental cleanups of the most polluted industrial sites across the country...
...And the Teamsters union, which endorsed Al Gore in 2000, began placing radio ads to promote Bush's plan for ANWR...
...And it is...
...The Bush administration had been working on this "reform" for over two years...
...Polls show that voters side strongly with Democrats on environmental issues, and because Bush has a clear record of relaxing environmental standards, it should be possible to expose his shortcomings in this area...
...Concentrating on a few key issues such as NSR and Superfund can make it easier for Americans to understand the importance of environmental issues and their connection to the economy and public health...
...In order to be heard, activists will have to reframe environmental issues and link them to issues that do rank high in the public's mind—the economy and health care...
...Bush's solution has been to let the Superfund program use money from the general treasury...
...Why should the Clean Air Act favor industry profits at the expense of our health...
...Clean Air In fighting Bush's overhaul of the Clean Air Act New Source Review (NSR) permit and enforcement program, environmentalists should follow the arsenic blueprint...
...And Bush's actions on NSR clearly allow the nation's most polluting power plants to avoid federal clean air standards...
...Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder reauthorized the taxes...
...But the truth is that almost every national campaign centers on money in some way—taxes, economic growth, the stock market, unemployment, and the cost of living...
...From the beginning of his presidency, Bush has pushed hard to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling...
...Although a final report is not due until 2005, NAS will release an interim report in September, just two months before the general election...
...As Reagan showed with his "Morning in America" vision, a positive message—however hollow— is often what voters like to hear...
...environmentalists have the facts on their side...
...A recent Gallup poll found that 75 percent of likely voters support stronger environmental regulation...
...The National Academy of Sciences is in the process of conducting a two-year study on NSR's health effects...
...Another, by the Tellus Institute, found that improved vehicle fuel efficiency could create ten times as many jobs as drilling in ANWR...
...They should be focusing on health: How much would it reduce medical costs if hospitals did not have to deal with so many respiratory illnesses...
...Environmentalists should use Superfund to show voters that Bush favors higher taxes for average citizens...
...Bush's budget projections for fiscal year 2006 include $2.4 billion in proceeds from oil lease sales in ANWR...
...Building on his economic argument for ANWR drilling, Bush has made his annual budget numbers look slightly more fiscally responsible by including revenue that the government would collect from ANWR royalties if the drilling were allowed...
...When Bush made his case for NSR changes, his administration had argued that the administration would continue to press ahead with the Clinton-era cases...
...This was a particularly winnable issue for environmentalists because Bush's putative search for "sound science" did not turn up arguments in his favor...
...Clinton's people interpreted modernization as involving the kind of "modification" that should trigger compliance with stricter clean air regulations...
...The administration argued that the new guidelines would require expensive upgrades for small water systems, but the public was not convinced...
...In August 2003, the U.S...
...The Democrats must take that opposition and turn it into votes...
...Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign staff made famous the idea of focusing on "the economy, stupid...
...Environmentalists have not been able to call attention to this fact...
...In February, a former EPA official who played a key role in NSR enforcement testified before Congress that Bush's NSR changes have frozen pending investigations...
...Looking Ahead The examples discussed here are just a small sampling from the long list of Bush's anti-environmental policies...
...Rather, his most effective argument was jobs...
...Democrats can win support for their environmental positions by employing two of Bush's successful tactics: linking his pet issues to the economy—as he has done in his controversial push for oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge— and framing issues in clear and simple alternatives...
...Short of scrapping the Clean Air Act— which would require congressional approval— the Bush team has done what it can to weaken the law by changing official interpretations of its meaning...
...One obvious, but as yet untapped, Bush administration vulnerability is environmental policy...
...Being first to frame the debate was very important...
...Clean air is simple, but NSR isn't, and environmentalists have had trouble explaining its intricacies...
...Smartly, he followed this up by making sure that the ANWR section of his energy package contained a provision requiring energy developers to negotiate labor deals that would guarantee union jobs...
...This was the recommendation of the now-famous energy task force, which held controversial closed-door meetings...
...But there is also a strong economic angle here: Bush administration policies have resulted in a higher tax burden for workingclass Americans and lower taxes for polluting corporations...
...Clearly, Bush's NSR policy is having a huge effect on air pollution regulation...
...Citing an American Petroleum Institute study, Bush claimed that ANWR drilling would lead to the creation of as many as 750,000 jobs...
...In fact, Democrats might have a lot to lose by carelessly attacking some of Bush's other controversial moves such as the Healthy Forests Initiative, which has significant support in several key western states...
...Immediately, environmentalists made a fuss, and this issue was easy for the public to grasp: did it want 50 n DISSENT / Spring 2004 stricter regulations for clean water...
