Liberation News Service

http://truthout.org/docs_03/101803G.shtml

Clinton Officials Attack Bush on Environment
By Jennifer Lee
The New York Times

Friday 17 October 2003

WASHINGTON — A group of Clinton administration
officials, including former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt and Carol M. Browner, onetime E.P.A.
administrator, have joined with environmental
advocates to raise money for an election-year campaign
critical of the Bush administration's environmental
record in swing states.

The four states that the group has decided to study
first, for insight into the leading environmental
issues of each, are Florida, New Mexico, New Hampshire
and Oregon. In the 2000 election, the outcome in all
four was extremely close — Florida and New Hampshire
tipped to George Bush, New Mexico and Oregon to Al
Gore — with Ralph Nader of the Green Party getting
more votes in each than the margin of victory there.

But the campaign, called Environment 2004, is also
looking at Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Arizona and Iowa.

"We're a small, nimble organization," Ms. Browner
said in an interview. "We want to focus our resources
in the places where we can make a difference in the
outcome of the election."

Environment 2004 will buy commercial advertising,
conduct voter education campaigns and schedule
speakers in local communities.

While it is trying to raise $5 million from
membership donations — and seeks $1 million by the end
of the year — it currently has only $500,000 in
pledges or actual contributions.

A memorandum that the Republican pollster Frank
Luntz issued to his party before last year's elections
warned, "The environment is probably the single issue
on which Republicans in general — and the president in
particular — are most vulnerable."

Ms. Browner, who is now a principal at the Albright
Group, a Washington-based global consulting firm,
would not disagree.

"This is simply the worst environmental
administration ever," she said, "and the American
public needs to know this so they can make a choice in
the upcoming election."

The environment is expected to be only an ancillary
theme in 2004, however, with national security and the
economy overshadowing all other issues.

"Not every voter puts environment at the top of
their list," Ms. Browner acknowledged. But she added,
"There are certain voters — especially among women and
swing voters — that this issue is an important issue,
and it can certainly frame their opinion about the
election."

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