Really, Ms. Sarandon!; The Vultures Gather for Bush; Gore's No Green

"In the U.S. it is not a good time for anybody to feel strongly about things that are not popular," Sarandon went on, "and if you are against the death penalty it's like being against a war. Your loyalties to the government are questioned if you are against it."

What can Sarandon be talking about? Approval for a moratorium of the death penalty is, as I noted here a few months ago, now running at more than 70 percent in California. Ever since the governor of Illinois announced suspension of the death penalty in his state early this year, the numbers have been shifting nationally. The idea that death penalty abolitionists are somehow politically and socially as isolated as Christians in the Roman catacombs is silly. Sarandon's mate Tim Robbins has endorsed Nader, who's emphatically against the death penalty. I'm not sure whether Sarandon has. Now the two should raise a stink about both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates' stances on the death penalty. Certainly, Bush has signed plenty of death warrants. But Al Gore enthusiastically supported expansion of the federal death penalty to cover more than 50 new crimes, including some not involving murder. He has also been part of the administration that put through the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, virtually shutting the door on the rights of prisoners on death row to appeal to the federal courts. In terms of ensuring more people will get executed, Gore's record is worse than Bush's.

Sarandon's remarks were topped in foolishness by Robert Altman, who said last week that he felt it would be a "catastrophe for the world if George Bush is elected." Altman vowed: "You won't see me for dust. I for one will be leaving the country and living in France." What's Altman expecting to happen?

Looks Like It's Over Just look at the Golden State. People in California are brimful of confidence about their economic prospects. More than twice of those in a recent field poll reckon that the country is very much on the right track. Back in 1992, when Bush Sr. was president, fewer than one out of five held that opinion. Since then, the index of economic confidence has climbed steadily. There is no way on Earth George W. Bush could win California. Admittedly, this doesn't in and of itself give the election to Gore, and there are still claims that Bush leads in Electoral College votes. I don't believe it. I've always thought Gore would win, and earlier this year, when the experts were already picking George Bush's cabinet, I took up New York Press supremo Russ Smith's offer of a $1000 wager on the matter. I'm glad I did. The Bush campaign has the smell of death on it. His advisers are desperate. How can they pull things out? Should W kiss Laura Bush before the first debate, and if so, for how long? Should he surprise her with a sudden pounce? Would she try to fight him off? These are the questions no doubt agitating Bush strategists. The vultures are gathering. Last Saturday Frank Rich attacked Bush furiously in The New York Times for not having been a real boozer, and therefore for inflating his steely will in swearing off the bottle when he reached the age of 40. "He was never a clinical alcoholic," Rich sneered, "never drank during the day (or every day), never needed to seek out A.A. or any other treatment. In other words he was just an occasionally out of control country-club drinker who quit cold turkey after a bad hangover?a far cry from those who face the far harsher challenge of conquering the crippling disease of alcoholism."

Poor Laura. Now she not only has to face the prospect of W shoving his tongue down her throat every time they go out in public, but she has to testify to years of secret suffering when her booze-crippled husband covered her with foul abuse before maltreating her physically and hitting the children, all to elicit a word of approval from Rich for genuine heroism in cleaning up.

On the Environment The Aug. 31 Rolling Stone had a piece by Tom Horton, of the Baltimore Sun, on "Bush and the environment." Unsurprisingly, since it was published by Rolling Stone, the article was essentially a press release for the Gore camp, hitting several of the kneejerk nerves that Gore and EPA chief Carol Browner hope to play on this season. On the allegations made in the piece, Al Gore is at least as culpable, and probably more so, than Bush. Gore has gotten a free ride in this election on the environment, and the media's complicity in this is a tremendous disservice to the public. Following are the allegations, and then a description of Gore's and the EPA's actual records. Regarding Gore's role in these policies, it's important to remember that under the past several administrations it is the VP who is the de facto cabinet officer for the EPA (EPA is not in the Cabinet); furthermore, that Gore more than any other veep has been the White House point man on green issues; and finally, that the environmental agenda has been driven for the past several years by "reinvention," another unique creation of Al Gore, almost entirely ignored (except for the chapter on it in Al Gore: A User's Manual, a wonderful book by Jeffrey St. Clair and myself, just published by Verso).

First Accusation: Bush has allowed Texas to have the worst smog in the country.

