Congress is in session, busy with the budget process. This is their opportunity to make a choice between investments in clean air, water and land OR handouts to corporate polluters. This is their chance to define our nation's priorities, and the question is: will the environment be one of them?

Unfortunately, Congress is already moving rapidly towards weakening environmental protections on behalf of special interests! They are slashing resources for enforcing pollution laws, promoting clean energy, and saving our parks and public lands! The Bush Administration would like to:

• cut spending on environmental priorities by billions of dollars over the next five years;
• reduce enforcement of environmental safeguards and clean-ups;
• Cut, by more than half, the number of toxic dumps that get cleaned up each year;
  
  "The Bush Administration has decided to designate fewer [superfund] sites
  for restoration and to shift the bulk of the cost from industry to taxpayers,"
  N.Y. Times Feb, 24, 2002

• decrease investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources while calling for the exploitation of fragile places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and
• break past promises to protect open spaces from sprawl and other threats and to adequately maintain parks for future generations, thereby endangering our nation's land and wildlife habitat.
  
  "If we don't take care of the maintenance backlog... the system
  will have deteriorated to the point that we won't ever be able to catch up,"
  Donald Murphy, Deputy Director, National Parks Service. The Washington Post April 14, 2002.