The International Paper plant in Ticonderoga, NY wants to burn some tires. Naturally, the folks across Lake Champlain in Vermont aren't too thrilled, but NY Sen. Hillary Clinton thought polluting the Green Mountain State's air was a nifty idea.
IP wants to conduct a two-week test burn at the plant, and Clinton weighed in on the company's behalf, saying the plant was the source of hundreds of jobs, notes The Rutland Herald.
Vermont Gov. James Douglas has opposed the test burn because data suggest pollution from burning tires would contain harmful levels of zinc and mercury, which would waft on westerly breezes across Lake Champlain to [western Vermont's] Addison County and beyond.
While tire burning is done at other places, IP insists on proceeding with its test burn without installing the kind of technology that has made burning tires acceptable at other sites. It is arguable that the residents of Shoreham won't be seriously injured by two weeks of zinc from the plant. But why not demand adequate technology before giving IP the idea that burning tires might be OK?, editorializes The Herald.
If they are doing a test burn, it can only be because they have designs on something more permanent.
This flap provides the chance for two politicians to advance their political aspirations, with jobs and the environment being the fig leafs.
Democrat Clinton is still under the delusion that she could be elected president in 2008. This is an opportunity for her to pick a fight with environmentalists and side with polluters to demostrate that she's not the raving liberal that most of the country assumes she is (given her record as senator, most New Yorkers know better).
She says she supports IP's tire burn because it's a big employer. The implication is that jobs would be lost if the burn had been blocked. That is what she wants you to infer but she never comes out and says it, let alone specifys how many jobs would be lost. Was she happy to let people draw the wrong conclusion?
Republican Douglas has a different motivation. It is widely expected that he will run for the US Senate in 2006 to fill the seat to be vacated by James Jeffords. Douglas knows that basic respect for the environment is something important to Vermont culture and this is a chance for him to present himself as the defender of clean air.
There is a bitter irony in all this. Ticonderoga is located in New York's Adirondack Mountains. Dozens of Adirondack lakes are now dead, no living creatures can be found in them, as a result of acid rain. Acid rain caused by pollutants from factories in other states, notably the midwest, much to the ire of New York state leaders and Adirondack residents.
Now, with the esteemed Sen. Clinton's complicity, New York is set to perpetrate the very same wrong on Vermonters.
1 comment:
To the governor's credit, he is walking the walk on this. Vermont is cracking down on a lot of different sources of mercury and I hope that IP can be persuaded that this is a very bad idea.
That said, the last I heard was that Douglas had announced that he was seeking re-election to the governor's office. He might want good environmental credentials but I don't think he is ever going to out green Bernie if he does go head to head with him.
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