Letter to the Editor

Are these GOP values your values?

To the editor:

The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have some strange values when it comes to human and environmental health. Do you think:

Oil and gas development corporations should be exempt from requirements of the Clean Air Act?

Toxic drilling fluids should not be considered pollutants of drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act?

Oil companies should be exempt from lawsuits where drinking water has already been contaminated by drilling fluids?

58.5 million roadless acres of our public forests should be removed from protection to encourage logging and development?

Oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, the wealthiest pollution-generating corporations of America, should receive billions in tax subsidies?

The primary purpose served by our public lands (those managed by our Bureau of Land Management and Interior Departments) should be oil and gas development?

Policies and regulations designed to protect fish and wildlife, our wildlands and our cultural and historical values are merely restrictions and impediments?

Opening Alaska's fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to destructive oil and gas drilling rather than promoting energy efficiency and alternative energy sources constitutes sane public policy?

If you think these are reasonable values, you are in sync with the Republican state and federal governments. However, if you disagree with these positions, you should express your views strongly to all your representatives from top to bottom and seek candidates that reflect your values.

JENNIFER L. St.CLAIR, Cape Girardeau