TGIF -- it must be time for Bush policy changes How the White House uses Stealth tactics (on Fridays) in U.S.
By JOEL CONNELLY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/152120_joel12.html
The Bush I administration perfected Stealth military technology and deployed it to devastating effect as U.S. planes, invisible to Saddam Hussein's radar, began Gulf War I by destroying Iraqi infrastructure.
Bush II has taken a giant leap further. It has extended the reach of Stealth tactics into American domestic policy, delivering lethal blows to environmental and health regulations while presenting only the tiniest of targets.
The administration's new, political Stealth can be recognized by the familiar set of initials TGIF: Thank God It's Friday.
The end of the workweek has come to be the time to announce far-reaching regulatory changes.
"They do it on Friday afternoon because they know that is when it will get buried in the news cycle, when it will get the least attention," Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., explained earlier this year.
The latest Friday fix came just a week ago. Interior Secretary Gale Norton relaxed Clinton-era rules designed to halt overgrazing by ranchers who pay a pittance to run their livestock on federal land.
In baseball lingo, Bush II has hit for the cycle on Fridays this fall, weakening protections on four different fronts.
On Friday, Oct. 31, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture let out a precedent-setting decision. The feds will trust testing for water pollution from atrazine -- one of America's most applied weed killers -- to the chemical's manufacturer.
Two weeks earlier, on Friday, Oct. 17, the EPA announced that it would not be regulating dioxins in sewage sludge used in farm fertilizer, on grounds there are no health or environmental risks.
The home run of Friday decisions was on Friday, Oct. 10, start of the Columbus Day weekend.
The Interior Department overturned a policy that had strictly limited the amount of public land that can be used for dumping mining waste, which is the largest volume of toxic material unleashed annually in the United States. The limitation had blocked a large open-pit mine in Okanogan County.
An environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, has tracked more than 100 environmental rollbacks implemented under Bush II: 58 have been disclosed on Fridays, just before holidays or during holiday weekends.
"It's not just the Friday timing," said Rob Perks of NRDC. "Decisions are announced by low-level officials. They are released in the late afternoon. On the grazing decision, we called up the agency and it would give us no information. Details were made available on Monday, when everyone had moved on."
With such tactics, TGIF-Stealth technology puts a "spin" on stories, keeps flak to a minimum and discourages pursuit of stories.
For instance, the lineup for weekend capital talk shows is usually set by early afternoon on Friday. The usual array of talking heads has been apportioned among the networks. And network TV isn't that interested in public health and the environment to begin with. Washington, D.C., talks about and to itself.
The Feast of the Nativity and coming of the New Year were, in 2002, occasions for additional demonstration of political Stealth technology by Bush II.
On Christmas Eve, the administration changed rules to make it easier for state, county and local governments to gain control of long-abandoned mining roads on federal land -- a change that could bring dirt bikes into backcountry of Grand Canyon, Denali, Death Valley and North Cascades national parks.
New Year's Eve was occasion for Bush II to announce that a fishing practice (favored by Mexican fishermen) that entails encircling dolphins with nets would have no significant adverse impact on dolphin populations in the Pacific Ocean.
Only a single national journalist -- Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory -- caught the administration's fishy decision.
TGIF-Stealth technology is useful even when it comes to suppressing good news -- in cases where upbeat findings are at odds with the administration's agenda.
Friday, Sept. 26, saw the (very) quiet release of a new Office of Management and Budget study. It found that environmental rules are well worth the costs they impose on industry and consumers, resulting in major public health benefits and other improvements.
Major strikes against pollution and health regulations can require more than one Friday and/or holiday.
On Friday, Aug. 22, the Bush administration made final its decision to let America's most polluting coal-fired power plants and refineries upgrade facilities without installing state-of-the-art air quality controls.
Original announcement of the plan came from an underling just before Thanksgiving of last year. New rules formally easing requirements on polluters were issued on New Year's Eve.
Bush II picked Friday, Jan. 10, to propose guidelines "redefining" what constitutes a wetland entitled to preservation under the Clean Water Act. The guidelines could result in loss of federal protection for as many as 20 million acres of swamps and bogs across America. A final announcement is expected this Christmas season.
The list goes on: The Interior Department picked Friday, April 11, to announce "settlement" of a lawsuit with the state of Utah.
Under the accord, Bush II removed millions of acres of Bureau of Land Management property -- most in the Inland West and Alaska -- from being evaluated for protection as wilderness. The settlement opened the door to expanded oil and gas leasing in canyonlands of the Southwest.
It's all very skillful -- and cynical.
In the 1980s, loudmouth Interior Secretary James Watt -- "I don't like to paddle and I don't like to walk" -- taught the drillers, diggers and polluters that the public can get mad.
"Americans want clean air and clean water," said Perks. "You can't have a full frontal assault on environmental protection. Soccer moms like to go to parks. NASCAR dads like to hunt and fish and hike. If you want to weaken protection, you've got to go below the radar screen."
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly at seattlepi.com