Bush Begins Effort To Track State Of Environment

Associated Press, Dina Cappiello
Published June 18, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday directed four agencies to develop yardsticks for charting changes in the amount and quality of the nation's water. Clay Johnson, a deputy director of the White House budget office, said various indicators would be used to evaluate whether environmental policies and programs are working. "We currently lack consistent information on the environment and natural resources to analyze national trends," he said in a statement. The water benchmarks will not be released until 2009, according to administration officials, too late to be used for evaluating the effectiveness of the Bush administration's environmental policies. The Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Forest Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were directed to develop the indicators. Environmentalists said the White House effort is misdirected. "It would be nice if they put as much effort into protecting the environment as they are collecting the data to show how polluted it is," said Richard Wiles, executive director of the Environmental Working Group, which specializes in environmental databases. "There are plenty of data out there we can go to right now that will tell us everything we need to know to protect rivers and streams." While local, state and federal agencies collect reams of data on air and water quality as well as emissions from smokestacks and discharge pipes, it is inconsistent, incomplete and often inadequate for responding to environmental problems, according to independent reviews. Interior, EPA, NOAA and other agencies have contributed $400,000 to $500,000 a year since 1997 to the private Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment to compile data for assessing ecosystems. The White House said the new effort would not require additional federal spending. "This is such an infinitesimally small follow to such an ambitious 10-year endeavor," said Marty Spitzer, a senior fellow with the Heinz Center. On Tuesday, the center issued a report concluding that virtually all streams in the U.S. contain one or more contaminants.