"Fact of the Day" from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee:
Teresa Heinz Kerry??¢â???¬â???¢s sizable financial contributions to liberal environmental groups are turning into negative campaign attacks by these very groups in battleground states just days before the election. From her position as a board member on several charitable trusts, she is responsible for having directly or indirectly distributed more than $10 million dollars to League of Conservation Voters (LCV), National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) and several other liberal environmental groups. The LCV is running $3 million of attack ads in Florida and the NWF just published an attack ??¢â???¬?????report??¢â???¬ on some battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania critical of President Bush??¢â???¬â???¢s record on mercury.
FACT: The Miami Herald, in reviewing the $3 million dollar League of Conservation Voters television commercial in Florida, describes the ad using words like ??¢â???¬?????misleading,??¢â???¬ ??¢â???¬?????the ad falsely implies,??¢â???¬ and ??¢â???¬?????overstated.??¢â???¬ Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Foundation is contributing to the Heinz-Kerry Foundation attack campaign by releasing a misleading report. The attack "report" makes the specious claim that power plants in several battleground states can achieve 90 percent cuts in mercury emissions for pennies a day despite that fact that there is no proof that current technology consistently achieves anything near that - no matter what the cost. That is according to the best engineers in the business. The fact is that President Bush??¢â???¬â???¢s plan to reduce mercury and other power plant emissions by 70 percent is reasonable, aggressive, and the largest emission reduction plan ever proposed by and American president.
It??¢â???¬â???¢s too bad that the LCV is using this $3 million dollars on misleading attacks ads. If they really cared about the environment in the State of Florida why not use it to plant 7 million Ponderosa pine seedlings, or restore and protect 3,000 acres of wetlands, or even retire nearly 14,000 tons of S02 credits? We know their real agenda is about partisan Democrat politics - not the environment. Hopefully the American people can see that as well.
