WELLS, Maine?—?President Bush, who withdrew from
the Kyoto environment accord, sought to counter critics who accuse
him of trying to reverse decades of environmental progress in an
Earth Day appearance at a wetlands area near his family's Maine
estate.
After donning a navy windbreaker and hiking boots to trudge
through a coastal salt marsh, the president claimed credit
for what he called "some of the most important antipollution
policies in a decade."
"Since 2001, the condition of America's land, air, and water
has improved," he told an audience of about 200 people.
But even as Bush announced a goal of creating or preserving
3 million wetland acres over five years, alumni of the first
Earth Day in 1970 criticized him for ignoring basic environmental
issues such as economic sustainability and the growing world
dependence on fossil fuels, including Middle Eastern oil.
"There's a disaster coming," warned Earth Day founder Gaylord
Nelson, 85, a former U.S. senator from Wisconsin. "The president
and Congress should lead us toward a goal of environmental
and economic sustainability. But the exploiters dominate opinion.
I've never seen anything like it."
"The environment is a cutting issue for a lot of people, and
that's going to hurt Bush," said Sandy Maisel, political science
professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
As a political issue, wetlands appeals to a key Republican
constituency of sportsmen who have met Bush twice since last
November to register concerns about the loss of hunting and
fishing areas to development.
A recent Gallup poll showed a 46 percent disapproval rating
for Bush on the environment compared to a 41 percent approval
rating. The poll had a three percent margin of error.
After Bush spoke, former Environmental Protection Agency head
Carol Browner told CNN that the president had redefined wetlands
so that nearly half of U.S. wetland areas were no longer protected
by the EPA, which was created in response to the first Earth
Day.
Environmentalists and Democrats, including presidential candidate
John Kerry, say Bush has damaged air, water, and land quality
by relaxing EPA enforcement of pollutants such as mercury emissions
from power plants.
In February, scientists including 20 Nobel laureates issued
a statement accusing the Bush administration of deliberately
distorting scientific findings to further its political aims.
Critics also said Bush's wetlands message allowed the president,
a former Texas oil man, to skirt the weightier issue of rising
energy consumption.
"If we had a president who wanted to solve environmental problems,
and he brought in advisers and said, 'What requires my help
to fix?' The answer would be energy," said Sierra Club executive
director Carl Pope, whose group has battled the White House
to the Supreme Court in hopes of identifying members of the
secret task force that formulated Bush's energy policy.
What many environmentalists want is a major national initiative
akin to the Apollo space project of the 1960s to drive development
of new fuels and technologies and solve a range of problems
from air and water quality to health.
Bush administration officials defended the president's environmental
record, citing proposed tax incentives for solar energy and
hybrid-fuel vehicles. An official said the president had also
tightened fuel efficiency standards for gas-guzzling SUVs from
20.7 mpg to 22.2 mpg .
"At least they can say that's more than the Democrats proposed
under Clinton," said independent presidential candidate Ralph
Nader.