Political Quotes

“I supported Governor Levitt's nomination in the Environment Committee, but that does not mean that I support the Bush administration's environmental polices. Far from it. Under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has ignored the law and gutted its enforcement. It has been a 30-month polluters' holiday. I think the record is clear. There is also an enormous gap between the bipartisan approach that Mike Levitt supported in dealing with environmental issues while he has served as Governor of Utah, and this administration. For example, the bipartisan Western Governors' policy states 'Westerners do not reject the goals and objectives of federal environmental laws, nor the appropriate role of federal regulation and enforcement.' Recently, the EPA Office of Enforcement found that during the past 2 years, only 24 percent of the facilities that were in major noncompliance with respect to the Clean Water Act faced enforcement actions. So the EPA's own enforcement office says on major water violations, there hasn't been enforcement.”