Clearing the Air on Christie

Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and ex-EPA head, was at Champlain College yesterday, to promote the Rainville candidacy.

Welch campaign spokesman Andrew Savage said Monday, "Sending another Republican to Washington will only further enable the leadership and committee chairs that have launched a frontal assault on basic environmental protections."

Savage questioned Whitman's and Rainville's environmental commitment and their ability to stand up to the Bush administration. Citing Rainville's opposition to a pending wilderness bill, her support for nuclear power and comments she made questioning whether global warming is entirely a manmade problem, Savage said, "Martha Rainville's positions are in line with the current Republican leadership."

"Whitman was head of the EPA while the administration blatantly edited reports to deny global warming," Savage said. "She's certainly not a leading environmentalist."

FreyneLand covers the Whitman visit, too, and adds the email text he received from VIRPG exec director, Paul Burns, commenting on the Whitman record at EPA:

Inviting Christine Todd Whitman to bolster her (General Rainville’s) environmental credentials is like asking the Keystone Cops to endorse her stand on tough law enforcement.

The current Bush administration has been more antagonistic toward public health and environmental programs than any other in recent American history. President Bush’s shameful record on the environment includes rejection of modest steps to address climate change, more logging and motorized vehicles in our national forests, support for oil drilling in pristine wildlife preserves, weakened air pollution standards for aging industrial plants, increased secrecy concerning industrial toxic emissions, and initial support to allow more arsenic in drinking water.

As Administrator of the EPA, Ms. Whitman presided over one rollback after another of landmark programs designed to reduce pollution, protect public health, and preserve our precious natural heritage.

As a willing participant in the Bush administration’s army of environmental destruction, Ms. Whitman lacks credibility as a serious environmental leader.

Neither the BFP story nor Freyne's account mentions the lawsuit against the EPA brought by Jena Orkin and others claiming that her constitutional right to be protected from harm by government officials was violated when "Christine Todd Whitman, then the EPA administrator, and her staff made false statements [it's been caught on tape ] and failed to carry out its cleanup duties."

Within days of the World Trade Center collapse, someone ordered Environmental Protection Agency administrators to tell New Yorkers the air was safe. ... No matter that private tests showed the air remained full of lead, asbestos, mercury, benzene. No matter that, according to documents forced out of the EPA by a Freedom of Information request, the agency's own tests agreed that the air in Lower Manhattan--who wanted to bother with Brooklyn?--wasn't fit to breathe.