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How Bush Administration Policies Harm Oregon Communities See Oregon events. Once used to produce the plutonium needed for the Atomic bomb in World War II, the Hanford Reservation is now highly contaminated and listed as a top priority in the Superfund cleanup program. Oregon is rich and abundant with forests, farmland, waters, and wildlife. Regardless of the season or region, we Oregonians enjoy a special relationship with the outdoors. We know that protecting our natural inheritance and beauty makes Oregon's economy stronger and our families healthier. From the Portland Harbor to the Klamath Basin, the natural resources that first drew pioneers to the Oregon frontier have always been important to our residents and economy. Today, however, our state's treasured environment has been put at risk. Bush administration policies that weaken and ignore federal environmental safeguards are already harming our communities' health and our natural heritage. The Bush administration is allowing electric companies, chemical companies, coal companies, and other industries to rewrite and weaken the laws and regulations that protect the health and safety of Oregon's families. The Bush administration is allowing corporations to benefit at our expense, giving electric companies incentive to build more outdated, polluting coal-fired power plants instead of encouraging cleaner, more innovative renewable power generation facilities. The administration has shifted the cost of cleaning up Oregon's eleven Superfund toxic waste sites from polluters to taxpayers. It has cut funding for cleanup, weakened cleanup standards for nuclear waste sites, and encouraged the country's dependence on nuclear power generation. And this administration has put our nation's forests at risk of increased logging and fire damage. The Bush administration's undermining of our nation's most basic environmental protections leaves the people of Oregon exposed and vulnerable to increased amounts of cancer-causing dioxin, and other contaminants. Encouraging the creation of more coal-fired power plants rather than clean, renewable sources such as wind energy puts our citizens – especially children and the elderly – at risk. This report documents the consequences of Bush administration actions-and lack of actions-on the health and safety of families in communities across Oregon. This report also serves to remind us what we have learned over the last thirty years-that there is a better way to protect the people of Oregon; that we have the know-how and a successful track record cleaning up the pollution in our air and water and the poisons in our soil. But know-how is clearly not enough when the Bush administration is determined to let corporations off the hook and de-fund the agencies responsible for enforcing environmental laws. Only public pressure on lawmakers will ensure that the last three decades of progress are not lost and that we instead continue to keep our communities safe, protecting our children's legacy of clean air, water, and still-wild lands. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club