Campaign for America's Wilderness · Defenders of Wildlife · Earthjustice Environmental Integrity Project · Friends of the Earth · League of Conservation Voters Mineral Policy Center · National Audubon Society · National Environmental Trust Natural Resources Defense Council · Physicians for Social Responsibility Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility · Refinery Reform Campaign Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance · 20/20 Vision · U.S. Public Interest Research Group

September 9, 2003

Dear Senator:

The Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with protecting the environment and public health of the nation, making it one of the most important jobs in the federal government. The American public deserves an EPA Administrator who is committed to upholding and enforcing our nation’s critically important public health and environmental protection laws.

The nomination of Utah Governor Michael Leavitt to head EPA therefore deserves the most careful scrutiny. This is especially true in light of the destructive and highly controversial environmental policies of the Bush administration over the past two and a half years, which have dramatically weakened vitally important EPA programs to protect our air, reduce water pollution, protect wetlands, and promote clean-up of hazardous waste sites.

The environmental community is currently reviewing Governor Leavitt's record. The information we have identified to date leaves us with serious concerns, both because of this nominee’s record on environmental issues in Utah and because the major problems with Governor Leavitt’s record amplify many of the most objectionable aspects of Bush administration environmental policies. As explained below, our most serious concerns lie in five basic areas.

Manipulating Science– Governor Leavitt has a history of ignoring science that does not support his political policy positions - and retaliating against government employees who have offered opinions or taken positions the governor did not like.

According to a 1996 article in the High Country News, Governor Leavitt fired a Division of Wildlife Resources enforcement official who had fined a Leavitt family fish farm for violations that brought the devastating whirling disease to Utah’s wild fish stocks. The same article notes that Governor Leavitt reassigned or demoted dozens of non-game wildlife scientists after they recommended needed protections for endangered species in Utah.

Unfortunately, Governor Leavitt’s record reveals little to assure the public that, as EPA Administrator, he would change the Bush administration’s pattern of manipulating science to serve political and policy ends. This pattern extends to separate efforts to censor scientific reports on global warming, mercury and dioxin pollution, to schemes to hide analysis of pollution legislation, to the White House’s manipulation of health data following the World Trade Center disaster.

Lax Enforcement – Governor Leavitt's very poor environmental enforcement record in Utah is also a major liability.

• In a recent EPA report on Clean Water Act enforcement, Utah tied for last place with Ohio and Tennessee.

• Governor Leavitt's Department of Environmental Quality failed to press US Magnesium (formerly MagCorp), a magnesium ore facility listed by EPA as one of the nation's worst polluters, to reduce its pollution and end illegal dumping practices despite intense local pressure from citizen groups. US Magnesium only started to clean up its act after EPA stepped in with a series of federal enforcement actions against the company.

• In a 1999 Deseret News article, Governor Leavitt downplayed toxic releases reported by the mining industry – including releases of the neurotoxin mercury – by saying "in reality it is not pollution." Leavitt also sponsored policy resolutions of the Western Governors’ Association in 2000 and 2002 to oppose environmental regulation of the mining industry and to limit public access to information about the mining industry’s toxic pollution, respectively.

Similarly, a major concern with the Bush administration’s environmental record is the dramatic decline in enforcement of the nation’s clean water, clean air and hazardous waste laws. Governor Leavitt’s record suggests that this pattern will not change if he is the next EPA Administrator.

Poor Environmental Performance – Governor Leavitt has built a record on the environment that, as measured in EPA’s own annual reports on air quality, water quality and toxic releases, places his state far behind the pack in environmental performance.

• According to the 2001 EPA Toxic Release Inventory, Utah has the second highest volume of toxic chemical releases in the nation.

• Between 1995 and 2002, Utah's power plants increased their emissions of nitrogen oxide – a pollutant linked to respiratory disease – while the rest of the country decreased such emissions by 21.8% on average during the same period.

• While Utah has made progress in attaining the one-hour ozone standard, nearly half of the state’s population live in a county that has not met clean air health based standards for one or more pollutant, compared to an average of 36.6% nationwide.

• Governor Leavitt has touted the state of Utah’s water quality, but the vast majority of waters in the state have not been monitored, according to EPA’s most recent state water quality report. In fact, under Governor Leavitt, water quality monitoring in Utah is well behind – by about a third – the national average for the percentage of streams and rivers tested for water quality.

• Governor Leavitt staunchly supported construction of the highly controversial Legacy Highway project that threatens world-renowned wetlands along the Great Salt Lake. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the project because the Environmental Impact Statement failed to look at less environmentally harmful alternatives and ignored obvious impacts on Utah’s wildlife and environment.

Similarly, under the Bush administration, national environmental performance has declined dramatically with major relaxations in control requirements for air and water pollution, a reduction in the pace of Superfund site clean-ups, reduced wetlands protection, an effort to undermine protection of the stratospheric ozone layer and a policy of denial on global warming.

Eliminating Protections for Public Lands – Governor Leavitt’s track record on public lands demonstrates disregard for our nation’s precious and limited natural resources. Many EPA programs are important to the protection of public lands, and Governor Leavitt’s record is troubling in this regard.

In April of this year, Governor Leavitt struck a back room deal with the Bush administration to open six million acres of public lands in Utah that were eligible for designation as wilderness areas to oil and gas well drilling, mining and damaging off-road vehicle use. Governor Leavitt’s deal reached far beyond his state’s borders, stripping protections that could have been applied to tens of millions of acres of public lands around the nation.

Also in April, Governor Leavitt consummated another deal in secret that could allow Utah to bulldoze highways over tens of thousands of miles of paths and trails through national monuments and proposed wilderness areas. 

Secret Negotiations to Undermine Environmental Protection – Governor Leavitt has a record of making crucially important environmental policy decisions without regard for open processes and public involvement. The sweetheart deal to open public lands across the country to development was done completely behind closed doors. Such policy decisions should be made publicly, but Governor Leavitt chose to use the cloak of litigation and a settlement deal to keep the public in the dark.

Similarly, Governor Leavitt refused to involve the public in negotiations attempting to turn cow paths and hiking trails into highways, despite repeated requests from Utahns and others to open the process. He has withheld all information on these negotiations, even in the face of lawsuits. As Leavitt’s fellow Republican Governor and neighbor, Colorado’s Governor Bill Owens has stated, the deal "was accomplished in secret, closed-door meetings with no public process whatsoever."

One of the most disturbing aspects of Bush administration environmental policy-making is the repeated pattern of backroom dealing or other means to weaken environmental protection without transparency or opportunity for public comment or participation. A range of important environmental reversals have followed this stealth approach, including major retreats on wetlands protection, forest protection, and protection of wild lands and National Parks. Another example is the highly secretive deliberations of the Vice President’s energy task force, which called for a number of important environmental retreats that were carried out in the months and years that followed.

The job for which Governor Leavitt has been nominated has far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on the nation’s environment and public health. We believe that the U.S. Senate has a responsibility to call on the Bush administration to abandon its stridently anti-environmental, anti-public health agenda and to call for a new EPA Administrator who is committed to upholding and enforcing the letter and purpose of the nation’s environmental laws and programs. We respectfully urge you to insist upon such a nominee.

Thank you for your consideration of our views.

Sincerely,