A new report titled “Behind Closed Doors” was released Tuesday in a series of nationwide press conferences organized by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and its affiliates. At the University, OSPIRG organizers held their conference beneath the solar panels outside the EMU.
Campus Coordinator Kit Douglass said the report was distributed in hopes of raising public awareness about the possible local impacts of the Bush administration’s environmental policies.
“Since the 2002 elections, the Bush administration has worked behind closed doors with polluters to craft one proposal after another to weaken environmental and public health issues,” Douglass said. “This Earth Day, we call on the Bush administration to listen to the public, not the polluters, and to uphold, not uproot, America’s environmental laws.”
The report is split into various sections that focus on issues from global warming to logging in national forests to oil consumption.
An example Douglass presented from the report was the Bush administration’s proposed changes to the Clean Water Act in January that would eliminate protection for smaller streams and wetlands across Oregon, and could allow more pollution to enter the state’s waterways. Douglass added that more than 1,000 rivers and streams in Oregon already fail to meet the Clean Water Act’s minimum standards.
John Baldwin, a planning, public policy and management associate professor, was one of the speakers at the press conference who talked about political involvement in environmental issues, as well as the need for concern.
“We should all be concerned about the future of our grandchildren,” he said. “I would call upon Republicans to reverse the rollbacks that have been happening.”
Environmental Protection Agency regional spokesman Bill Dunbar said he would not comment on the Bush administration’s policies, but did say that the rollbacks have not yet affected the EPA. The EPA is responsible for enforcing environmental policy.
Doug Heiken, a member of the Oregon Natural Resource Council and the other speaker, talked about logging in national forests. He said that during past presidential administrations, environmental policies moved in a positive direction, but under the current administration there was little hope for the environment.
“The Bush administration is moving us back toward forest plunder and tree farming at a rate that is spinning heads,” he said.
Heiken also spoke about the various rollbacks the Bush administration has been implementing, ranging from the introduction of the Healthy Forests Initiative, which will allow increased logging, to the administration’s proposal to gut the Northwest Forest Plan rule, which protects salmon and other species of fish.
“The central themes (of the Bush administration) are getting rid of environmental review and public involvement in the hopes that they can rush through projects and hide the destruction from the public,” he said. “The real effect will be loss of the public trust and a massive backlash from citizens frustrated by having no say in the destruction of their forests by the timber corporations.”