|
GALE NORTON AND FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM:
GREEN, LIKE THE COLOR OF MONEY
PRESS MEMORANDUM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 29, 2000
CONTACT: Doug Kendall, 202-296-6889
Interior nominee Gale Norton's most recent and notable foray
into environmental politics has been setting up a green-scam
organization called the Committee of Republican Environmental
Activists (CREA). CREA, established by Norton and a former
aide named Italia Federici in 1997, promotes "free market
environmentalism" as an alternative to our current environmental
protections. Notable Republican environmentalists, such as
Sherwood Bohlert (R-N.Y.), refused to join CREA, with Bohlert
commenting to the Washington Post "I looked at the lineup
and I decided not to participate."
A recent report issued by Community Rights Counsel (CRC),
a Washington DC-based public interest law firm, documents
that free market environmentalism is all free market and no
environmentalism. Free market environmentalists believe that
most if not all of this country's public lands should be auctioned
off to the highest bidder and that the nation's clean air
and water laws should be repealed in order to let the free
market determine the amount of environmental protection.
In the words of Doug Kendall, CRC's Executive Director, "Gale
Norton represents the extreme, pro-polluter wing of the Republican
Party. Free market environmentalism is an oxymoron. The only
"green" thing about it is the money it directs to
the coffers of the nation's polluters."
|