The Actual Facts: The original schedule of the Clean Air Act required substantive cleanup of smog across the country by 1994, but Texas, along with several other states, was permitted delays in implementation by the EPA. The EPA's green light for such postponements was part of a larger shift in priorities for the Agency in which, as part of its Gore-driven "reinvention of environmental protection" agenda, it de-emphasized the Act's mandatory requirements and emphasized market-based and other "voluntary" approaches of the kind that makes Gore go pink with excitement. The "delay" strategy was leveraged partly by Democrats Carl Levin (Senate) and John Dingell (House), who appealed to Clinton and Gore for relief. In this regard Texas has been no more dilatory than numerous other states, all of which were allowed to slide for the past six years.

Whatever federal pressure has developed lately for submittal of the Act's plans has been prompted by lawsuits against the EPA by environmental groups, and a consent decree (with the NRDC and Environmental Defense) compelling submission of the plans. EPA Chief Browner repeated this accusation, blaming Bush for not spending enough money on the environment. As we see, it was Browner's EPA that bred and fed this recalcitrance.

Second Accusation: Bush dismantled inspection and maintenance programs.

The Actual Facts: The Clean Air Act's requirements are spelled out clearly, but were first compromised by the EPA assistant administrator for air, Mary Nichols, in 1993, under heavy political pressure from California. This was the beginning of a long and slippery slope, one that continues today all across the country. Nichols was the former head of the California Air Resources Board. As a result of the 1993 policy cave-in, the EPA has never since been able to draw a clear or defensible line in the sand. Any subsequent cave-ins flow from this first pivotal battle, in which California called the EPA's bluff and the EPA blinked.

Third Accusation: Bush has pushed "voluntary" approaches and flexibility, instead of issuing mandatory requirements.

The Actual Facts: This is the core theme of Gore's "reinvention." A second look at the EPA's Reinvention website, followed by a look at the EPA's air policies since 1994 and 1995, confirms that the Clinton/Gore administration has been ardently advocating just such policies for quite some time, over the objections of many environmental justice advocates. Even Anne Gorsuch (Boadicea of the Reaganauts who ran the EPA in Reagan Time) fell short of Gore's fierce advocacy of this approach.

Fourth Accusation: Asthma and air pollution have increased.

The Actual Facts: The debate over the causes of asthma goes on, but the data have shown for some time that asthma disproportionately affects urban populations, also that emergency hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory ailments spike immediately following high daily readings for ozone. It is the ozone attainment plans required under the Clean Air Act that the EPA has allowed to slide and which are now six years overdue under the Act.

Fifth Accusation: Gore helped strengthen clean air standards and reduced auto tailpipe emissions.

The Actual Facts: This is semantically disingenuous. Along with the 1997 standards, which did represent a numerical improvement, came implementation policies which in practice undermined efforts to implement either the old or the new standards. For instance, the EPA promised not to implement the particulate standards for at least five years, and then only after yet another reconsideration of the standards. Worse yet, the ozone implementation policies set aside the Act's requirements under the previous standards to attain defined levels of progress. The Agency belatedly tried to restore these requirements (when environmentalists objected, and then when federal courts halted the new standards), but, lacking credibility, has been largely ignored. The particulate standards were developed in settlement of a suit by an environmental group; in other words, the EPA had to be forced to develop the standards.

The tailpipe standards were directed by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. Just last year the EPA moved ahead with the Act's "Tier 2" standards (low sulfur fuels). However, in finalizing those standards, the EPA tried to peel off some of the emission reductions and use them for regulatory relief for the 100 or so refineries that were to produce the new fuels. On Aug. 11 some 62 environmental groups from across the country loudly objected to that relief, charging that "EPA appears willing to sacrifice the health of low-income communities and communities of color who live, attend schools, play on playgrounds and parks, and work near refineries." The NRDC filed separate comments challenging the proposal as plainly illegal.

Sixth Accusation: Bush is pro-business and has an "oil-and-gas background."

The Actual Facts: Bush's whoring for the oil industry is indisputable. So is Gore's.

Seventh Accusation: Crown Central Petroleum has ongoing compliance problems; Bush prefers "compliance, not enforcement."

