Reports thrash EPA under Leavitt

WASHINGTON — A year ago, then-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt packed his bags for Washington, promising the nation's air and water would be cleaner under his stewardship as the newly appointed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

But after a year of on-the-job schooling, Leavitt is finding out the grades others give his performance aren't nearly as good as the ones he gives himself.

On Thursday, the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), based in Bozeman, Mont., issued a 2004 report card on the Bush administration's environmental policies and gave the administration's approach to air quality — which falls under Leavitt's domain — an F grade.

Drinking water garnered a C-plus, Superfund and brownfields a C-minus, and water quality a B. Overall, the administration earned a C-plus grade on the environment.

The group, which encourages environmental policy based on free-market incentives and creative solutions rather than regulatory mandates, gave the lackluster grades for entirely different reasons than did another recent study.

That study by the Center for American Progress and OMB Watch thrashed the Bush administration — and Leavitt in particular — in its own report, asserting that industry special interests have been given carte blanche to rewrite air pollution regulations to the detriment of public health.

The study points out the Bush plan, called Clear Skies, would allow "three times more toxic mercury, 50 percent more sulfur and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides."

According to another study by OMB Watch, the EPA "has continued its record of doing little for the environment" and that "what little it has done in this time shows a pattern of placing corporate interests over the public interest."

The study found the EPA had failed to achieve 73 percent of its "benchmarks" for cleaning up the environment that the agency announced in December 2003, just after Leavitt took office.

Both report cards stand in contrast to a recent report by EPA that boasted that total emissions of the six principal pollutants identified in the Clean Air Act dropped again in 2003, "signaling that America's air is the cleanest ever in three decades."

"Thanks to this progress, today's air is the cleanest most Americans have ever breathed," Leavitt said. "Now, EPA is taking up the challenge to accelerate the pace of that progress into the future."

How can Leavitt make a claim of "substantial improvement" when groups on all sides are taking shots at what his agency isn't doing?