Clean air, water are jeopardized

To the editor:

Since arriving in the White House, the Bush-Cheney administration has systematically weakened regulations that protect our clean air and water and control the plundering of public lands such as national forests. Bush-Cheney appointments to run federal agencies charged with protecting our environment have been individuals who either served in polluting corporations or served as lobbyists for polluting industries. It is telling that the only appointment not meeting these criteria, Christie Todd Whitman of the EPA, resigned shortly after the White House edited and sanitized an EPA report and destroyed the scientific integrity of her agency.

John Kerry, meanwhile, served nobly in the U.S. Senate as a defender of air and water quality and of sound natural resource management.

It is small wonder then that the bipartisan League of Conservation Voters awarded George Bush, on the basis of his total lack of sensitivity to environmental issues, the first failing grade that any president has achieved. Kerry earned a rating of 96 percent.

At every opportunity, the Bush-Cheney administration sold out environmental quality and human health to the highest bidding corporate polluter. They have either ignored scientific evidence when it does not suite their political agenda, or they have suppressed it in government reports by editing the offending science out of discussions and analyses.

If you care about the quality of the environment that we and future generations of Americans will enjoy, you must recognize the Bush-Cheney track record and cast your ballot for Kerry-Edwards.

EMMA L. FRANKLIN, Cape Girardeau