Air, water and land use issues continue to cause divisions between environmentalists, congressional parties and the administration.

The nation's media have centered of late on campaign finance reform, tax reductions and international trade. With all of these issues, the partisan line has become quite gray. Early in the tax debate, U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., joined Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, to introduce President Bush's tax package. Campaign finance reform has been the project of Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., for several years. Trade has cut across party lines since the North American Free Trade Agreement was debated in the early 1990s.

The one issue area that has drawn considerable division within Congress and the administration has been the environment. Former President Bill Clinton structured a series of last-minute environmental regulations that put President Bush in quite a predicament. As proposed and final regulations were being sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as well as to the government printer in an expedited manner, many interests in the business community were concerned that these new regulations would have the force of law prior to the Bush presidency.

Upon his swearing in this year, President Bush froze many of these rules awaiting OMB approval, publication in the Federal Register or moving hurriedly through a particular federal agency. Several democratic senators wrote the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), expressing concern about the withdrawal, suspension or delay of specific rules. One rule that had been sent to OMB involved the proposed OBD II testing regulations. The Automotive Service Association had requested that the EPA review the potential conflict of new car dealers testing and maintaining vehicles with technologies developed by their franchiser that held such a tight control on the information required to repair the vehicle.

This broad spectrum of regulations have appeared to be held hostage by the administration and have set a tone of partisan divisiveness on the environment at the earliest point of any previous administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court was not to be left out of the debate. Soon after the inauguration, the court ruled that the EPA did have the authority to implement the new ozone and particulate matter regulations. At the core of the case was the question as to the EPA's overstepping its authority into the legislative process. The court sided with the EPA. House and Senate leaders had expressed concern about the final regulations.

President Bush supported the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions during the 2000 campaign. EPA Administrator Whitman sent the president a memorandum March 6 continuing to push for more recognition of global warming by the administration. A week later the president reversed himself and withdrew support for regulating carbon dioxide.

The Bush administration has also been challenged by House and Senate democrats on its decision not to implement the Kyoto Protocol. Eighteen democratic senators have voiced their concern, in a recent letter, with the administration's Kyoto decision. These senators were led by Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., of the Environment and Public Works Committee. The House is expected to also send a letter to the president initiated by Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., chairman of the House Climate Change Caucus.

Whitman has been cautiously observed by environmental groups. She made supportive comments of the court's affirmation of the ozone and particulate matter regulations. She also was quite aggressive in her advocacy of carbon dioxide regulation.

President Bush's selection for secretary of interior was much more controversial than his pick of Whitman as EPA administrator.

Other environmental issues that have caused democrats to move swiftly from the administration's position include mining, drinking water and forestry. The administration has indicated it intends to block regulations that require hard-rock miners to post a bond ensuring cleanup. The administration has rescinded a regulation that strengthened the standard for arsenic levels in drinking water.

In the final days of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Forest Service banned new roadbuilding in national forests. What had been an assured floor amendment during the Interior Appropriations debate on the floor of the Congress for years was done administratively. The Bush administration is considering a challenge to this new regulation.

The Clinton administration saved many of the most controversial environmental decisions until its final days. So the decisions so far by the Bush administration on the environment are very compressed. The democrats in Congress will clearly make the environment an issue in the coming days.

The democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee are taking a look at several of the key policy reversals. Environmental organizations have begun issuing ads in opposition to key Bush policy decisions. Finally, the administration's proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling has given many policymakers and organizations a single issue by which to rally.

The Washington Post quoted Whitman as saying, “This is not an anti-environmental administration. It's an administration that believes it is time to get away from the attitude that it has to be either a healthy environment or a healthy economy. We have to have both things, and that's the balance that we're going to be striking.”

With the economy struggling, many of the Bush administration's decisions are timed right for the business community. On the other side, there has been concern that the proposed budget does not go far enough for environmental enforcement funding.

Whatever the final outcome, clearly there will continue to be deep divisions between environmentalists, congressional democrats and the administration on air, water and land use issues.

Bob Redding is the Automotive Service Association's Washington, D.C., representative. He is a member of several federal and state advisory committees involved in the automotive industry. For more information about the legislative activities of ASA, visit www.TakingTheHill.com.

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