Speech By: Sheldon Whitehouse

Sheldon Whitehouse:last year, as many of us will remember, the senate judiciary committee was engaged in a very troubling inquiry. we were trying to determine whether the bush administration had fired several united states

Sheldon Whitehouse:attorneys for political reasons. not because they weren't good u.s. attorneys, but because they weren't loyal bushees, to use the phrase that the department of justice used about them. that continued at

Sheldon Whitehouse:the department of justice, but over its course, we already know the incompetence and misjudgments that it uncovered have cost numerous department of justice officials their jobs, and properly so, including

Sheldon Whitehouse:former attorney general alberto gonzales, who made clear that he put loyalty to the president before the faithful exercise of that important office. unfortunately, it also cost that proud department

Sheldon Whitehouse:the morale of its officials and to a sad degree, the trust of the american people, many of whom have been left to wonder whether federal prosecutions in this country arise from the pursuit of justice or

Sheldon Whitehouse:whether under the bush administration they arise from the pursuit of political advantage. well, here we go again perhaps. this morning we awoke to the news that the environmental protection agency's

Sheldon Whitehouse:regional administrator for the midwest, mary gade, was forced to resign in the midst of a heated debate over dioxin contamination in waters near michigan. dioxin is an extremely dangerous chemical.

Sheldon Whitehouse:according to a record by "the chicago tribune," ms. gade invoked emergency powers last year to force dow chemical headquartered in michigan, to clean up several areas saturated with this dangerous

Sheldon Whitehouse:chemical, a carcinogen which was a by-product, among other things, with agent orange, which we're sadly familiar with. ms. gade later broke off negotiations with dow chemical on a moreomprehensive cleanup,

Sheldon Whitehouse:citing concerns that dow had been reluctant to take steps to protect health and wildlife. that put the company in a tough position. and at that point "the tribune's trune's" report said the company asked

Sheldon Whitehouse:e.p.a. officials in washington to intervene, although dow said yesterday it had nothing to do with ms. gade's dismissal. the paper wrote said the high-ranking officials repeatedly voted for aggressive

Sheldon Whitehouse:action against dow. they quoted ms. gade as saying, "there is no question that this is about dow." we do not yet know all the details of ms. gade's firing or everything that may have gone on between

Sheldon Whitehouse:her office and dow chemical. but from everything that we've heard and seen so far, it looks like deja vu all over again. from an administration that values compliance with its political agenda more than it values

Sheldon Whitehouse:the trust or the best interests of the american people. last year we learned that this is an administration that wouldn't hesitate to fire capable federal prosecutors when they wouldn't toe an improper

Sheldon Whitehouse:party line. today it seems that the bush administration might have once again removed a highly qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep was to disagree with the political bosses. unfortunately,

Sheldon Whitehouse:mr. president, the story of mary gade is not only a distressing signal that the bush administration may again be making hiring and firing decisions based on political loyalty. it is also a piece

Sheldon Whitehouse:of evidence in a growing pile of evidence of a troubling and destructive force at work within our government. one would -- one with serious consequences for our environment, for our natural resources, and

Sheldon Whitehouse:for the health of americans, for us, for our families. we've always known that th bush administration was no friend to the environment. over and over again for seven long years this administration has

Sheldon Whitehouse:put forward, under false flags, policies that would do great harm to the environment. remember the clear-skies initiative that would increase air pollution? remember the national energy policy wrien

Sheldon Whitehouse:with dick cheney by oil industry lobbyists? mr. president, the bush approach to environmental protection has not only been wrong, it has been orwellian. that pattern continues even to this day. not

Sheldon Whitehouse:long ago president bush stood in the white house rose garden and announced what his administration characterized as a new strategy to address climate change. now, as the distinguished senator from

Sheldon Whitehouse:pennsylvania well knows, americans all over this country are crying out for a bold and visionary plan to tackle the looming threat of global warming, a problem that threatens to engulf this nation and

Sheldon Whitehouse:the entire world within generations if nothing is done. so we looked to the rose garden for leadership from our president. and what did we find? we found a proposal that was neither new nor even a strategy.

Sheldon Whitehouse:instead, the president announced what he called a new national goal, voluntary action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. let me say that again. voluntary action to reduce emissions by 2025,

Sheldon Whitehouse:17 years from now. 17 years of increases. mr. presidt, there are a couple of problems with this approach. first, the obvious problem, that if you're allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue to

Sheldon Whitehouse:rise for 17 years, you really aren't doing much effectively about them. even though overwhelming scientific evidence indicates that unless we take immediate action to cut global warming pollutants,

Sheldon Whitehouse:we might be too late to prevent the most serious impacts of global climate change. mr. president, you and i are in our 50's. we may be gone by the time it gets really bad. i've met your girls. i have

Sheldon Whitehouse:a girl and a boy of my own. i look at the young pages here who are gathered in the well. this will be their world, and the responsibility is on us to take action now while we can to protect the world in

Sheldon Whitehouse:which they will live. well, on that score, president bush failed again. he literally offered zero initiatives. none -- that might reduce emissions now or in the future. and he mate it clear that

Sheldon Whitehouse:on what is left -- he made it clear that on what is left of his watch, the united states government will never require polluters to meet such reductions. as every american who is not working in

Sheldon Whitehouse:the bush administration understands, voluntary action without strength of will or force of law simply isn't enough to tackle a problem of this magnitude.

