EPA's Leavitt Dispenses Vague Green Cliches In Seattle

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"A lot of Western governors vouched for Leavitt, saying he was a champion of local decision making and market incentives -- who just might attach policy meat to the political cliches of "free-market environmentalism." I'm not so sure after exposure to the man. In a visit with Seattle Post-Intelligencer editors Friday, Leavitt gave life to a blooper by the late Chicago Mayor Richard Daley: "We must rise to higher and higher platitudes."

The EPA's boss wants to be part of "collaborative problem solving" that will involve "collaborative networks," which will have to "transcend political boundaries." He believes that there's a simple key: "Get everyone in the room." Asked about the asbestos found in millions of American homes, Leavitt put it on the line. "Our efforts continue," he replied. "They will continue."

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Climate change was next on the burner. A couple of eye-opening reports came out last week from the Old World and the New. Scientists in Europe found that 2003, with its prolonged summer heat wave, was the warmest year in the half-millennium that records have been kept. In North America, a panel looking into British Columbia's 100-year drought and 2,500 forest fires quoted Environment Canada climatologists as saying a succession of such summers is in the offing.

"It's clear that the surface temperature of the Earth is rising," Leavitt began. "It is clear greenhouse gas accumulation is increasing, and that human behavior has a substantial impact on that." What is not clear is whether Bush II will act on the problem. Leavitt feels the need for what he called "a clear and deliberate strategy to begin moving aggressively." Huh? The EPA administrator fleshed out the thought by talking of "a large series of programs to achieve a voluntary reduction in greenhouse gases." Leavitt talked vaguely of a meeting coming up in Japan next month at which countries hope to develop "a network of networks on monitoring. ... We need good information because the stakes are so high."

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/163665_joel08.html

Mike Leavitt is a typical, smarmy, environmentalist-hating Western politician. The failing of these overconfident political types is that they begin to believe in the simplistic sound-bite messages that their think tanks created for public consumption.