The Moderate Republican

By Gannett News Service

Tuesday 23 March 2004

Talking points rile moderates as party looks to fight with
Democrats

WASHINGTON -- Republican House leaders are warning their members

that "Democrats will hit us hard on the environment" this election
year.

Their advice? Tell voters that global warming has not been proved,

that there are no clear links between air pollution and childhood

asthma and that America's rivers and lakes aren't nearly as
polluted as

the Environmental Protection Agency says they are.

Moderate Republicans fear the "talking points" in a memo from the

House Republican Conference could make their party appear

indifferent to the health threats of smoggy skies or

mercury-contaminated fish. And that could hurt them in tight races
where

they must appeal to middle-of-the-road voters.

Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican Party in 2001 to

become an independent partly because he didn't think the GOP

was pro-environment, called the memo "outlandish" and an attempt to

deceive voters. He said he hopes moderate Republicans will

help thwart the conservatives strategy.

Republican House leaders recently sent the memo to GOP press

secretaries to use to beat back accusations from Democrats and

conservation groups that Republicans are anti-environment. The memo

charges Democrats with trying to hype pollution problems to

frighten voters into supporting them.

Among the memo's assertions: "Global warming is not a fact,"
"links

between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy" and

the EPA is exaggerating when it says at least 40 percent of U.S.

streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or

swimming.

"Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming

Doomsday! when the environment is actually seeing a new and

better day," says the Feb. 4 memo put out by the communications office

of the House Republican Conference.

Every GOP House member belongs to the conference, which is led by

Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Majority Leader Tom DeLay

of Texas, Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and conference chairwoman Deborah

Pryce of Ohio.

But the leaders' message is meeting resistance from Republican

centrists, who dispute key details and don't like its tone.

Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who won high marks from the League of

Conservation Voters for his pro-environment votes, says the

strategy is too negative and defensive and doesn’t address the fact
that

pollution continues to be a health threat.

"If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting

with my constituents, I'd be booed," said Castle, who heads a group
of

69 moderate House members, senators and governors.

The communications director for the Republican House Conference
said

lawmakers don't have to use the talking points.

"It's up to our members if they want to use them or not," said
Greg

Crist. "We're not stuffing it down their throats."

He said the memo was spurred by concerns that environmental groups

were using myths about the poor state of the environment to

try to make Republicans look bad.

"We wanted to show how the environment has been improving," Crist

said. "We wanted to provide the other side of the story."

But Jeffords -- the ranking member on the Senate Environment and

Public Works Committee -- said the memo distorts reality.

"It's so incredible that they have this denial of any
responsibility

for the serious situation we have in this country as far as the

environment goes," Jeffords said. "They have a head-in-the-sand
approach

to it. They're just sloughing off the human health impacts --

the premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power plant

pollution."

The Vermont senator said he believes moderate Republicans -- such
as

Castle in the House and Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine

and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- won't go along with the plan.

Jeffords and Snowe recently introduced legislation to increase

funding to fight water pollution.

"We have hopes that there are enough people in Congress who care

more about the people hurt by pollution than about the money

polluters give to political campaigns," Jeffords said.

The memo's statement that the link between air pollution and

childhood asthma is cloudy is what really upset one leader of a group