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In the Crossfire

Environmental issues stir up dust

Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Rep. Edward Markey, D.-Massachusetts, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, step into the Crossfire with host Robert Novak on Earth Day over President Bush's environmental policy.

NOVAK: The interesting thing about Earth Day is that my children, who are now in their 30s, when they were little kids, they went to school. And the teachers tried to brainwash them on Earth Day, tried to teach them that cars were bad, and the industry was bad. And it didn't work. Both of my kids are more conservative than I am.

So isn't this a kind of a metaphor for America, that all the propaganda that you and your people have been putting out on Earth Day just hasn't worked, and the American people are not just that much interested in it?

MARKEY: It does demonstrate, without question, the strength of the genetic code in your family. And beyond that, I don't think it has any other application.

I guess what I would say is that your children must have missed the fact that Gerald Ford signed the bill which doubled the fuel economy standards from 13 miles a gallon to 27 miles a gallon in 1975. And it worked. And President Bush in 1990 signed the Clean Air Act. And year after year, whether it be refrigerators, or stoves, or air conditioners, or automobiles, all of those appliances or devices that consume energy were made more efficient.

But in this administration, GOP, which used to stand for Grand Old Party, now it stands for Gang of Polluters, because all they really care about now is taking care of the agenda of these energy elites in our country.

NOVAK: Well, we had an interesting little thing last week, which you may -- may be fraught with danger for you and your party, Congressman Markey. And that was that the garden clubs terrorized the Republican senators into voting against drilling in the Anwar (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska). And the blue-collar labor unions that wanted jobs to come out of Alaska were defeated.

Now I tell you, the organized labor knows what you did to them, and they may retaliate. As a practical politician, isn't that a problem?

MARKEY: Well, here's the thing, if you want to be practical, where the races are going to be decided for the United States House of Representatives this year are out in the suburbs. And out in the suburbs, these environmental issues have the very same strength amongst white men as they do amongst any other income or racial group.

And so, if you're actually looking at this from a practical political perspective, last week the Republican party was playing with a razor blade-edged issue, the environment. And they were deciding that rather then ensuring that automobiles are more efficient, that air conditioners are more efficient, they were saying that we're a technological weak link, that we don't have the capacity technologically to make anything more efficiently.

NOVAK: I didn't hear anybody say that.

MARKEY: And that we're going -- that's what they said. They voted against all technological improvements in our society, the Republican party and they went instead to the most pristine parts of our environment.

SMITH: Congressman, this is the area that we've done a lot of work on. What they voted against was mandates that said you're going to drive a little car because it uses less energy. And what they passed instead was allowing Americans to buy the car and the home they want.

MARKEY: No, just the opposite.

SMITH: Absolutely. No look, Europe has a little go-carts to basically drive around because they have very high energy prices. In America, people have shifted from the cars they couldn't buy anymore. Station wagons went out of existence because of their corporate average fuel economy that you and others pushed on the American people.



 
 
 
 







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