Bush flip-flops on the environment

To the editor:

George Bush has been flip-flopping since he took office. Indeed, he is the king of the flip-floppers. While he has claimed to be a defender of the environment, at every possible opportunity he has appointed corporate polluters or their lobbyists to government agencies charged with protecting our health and the environment. Bush has undertaken a systematic 3 1/2-year rollback of all the hard-won gains we have made over the last 30 years since the presidency of Richard Nixon when environmental protection was a genuinely bipartisan issue.

The Bush-Cheney program has promoted increased pollution of our air and water with toxic and carcinogenic wastes because this serves their industrial cronies who are both enemies of the people and major campaign contributors. They have also promoted the giveaway and plunder of our public lands to serve timber, mining, and energy companies thirsting for ever larger profits. Despite demanding sound science on environmental issues, in order to promote corporate interests Bush has frequently suppressed or ignored scientific evidence.

Meanwhile, since the Republicans took control of Congress they have been tireless in their attachment of non-debatable riders to critical bills. These riders are designed to further the Bush agenda of increasing pollution and the plunder of our natural resources. Sane representatives were forced to vote against rider-laden bills in order to get the offending riders removed. Far from flip-flopping, John Kerry has been defending Americans against the onslaught of bad legislation drummed up by Republicans.

PAUL BOTCH, Cape Girardeau