Sheldon Whitehouse:so-called renewed commitment to fighting global warming, the administration said it would oppose a specific, detailed plan for addressing the climate change problem that the senate will likely take up after

Sheldon Whitehouse:the memorial day recess, the warner-lieberman plan that senator boxer, chairman boxer, has worked so hard to get out of our environment and public works committee. this trifecta of failure from the white

Sheldon Whitehouse:house would really be laughable if it weren't for the fact that the problem itself is so serious. it raises, actually, the distasteful possibility, given this administration's long and destructive h.i.v.

Sheldon Whitehouse:history for disregard of environmental concerns that the preesident's new strategy is not just a complete failure, a complete nothing, it is actually a stalking horse intended to prevent real progress

Sheldon Whitehouse:on climate change, a way to leave this problem, like so many others, for the next president to have to solve. regrettably, the president's announcement is also a stunning failure of leadership in a world

Sheldon Whitehouse:community that that is quickly grown unaccustomed to american leadership. not a good habit for the world to adopt. mr. president, we've known for a long time that politics and special interests is at the bottom

Sheldon Whitehouse:of this and that the bush white house has repeatedly interfered with the decisionmaking process at the environment protection agency and other ages enthrall to the checkbooks of the oil companies,

Sheldon Whitehouse:gas companies, the chemical companies, the timber companies, the coal companies, the auto companies. if you've got a corporate check point, they're for you. a couple of weeks ago we saw new evidence

Sheldon Whitehouse:of how deeply the political influence has seeped within e.p.a. that is the primary federal agency charged with checking our people's public health. a report issued by the union of concerned scientists,

Sheldon Whitehouse:"interference at the e.p.a.," is a truly scathing indictment of the decisionmaking process at e.p.a. from those who know it best -- the scientists inside the agency. the report consisted largely

Sheldon Whitehouse:of a survey of e.p.a. scientists. it found that 60% of those surveyed -- 60% -- had personally experienced at least one instance of political interference during the past five years. 60% of the scientists!

Sheldon Whitehouse:the report documents, among many other things, that many e.p.a. scientists have been directed to inappropriately exclude or alter information from e.p.a. science documents or have had their work

Sheldon Whitehouse:edited in a manner that resulted in changes to their scientific findings. the survey also revealed that e.p.a. scientists have often objected to or resigned or removed themselves from e.p.a. projects

Sheldon Whitehouse:because of pressure -- pressure to change their scientific findings. mr. president, the conclusion could not be much clearer. e.p.a. is an agency in crisis. once upon a time, anyone working at e.p.a.

Sheldon Whitehouse:could be proud of their agency's reputation. it was the international gold standard in the area of environmental protection. indeed, for most of its 40-year history, all americans could lace their trust

Sheldon Whitehouse:in -- place their trust in e.p.a.'s science-based leadership to safe gave our natural resources and public health. if you go back to the founding of the age in the 1970 press release by the first

Sheldon Whitehouse:administrator, this role was stated unequivocally -- and i quote -- "e.p.a. is an independent agency. it has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce, only the critical obligation to protect

Sheldon Whitehouse:and enhance end the environment." the administrator was a republican appointed by president nixon yet both he and the president who appointed him intended e.p.a. to be immune from political pressure, to be

Sheldon Whitehouse:guided b the twin lode stars of law and science in discharging that critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment. well, in recent years and especially during the tenure of administrator

Sheldon Whitehouse:johnson, we have seen the e.p.a.'s leadership in coup hoots with -- kahoots with white house allies, despoil the basic principles of independence and scientific integrity. here are only a few examples

Sheldon Whitehouse:from the long bill of particulars that indicts the leadership of this once vaunted agency. the george bush environmental protection agency falsified data and fabricated results of studies regarding

Sheldon Whitehouse:the safety of the air around the site of the collapse of the world trade center on september 11th. the george bush environmental protection agency selectively edited government reports, including the e.p.a.'s

Sheldon Whitehouse:2003 report on the environment, to support uncertainty in climate change science, placing the imprimatur of the government of the united stateste on fringe views soundly rejected by the vast majority

Sheldon Whitehouse:-- essentially the entire world scientific community. the george bush environmental protection agency has routinely tampered with regulatory and scientific processes to achieve results sought by

Sheldon Whitehouse:industry -- guess what -- at the expense of our public health. for example, in 2004, e.p.a. allowed north dakota to alter the way it measured air quality -- that was the way the wy brought the theodore

Sheldon Whitehouse:roosevelt national park in compliance with air quality standards. not by cleaning up the air but by allowing them to change the way they measured air quality. the george bush environmental protection

Sheldon Whitehouse:age has hidden, suppressed, and delayed the release of scientific findings in order to affect the impacts of e.p.a. decisions. they have two things going on, if you can slow one down, get the other

Sheldon Whitehouse:out first if it's helpful to industry -- there they are -- as in the case of a 2002 report on the effect of mercury on children's health that e.p.a. delayed for nine months and released only after

Sheldon Whitehouse:it had been leaked to the media. the george bush environmental protection agency has disregarded legally mandated, scientific and administrative procedures as in the case of the agency's failure to abide by the

Sheldon Whitehouse:supreme court's recent decision on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. the george bush environment protection age has stacked the e.p.a.'s leadership and its advisory committees with industrial lies, removing