The Actual Facts: "Compliance not enforcement" is tied to the "voluntary" approach and has been the watchword of the EPA's switch in enforcement philosophy for several years under this administration. The jargon at the EPA is "compliance assistance," a set of policies much reviled, with much validity, by professional enforcement staff at both the state and federal level. The effect of participation in such "compliance assistance" programs is often practical immunity from enforcement. It is this immunity that has been recently discovered by Texas environmentalists and is now being hung around Bush's neck.

Several EPA inspector-general investigations have confirmed that the EPA has seriously bobbled enforcement under this administration, and had in effect encouraged a lax approach on the part of the states. States attempting to take a more aggressive approach will find themselves attacked by industries and politicos claiming they are not offering a "competitive" business environment. In practical terms in the Clinton/Gore years, EPA enforcement resources are being cut steadily.

Eighth Accusation: Texas has a weak record for Clean Water Act inspections; it knows "almost nothing" about the quality of its rivers and streams.

The Actual Facts: This is a nationally disgraceful phenomenon, and very much related to the EPA's failure to either implement or oversee federal requirements. Earlier this year, when the Agency aired its current thinking on a proposed approach (since adopted) to regulate and improve water quality by way of its regulations on "total maximum daily load," the proposal was so weak that it elicited the following characterization from the Sierra Club, EarthJustice, Friends of the Earth, the NRDC and U.S. PIRG:

"[The approach is]...unconscionable and contrary to law... EPA now proposes to delay clean-up for yet another generation... [T]he EPA rule attempts to make the entire program unenforceable" (May 19, 2000, letter to Carol Browner). Clean Water Act programs were administered at the EPA by the assistant administrator for water, Bob Perciasepe. In 1999 Perciasepe moved over to become AA for air and radiation. Since that time he has championed numerous policy initiatives to similarly undermine the Clean Air Act, and this summer has unleashed a flurry of new policies, each of which reinvents, streamlines, deregulates and otherwise lessens the enforceability of the Clean Air Act.

Ninth Accusation: Texas leads the nation in toxic chemical emissions.

The Actual Facts: True, the environmental situation in Texas is really bad, but here are some points to be kept in mind in assessing the performance of Gore and Bush: Does the accusation say more than that Texas is very big in terms of the petrochemical industry? What has Gore's EPA done about any of the issues raised here? What is the federal plan for toxins in the petrochemical industry? How fares the federal program for air toxins, under section 112 of 1990 Clean Air Act?

These issues are precisely the burden of many complaints being raised under the rubric of environmental justice and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. In June of this year, the EPA released guidelines on dealing with such issues. The response of Environmental Justice advocates has been extremely critical of the EPA proposal, stating that on the grounds that it "insidiously undermines the design and potential of Title VI...the Guidance in reality is a procedural stealth attack on environmental justice." They hang this failure directly on Gore's EPA. California's leadership on air issues goes back to the 1960s in legislation and agencies that have never been completely overturned since then. How would Bush govern if he had a California electorate? Or a California legislature to back him up?

In sum, perhaps what is most bizarre is that on almost every policy for which Bush is attacked, at least with regard to air, his policies are in close agreement with, and in some cases perhaps even more environmentally aggressive than, the policies of Gore's EPA. Both sides try to draw contrasts between their approach and their opponent's, but the contrasts only succeed if the listener lacks the facts, the record, or doesn't choose to look.

Several states have turned in less-than-impressive environmental performances during the 1990s, and Texas may be one, but there are other even worse ones, such as Michigan and Louisiana. It was to combat such backsliding at the state and local levels that Congress, in 1970, 1977 and 1990, strengthened the Clean Air Act. There was substantial momentum until the Clinton/Gore/Browner administration took over in 1993.

This slow-up occurred well before the January 1995 Republican takeover of congressional committees. By and large, as the foolish Rolling Stone article illustrates, the media has accepted Gore's assiduously constructed image as an environmentalist based largely on his windy book, Earth in the Balance, and on his extremely disingenuous characterizations of his own policies. As to why the Sierra Club and now Friends of the Earth have got on board for Gore, one can safely say that they merely hope to have their phone calls answered under a Gore administration and to have their cherished access to power. We may also ask why many other groups have been so quiet, and still others overtly critical (not a hard fact to verify during the Democratic convention). There's certainly no consensus in support of Gore's environmental record. Indeed, hundreds of local groups think it has been a disaster.