Adviser touts Bush policies at Acadia

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – The chief environmental adviser to President George Bush touted the administration’s achievements in protecting the nation’s air and water from atop Cadillac Mountain Tuesday.

James Connaughton toured Acadia and spoke to reporters about Bush’s “historic” commitment to the environment. He said the president’s environmental efforts have been unfairly criticized, mostly because people either misunderstand or misrepresent what the administration is doing to protect America’s most precious resources.

“We are keenly sensitive to health issues first and foremost,” Connaughton said while walking on the pink granite rocks of the highest peak on the North Atlantic seaboard.

Regarding funding for the nation’s national parks, estimated at 50 percent below what is needed to meet the National Park Service mandates, Connaughton said Bush has provided “historic increases” in funding for parks.

However, he said, the “booming economy” has resulted in more visitors to America’s parks and therefore more demands and needs for the additional money.

Also, while the president has provided full funding to cover the mandatory annual salary increases for park employees, Congress has reduced the funding and forced parks to cut back on other spending to make up the difference, he said.

“There has been massive support” by the administration in all areas of environmental protection, Connaughton said, from land conservation to National Park maintenance to forestry protections.

He noted unprecedented cooperation among the federal government, industry and environmental groups in developing new initiatives to protect and maintain the environment.

Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative,” for example, would reduce power plants’ emissions for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by about 70 percent over the next 15 years, Connaughton said.

Meanwhile, the administration has passed a new rule to reduce pollution from diesel engines by 90 percent by 2014 and sulfur in diesel fuel by 99 percent by 2010.

Connaughton said Bush’s clean-air initiatives will reduce pollution at Acadia by cutting emissions from coal-fired plants downwind from Maine, among other efforts.

According to multiyear studies, dirty air drifts over Acadia from New York, Boston, Portland and the Midwest.

The Maine park was listed as the fourth most polluted national park in the U.S. in the most recent study in June.

Rob Perks, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, disputes Connaughton’s list of accomplishments and asserts that the Bush administration has “a very hostile environmental agenda.”

“This administration has racked up a horrible environmental record,” Perks said Tuesday from the NRDC office in Washington, D.C. “The record speaks for itself. Time and time again, they have sided with the polluters. Their anti-environment agenda is one that favors corporate interests over public health and environmental protection.”

The NRDC is the only major environmental group to track the administration’s environmental rule and law changes since Bush took office in 2001, Perks said.

According to Perks, the Bush administration, while touting its support for national parks, has provided just $662 million since 2001 to address the NPS’s maintenance backlog of between $4 billion and $6.8 billion.

Bush’s newest budget provides another $350 million, but in doing so, shifts money from essential park programs.

Perks said the Bush White House is secretive and stymies public participation in law and rule changes. While administration officials like Connaughton praise Bush’s commitment to the environment, “most Americans know better,” Perks said.

Connaughton’s visit to Maine had nothing to do with the November presidential election, he said. As top adviser to Bush on the environment, Connaughton coordinates the efforts of all the federal agencies that deal with the environment.

His job does not permit as much travel as he would like, he said.