The Environmental Protection Agency spent hundreds of millions of dollars to spread lies about secondhand smoke. Now it's spending untold millions on propaganda about "global warming." The EPA calls this educational outreach. It smells like lobbying.
"The extreme and erratic weather we're seeing in America and around the world is being intensified by global warming," President Clinton said. "Folks, I'm telling you, this climate-change, global-warming issue is real." Maybe. Maybe not. Many of the world's leading scientists don't think so. Nor does the U.S. Senate, which has no plans to approve the anti-warming treaty OK'd by the Clinton administration in December in Kyoto, Japan.
But that's not stopping the administration. It's committed to spending your money to persuade you to tell your senator to get on the global-warming bandwagon.
At least five federal agencies are sponsoring some 20 pro-Kyoto workshops nationwide. They are: the EPA, the Agriculture Department, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Geological Survey.
The EPA has a fancy Web site that calls on states to get involved - to "encourage and support the federal government to take action at the national level."
The EPA also runs its own Climate Information and Outreach Team. When asked by IBD how much all this costs, the team's Julie Spyres said she could provide those figures only upon receipt of a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The FOIA law gives agencies broad discretion on responding to requests. But a common feature of most FOIA actions is that they take a great deal of time.
The EPA apparently doesn't like to answer basic questions. At a "workshop" at the University of Texas, Carol Jones, a director of the Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, ran into the Clinton propaganda machine.
Moderator Carlos Rincon said: "We must ratify the Kyoto protocol. That will be our mission through March -to give as much information and support to congressmen that they will need to ratify the treaty."
Later, when Jones challenged the science behind global warming, she was told at the workshop by one speaker, Adel Sarofim, to "sit quietly" or leave.
There are other examples. A brochure distributed at an EPA-sponsored conference in Baltimore demanded that the U.S. "now begin designing policies and programs" to cut carbon emissions in accordance with the Kyoto party line.
Another EPA "education" show took place in Atlanta. Its literature reads as if lifted from the Apocalypse: It warns of heat waves, storms, droughts, migration and crowding, disease-carrying animals and infective parasites. Of course, these visions of doom are all designed to scare people into pressing Congress to take away their freedom with more rules and laws.
The House recently voted the EPA its money for next year. Thanks to Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich., the bill forbids the agency from lobbying for Kyoto.
The EPA may discuss global warming and hold informational seminars on the topic. It may not lobby. Programs must be balanced.
In response, Clinton said: "The American people expect and deserve a fair, honest and informed debate on the issue of climate change" and Congress should not "attempt to deny the American people the facts about global warming."
Now, if only Clinton would follow his own words and present a full and fair discussion of the global-warming issue. But as with most issues, Clinton is saying one thing and doing another.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.
Copyright © 1998 Steven J. Milloy. All rights reserved on original material. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair use." Site developed and hosted by WestLake Solutions, Inc.
Material presented on this home page constitutes opinion of Steven J. Milloy.