Bush is promoting efficient protection of the environment
Published October 3, 2004
Re: How the Bush administration has fared.
Contrary to the assertions made in Wes Allison's Sept. 26 article, the Bush administration is ensuring environmental protections are the most effective and efficient they can be in meeting our shared goal of improving and protecting the environment.
As air pollution continues its decline - 51 percent since 1970 according to 2003 data - President Bush is offering new ideas to continue further and faster reductions. His Clear Skies legislation and Clean Air Interstate rule will cut power plant pollution, including mercury for the first time ever, by 70 percent, creating a $50-billion mandate for new pollution-control technologies on power plants. These will bring the steepest emissions cuts in more than a decade. His final nonroad diesel rule will cut soot and nitrogen oxides emissions more than 90 percent by 2014, and reduce the sulfur content of diesel fuel 99 percent by 2010. Together, these initiatives will help states meet tough new health-based air quality standards supported and implemented by this administration.
On forest and land conservation, this administration has made sweeping improvements. President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative and the bipartisan Healthy Forests Restoration Act are helping reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires, disease and insect infestation on 20-million acres of public forest land while protecting old-growth trees. While the Clinton roadless rule was struck down by two courts because it was deemed illegal, this administration is providing a solution that restores many of its components and engages states, local governments, tribes and interested parties in determining measures to conserve and manage roadless areas. The president is also moving forward with a plan to create, improve and protect at least 3-million wetland acres over the next five years in order to increase overall wetland acres and quality.
-- James L. Connaughton, chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality, Washington
Voters should remember environment
Re: Mountains of debate, Sept. 26.
How sad this story was to read last Sunday morning as I took a break and read the paper while preparing for Hurricane Jeanne.
This administration keeps coming up with new ways to demolish this planet. How can they do this? The main reason is that the average American citizen is not listening to or seeing what is going on.
The coming election is by far not a one-issue election. Our planet's future depends on its outcome. When environmental and business interests collide, it's usually business that cheers this administration. This is not the way it is supposed to work. The government should work for the people.
This administration must not be given another four years to devastate this planet.
-- Kathy Evilsizer, Crystal River
Offensive anti-Southern stereotypes
Re: Take a deep breath, sugar, you're living in Dixie, by Diane Roberts, Sept. 26.
I read this article with disgust, and I must say that I cannot recall having previously read such an unabashedly bigoted, anti-Southern article.
As a native Floridian, I find the characterizations of true Floridians as nothing more than poorly educated, racist "Crackers" offensive in the extreme. The only stereotypes that the article failed to mention are that we are all snaggle-toothed and in-bred, but I am certain that was simply an oversight on Ms. Roberts' part, and will probably be included in a follow-up article.
If this was intended to be a humorous article, I found it to be decidedly a failure in that regard. If this was intended to be an anti-Southern diatribe, then it was certainly a success.
-- David A. Anthony, Palm Harbor
Finding hope for Dixie
Re: Take a deep breath, sugar, you're living in Dixie.
Good mornin', ya'll. Hope this finds everyone at the Times in good health and spirits. I seldom write letters to the editor, but really wanted to thank you for this wonderful column. Any time we can upset a left-wing liberal establishment writer to that extent, it gives me hope for the future of Dixie.
The South is rising again. We still honor our ancestors who fought and died for the freedom of our homeland. So long as Southern hearts beat true and even one of us remembers, the dream of a free and independent Southern Confederacy will never die!
-- Gene Maben, Port Charlotte
In defense of court's 2000 ruling
Re: How five voted for millions, by Robyn Blumner, Sept. 26.
Robyn Blumner might want to review a column by Nat Hentoff, a constitutional law expert. I might add that he has been a frequent severe critic of the Bush administration. The article can be found at http://jewishworldreview.com it was posted on Dec. 26, 2000.
Hentoff's opening paragraph should be of interest to Blumner. He says: "In the turbulent wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush vs. Gore, it is not the court's credibility that, in the long run, will be diminished. Instead, the intellectual integrity of its attackers - from law professors to Jesse Jackson - will be at risk."
The article strongly backs the Supreme Court decision in the 2000 Florida vote count in the presidential election. The slurs that Blumner aims at the "conservative" Supreme Court are neatly countered by a liberal but clear-thinking Nat Hentoff.
In the future, could the St. Petersburg Times please have Robyn Blumner and Ann Coulter do shared articles so that we might see flames thrown from the left and the right?
-- J.H. Brown, St. Petersburg
On a path to authoritarian rule
Re: After Abu Ghraib, Sept. 26.
One hurricane after another has left many of us feeling depressed. I felt a similar weight of depression living for three years in the 1970s under a harsh dictatorship while serving as a missionary in Argentina. On the flight home to the United States, I remember feeling as if a ton of bricks had been lifted off my shoulders. I said to my wife, "Do you realize, we're free? They can't get us now!"
I pledged to myself then to do all I could to make sure we'd never live under a dictatorship in the United States. On reading After Abu Ghraib, I felt a deep chill. It was the same fear of being picked up in the middle of the night, brutal treatment, torture and being "disappeared," killed and never found. The difference is, this time it is Americans doing this, and the victim was a completely innocent Iraqi businesswoman and her family (one example among thousands).
My fellow Americans, do not be fooled into complacency, thinking that it happened in Iraq but won't happen here. The very same path to authoritarian rule I experienced in Argentina I am now ominously witnessing in my own country. Take action on this before it is too late, and vote!
-- The Rev. Warren Clark, Temple Terrace
An overlooked news scandal
Re: 60 Minutes pulls a report on WMD, Sept. 26.
CBS News' cancellation of the 60 Minutes program on the rationale for war in Iraq because it would be "inappropriate" to air it so close to the election is more a scandal than the Dan Rather episode that all the media aired for over a week.
-- Mort Zimbler, Clearwater
TECO is up to the task
I want to commend the TECO repair crews who were in our neighborhood after both Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Jeanne. After Frances they had our power back on within 24 hours and amazingly after Jeanne they had our power back on in 71/2 hours. Thanks for the excellent response time.
-- Leandra Bosse, Oldsmar
Dependable delivery
I want to thank my St. Petersburg Times carrier for his diligence in the delivery of my paper during the hurricane. I never missed a paper from the Times, even though I live in Hillsborough County. Each day the paper was in my box and on time.
If only TECO could be so dependable.
-- Frank Bragg, Riverview
[Last modified October 3, 2004, 00:56:27]
