Uncommon Sense: Murky waters

Written by Jeff Morris
Thursday, 07 July 2011 00:00

What do Rep. Nan Hayworth and Rep. Dennis Kucinich have in common? If you answered “nothing” you are wrong. According to the Web site maplight.org, they are two of only 14 members of the House of Representatives — out of 435 — who have not received any contributions from interest groups that either support or oppose H.R. 2018, the “Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011.”

Those interest groups are a bit one-sided. The three organizations that support the bill — the National Mining Association, the Association of Leaders in Equipment Distribution, and the West Virginia Coal Association — have contributed more than five times as much as their three opponents: the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club.

You might be wondering what H.R. 2018 is all about. Here is a clue: It was introduced by Republican John Mica, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and according to greenwire.com, was fast-tracked through the committee by Republicans who characterized it as an effort to “rein in” the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which they said had “run roughshod” over states. Here is another clue: It contains the words “Clean Water” in the title, so you know the objective is exactly the opposite.

This is not entirely a partisan story, however. The top Democrat on the House committee, Nick Rahall, along with four other Democrats, also backed the bill. What state does Rep. Rahall represent? Not surprisingly, West Virginia, which is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the coal companies. Republicans said examples of how the EPA has overstepped its bounds include attempts to step up regulation of mountaintop-removal mining, including the agency’s decision to revoke a key permit for a proposed mine in West Virginia, and to tighten state water pollution limits in Rep. Mica’s home state of Florida.

The rhetoric is familiar. Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs of Ohio, chairman of the water subcommittee, said, “It’s important to move forward and pass this legislation because we have permitting delays that are stifling economic growth and job creation.” Where have we heard that before? You’ll recall a few weeks ago, when I quoted our own Rep. Hayworth’s February letter about the Clean Air Act, in which she described the EPA as “an unaccountable bureaucracy imposing burdensome regulations [that] hurts the economy and drives jobs overseas.” So I would be very surprised if Rep. Hayworth didn’t support this bill. Oddly, she has been uncharacteristically silent about it. She is not among the 35 co-sponsors. I can’t find any references to it on her Web site. When I called her office and asked if they could tell me her position, they said they would have to check and would send me a written response. (It was slightly unnerving that I was not asked for my address. As the fellow who answered the phone was about to hang up, I asked whether they needed it, so he had me give it to him just to double-check that it was correct in their system. “Ooh, yes,” he confirmed, with a none-too-thrilled tone.)

Perhaps the reason Rep. Hayworth has thus far been keeping a low profile on H.R. 2018 is best explained by Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club. In a June 27 Huffington Post piece, he describes what happened in the spring of 1995, when, he says, “Newt Gingrich made a big mistake:”

He allowed Pennsylvania Representative Bud Shuster to introduce a frontal assault on clean water that went beyond the procedural environmental attacks hidden in the Contract with America. When environmentalists and The New York Times dubbed Shuster’s bill “the Dirty Water Act,” Gingrich’s political momentum stalled and went into reverse. Bill Clinton was re-elected the next year.

That was because, explains Mr. Pope, Republican pollsters have warned that clean water occupies a special place in the hearts of American voters, “particularly Republican and conservative voters.” Now, says Mr. Pope, the right wing of the Republican Party has once again lost touch with its own base by going after the Clean Water Act.

In a statement after the committee’s vote to fast-track this legislation, the director of the Sierra Club’s environmental quality program, Ed Hopkins, said they acted “irresponsibly” in moving forward so quickly on a bill that “kicks the legs out from under” the EPA: “Their attempt to hijack the Clean Water Act, roll back many of its provisions and undo 40 years of progress in cleaning up the nation’s waters opens up new avenues for polluters to make Americans sick, dirty our waterways and further line their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer.”

Will Rep. Hayworth be a bit more cautious about supporting dirty water than she was about supporting dirty air? Perhaps you should ask her.