...Bush is wrong on the substantive issues here, but as a strategist he has been quicker and smarter than the Democrats...
...This redefinition now allows companies to spend millions of dollars modernizing their polluting power plants without having to refit them with existing anti-pollution devices, as the Clinton administration's interpretation of the Clean Air Act would require...
...Just as lawmakers were moving to approve a final bill, the Bush administration agreed to adopt the Clinton standard...
...On the defensive, environmentalists tried to fight back by citing other studies...
...If Democrats can demonstrate the concrete and actual link between the environment and these two, they can greatly strengthen their case against Bush...
...And other countries, including the European Union's fifteen member nations, already used the 10 ppb standard...
...In this case, Bush defined the issue first: helping the economy...
...And in this case, the message isn't hollow...
...Strangely, it was one of the few battles that environmentalists would win with Bush over the next three years Hours after assuming office on January 20, 2001, Bush placed a hold on Bill Clinton's plan to impose stricter standards for arsenic levels in drinking water...
...They framed the debate first, and they framed it as a clear public health issue...
...The report said arsenic could pose a health risk when its concentration in drinking water exceeds 3 ppb...
...The only people alienated by attacks on NSR and Superfund are the owners of large power plants and oil and chemical companies, who are not going to vote Democratic anyway...
...The funds have financed the cleanup of abandoned "orphan sites," where the government cannot identify a responsible party...
...Eventually both the House and Senate approved separate bills to require the EPA to impose the stricter standards immediately...
...But that hardly matters if Democrats do not make the president's record as a poor environmental steward a key issue during the 2004 campaign...
...Here is a chance for environmentalists to demonstrate that Bush prefers to tax ordinary Americans rather than big corporations...
...Arsenic It is not a fluke that the greatest success of environmentalists against Bush came in a battle over drinking water standards very early in his administration...
...However, under Bush's redefinition of the term "modification," a power plant may modernize its facilities by spending up to 20 percent of the replacement cost of a plant before triggering the NSR provision...
...Under Clinton, the U.S...
...Superfund spending has been between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion annually over the past six years...
...Reinstating the Superfund tax not only would help fill government coffers and clean up polluted sites, but it would also lower the tax burden of average Americans...
...Alaska Wildlife In this case, it was Bush who successfully reframed the issue—and so there is a lesson here...
...But his most effective argument for this policy was not that more domestic production would wean the nation away from Middle Eastern oil (such a strategy would only invite debate from economists over the value of sustaining the nation's oil addiction...
...Democrats could not ask for a better news peg...
...As DISSENT / Spring 2004 n 49 IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT a result, Bush won support from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
...EPA put the final stamp on a regulatory plan for the NSR program...
...This poll reveals a disconnect: Americans disagree with Bush's environmental policies but don't care enough to base their presidential votes on the disagreement...
...The National Academy of Sciences released a report showing the cancer risks of arsenic in drinking water to be much higher than even the Clinton administration estimated...
...Once the White House tried to re-frame the debate, it was too late...
...Environmental Protection Agency had lowered the allowable level of arsenic from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb, effective 2006...
...52 n DISSENT / Spring 2004...
...How many fewer children might have asthma if Bush had not intervened in this matter...
...Corporate taxes that pay for Superfund cleanups— excise levies on oil and chemical companies and a corporate environmental income tax— expired in 1995...
...The EPA completed its NSR "reforms" just as federal courts were taking up the lawsuits brought by the Clinton administration against some of the nation's largest utility companies for violating the NSR permit program...
...One, by the Economic Policy Institute, predicted only 55,000 new jobs...
...Clearly, environmentalists have many more complaints with the Bush administration...
...Finally, Democrats should focus on the benefits their policies can bring rather than on a "gloom-and-doom" critique of Bush...
...Buckheit said that NSR settlement discussions with utilities had been proceeding in several of the Clinton-era cases until Vice President Dick Cheney initiated major regulatory changes to the program in the National Energy Policy Development Group report released in May 2001...
...Clearly, his policies stand in the way of a clean environment...
...Because Democrats—led by John Kerry, who repeatedly promised to filibuster the proposal if it ever made it to the Senate floor— oppose ANWR drilling, Bush forced party leaders to take a position that, on the surface, seemed to be in opposition to job creation...
...On the face of it, this seems to be an environmental issue...
...It's an easy case to make—many independent studies have associated excessive levels of air pollution with rising asthma rates and other respiratory illnesses in children...
...they also stand in the way of what Americans care about most: better health care and a stronger economy...
...As a result, the money comes from all taxpaying Americans rather than from polluting companies...
Vol. 51 • April 2004 • No. 2
