It's official. Nader has dropped to 4% in the three last polls I've seen.
So, we're back to Kerry vs Bush, at least for now.
Environmental Policy ... environmental policy.
Kerry- Addressing the environmental needs of our communities will improve the economic vitality and quality of life of the places where we live and work. Reinvigorate the Superfund cleanup program, improve our National Parks, and take on traffic congestion and sprawl. As part of this commitment, Kerry will create a Toxics Task Force at the EPA that will identify the top toxics threats to our citizens and develop an action plan to address them.
Create Environmental Empowerment Zones to ensure that environmental justice is considered in decisions that affect local communities and to empower communities from the ground up for positive change. By empowering local officials and citizen leaders, Environmental Empowerment Zones will overcome economic, civic and cultural barriers and help ensure that no community will be forced to live with a dirty and unhealthy environment. These zones will be designated areas where the federal government will make sure its resources are backing up the fight for environmental justice and where communities will get help to build a better environment for themselves from the ground up.
National health tracking system for chronic diseases and environmental health hazards. The proposal calls for tracking asthma and other debilitating illnesses linked to environmental causes that are not now monitored in any comprehensive manner. It would place an environmental health officer in each state and coordinate pollution and disease data nationally.
Reinvigorate action on environmental justice at the federal level. THere will be a new Assistant Administrator position for Environmental Justice at the EPA and a reinstatement of the Office of Environmental Justice. Today, this office is under-staffed, under-funded, and undermined on a daily basis. Kerry will bring life back to this office so that it can serve as a resource and advocate for community activists all over America.
John Kerry will also build on President Clinton's 1994 Executive Order to include environmental justice in laws, regulations and policies. President Clinton required all federal agencies to address environmental injustice, past, present and future and required federal agencies to develop strategies to bring justice to Americans who are suffering disproportionately from environmental impacts. As President, John Kerry will enforce this order and ensure that low-income communities and communities of color have access to information about their environment and that have an opportunity to participate in shaping government policies that affect their health and their environment.
"Conservation Covenant" with the American people to tread lightly on the public lands and protect and restore our nation's parks and other treasures for the benefit of future generations. John Kerry will implement the Endangered Species Act in a cooperative manner that extends the benefits of wildlife and habitat protection to public and private lands. He will put new teeth into requirements that private companies who lease public lands return the land to its original state. The Covenant will reinvest royalties obtained from extracting resources from public lands back into protecting our lands, and require that before remote public lands are opened up to new resource development, the federal government evaluate the long term economic and environmental costs associated with such actions.
Reverse the Bush-Cheney rollbacks of our nation's Clean Air laws, plug loopholes in the laws, and vigorously enforce them. Adopt an aggressive program to meet ozone and air quality standards, stop acid rain, and reduce mercury emissions. His plan also includes addressing global warming emissions through a combination of innovative programs that will drive technology change and create jobs (see yesterday's diary on energy).
Lead "Restoring America's Waters" Campaign to clean up our nation's waters, protect communities' fresh water supplies, and help communities reclaim their riverfronts and lake-fronts as new centers of economic growth.
Reengage in the development of an international climate change strategy to address global warming, and identify workable responses that provide opportunities for American technology and know-how.
John Kerry recognizes that local communities are struggling with how to address issues of traffic congestion and sprawl. A Kerry Administration will work with states and communities to ensure they have the tools and resources they need to tackle these difficult problems. Kerry will ensure that we have "Clean and Green Communities" throughout America by coordinating federal transportation policies, federal housing incentives, federal employment opportunities and the use of federal dollars to acquire parks and open space.
Bush -
Continue and expand the policies of the last three years.
Begin a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative for vehicles. The hydrogen fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies. This will also require the automakers to do some of the work on their own, something Kerry's hydrogen fuel ECONOMY plan will not need. See yesterday's diary.
The hydrogen fuel initiative supplements the President's existing FreedomCAR initiative, which is developing technologies needed for mass production of safe and affordable hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. Through partnerships with the private sector, the hydrogen fuel initiative and FreedomCAR will make it practical and affordable for Americans to choose to use clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020. This will dramatically improve America's energy security by significantly reducing the need for imported oil, as well as help clean our air and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Continue voluntary emissions standards for corporations. In 10 years, they would suddenly be mandatory.
Voluntary standards save Americans as much as $1 billion annually in compliance costs that are passed along to American consumers, while improving air quality and protecting the reliability and affordability of electricity for consumers. Of course, that depends on whether your electric bill went down over the last few years. I get my power from a green cooperative, so I have no idea whether polluters are passing on the savings to you.
Eliminate pollution litigation. Yes, that's correct.
COntinue to cut down national forests.
Continue to make Brownfields a local responsibility, not a corporate one.
He will double funding next year to help localities a little. However, he will cut the list of sites eligible for aid in half.
Expand the ECP program, which provides financial assistance to our farmers and ranchers to encourage sound conservation. The farm bill will provide over $40 billion over the next decade in funds for conservation programs that will restore millions of acres of wetlands, conserve water, and improve streams and rivers.
Get oil companies to reduce sulfur in fuel. This is actually being enforced. Cars won't have to improve sulfur emissions, but everything else will.
The President's non-road diesel regulation has been widely praised by environmental groups, with some hailing it as providing potentially the greatest health benefits since lead was removed from gasoline some 20 years ago.
Encourage scientists to invent our way out of climate change. Reduce CO2 emissions by 18% by 2014, rather than 25% by 2010.
$1.75 billion in climate change science research to address critical gaps of understanding our global climate system (mainly to disprove everyone else's theories) and over $500 million in tax incentives to improve energy efficiency and promote renewable energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including tax breaks for SUVs, I kid you not).
I think he believes that it counts when he SUBSIDIZES climate change.
Sink oil rigs to create coral reefs, plant new kelp forests, and clean up the beaches.
Restore funding of EPA to near Clinton levels.