Washington Times Letter to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Washington Times 10-25-00 Virginia is cleaner, no thanks to environmental scare-mongers I was happy to see Kenneth Smith's well-written Oct. 12 Op-Ed column on Becky Norton Dunlop's book "Clearing the Air" ("Clearing the Air," Oct. 12). Mr. Smith cuts through several years of pretension and moralizing by Vice President Al Gore and his protege, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) czar Carol Browner. The simple fact, as Mr. Smith notes, is that despite years of yelping and scare-mongering by Mr. Gore and Mrs. Browner and their activist allies, Virginia's air, water and soil were significantly cleaner when Mrs. Dunlop left her post in 1998 as Virginia's secretary of natural resources than in 1994, when she entered. What do the critics of Mrs. Dunlop and her boss, then-Gov. George Allen, have to say about that? Well, not much. Having predicted ecological disaster when Mrs. Dunlop and Mr. Allen began to implement their policies, the green extremists are left to cavil about how to divide up the credit. What they don't do, because they can't, is point to many examples of how they have accomplished what they claim to have achieved. I think this tells us a lot about the evolution of the environmental lobby in the United States. In their press releases, Op-Ed columns and commercials, such entities as the Sierra Club have very little to say about water and air quality. They criticize policies, of course, but they make revealingly little effort to link these to any environmental decline. In all, their silence gives powerful corroborating testimony to a major theme of Mrs. Dunlop's books — that for many environmentalists, an; and water quality has ceased to be the main concern. Regulating companies and micromanaging individuals out of their automobiles, air conditioners and even hair dryers has become the real point. Three cheers to Mr. Smith for reminding us of the fight Mrs. Dunlop and Mr. Allen waged to keep us out of six-hour-long emissions testing lines and government-designed battery cars. It's something I'm going to keep in mind as I drive to the voting booth. KENNETH BROWN Alexis de Tocqueville Institution Arlington

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Washington Times
10-25-00

Virginia is cleaner, no thanks to environmental scare-mongers

I was happy to see Kenneth Smith's well-written Oct. 12 Op-Ed column on Becky Norton Dunlop's book "Clearing the Air" ("Clearing the Air," Oct. 12). Mr. Smith cuts through several years of pretension and moralizing by Vice President Al Gore and his protege, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) czar Carol Browner. The simple fact, as Mr. Smith notes, is that despite years of yelping and scare-mongering by Mr. Gore and Mrs. Browner and their activist allies, Virginia's air, water and soil were significantly cleaner when Mrs. Dunlop left her post in 1998 as Virginia's secretary of natural resources than in 1994, when she entered.

What do the critics of Mrs. Dunlop and her boss, then-Gov. George Allen, have to say about that? Well, not much. Having predicted ecological disaster when Mrs. Dunlop and Mr. Allen began to implement their policies, the green extremists are left to cavil about how to divide up the credit. What they don't do, because they can't, is point to many examples of how they have accomplished what they claim to have achieved.

I think this tells us a lot about the evolution of the environmental lobby in the United States. In their press releases, Op-Ed columns and commercials, such entities as the Sierra Club have very little to say about water and air quality. They criticize policies, of course, but they make revealingly little effort to link these to any environmental decline.

In all, their silence gives powerful corroborating testimony to a major theme of Mrs. Dunlop's books — that for many environmentalists, an; and water quality has ceased to be the main concern. Regulating companies and micromanaging individuals out of their automobiles, air conditioners and even hair dryers has become the real point.

Three cheers to Mr. Smith for reminding us of the fight Mrs. Dunlop and Mr. Allen waged to keep us out of six-hour-long emissions testing lines and government-designed battery cars. It's something I'm going to keep in mind as I drive to the voting booth.

KENNETH BROWN
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
Arlington