Posted on 05/22/2005 6:30:40 AM PDT by QwertyKPH
WILKES-BARRE -- In a commencement speech Saturday to the graduating class of Wilkes University, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to link environmental threats to threats to democracy.
In the speech before a crowd of approximately 3,500, the architect of the New York City Watershed Agreement, environmental lawyer and environmental author, spoke critically of the Bush administration. Kennedy said the administration promoted 400 major environmental rollbacks during its last term to deliberately “eviscerate” 30 years of environmental law.
The Bush administration’s policies allow coal burning power plants to continue to burn coal, which causes increased instances of asthma and high levels of toxic mercury in freshwater sources, said Kennedy, adding that mercury contamination can cause autism, blindness and mental retardation.
Meanwhile, he said, many of the heads of environmental agencies in the Bush administration are run by representatives or former representatives of the industries that pollute the worst.
“The head of public lands is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional,” said Kennedy, who initially struggled to speak through what he called a touch of laryngitis.
“It is the polluters who are running the agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution.”
Kennedy, who was given the honorary degree Doctor of Laws at the ceremony, also blamed problems in the environment on what he called an indolent, negligent press that doesn’t properly cover issues and the current administration.
At the end of his speech, Kennedy, who said he hoped to be heard in a nonpartisan light, earned a partial standing ovation; nearly all of the graduates stood, but many in the audience remained seated.
Verbal responses to the speech were similarly mixed.
“I thought (the speech) was a completely inappropriate anti-Bush diatribe. It had nothing to do with sending these graduates on their way,” said Paul Gallagher, a businessperson from Dallas who was watching his wife graduate with a master’s in special education.
A Bear Creek resident saw the speech a different way.
“He looked at everything going on with the asthma. A lot of my family members have it. It’s a good issue,” said Sherry Weitz, a printer. Her father, brother and sister suffer from the debilitating lung affliction, she said.
My bet is he will announce plans to run for an office (Rep aor Senate) for 2006. Whst's his home state? Mass? NY?
This is where Gov. Arnold gets his enviro policy.
Bingo. It's a disaster.
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