The Republican Party's SECRET War
Against the Environment
1995 to 2000
Introduction
Fellow Citizens:
Since 1995, when the Republican Party assumed control of both Houses of Congress, the Congressional Republicans have waged an intensive
SECRET War against the Environment.Beginning in 1995, the trick of the large ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL bloc in the Republican Party and much smaller bloc in the Democratic Party has been to load up MUST PASS legislation and POPULAR legislation with anti-environmental laws, riders to laws, and amendments to laws. This makes it difficult and possibly politically dangerous to vote against the overall legislation. In other cases, the ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL forces would use their built-in majorities in the House and Senate to fight off Democratic attempts to remove the specific language of the anti-environment measures from the legislation before it is approved by a majority vote.
The Republican War Against the Environment is a
SECRET War because the Republican Owned and Managed Mainstream Media, the ROMMM, does not wish the American people to know of the War or of any of its details. Consequently, the Mainstream Media has deliberately CENSORED the news on Environmental votes in Congress in ALMOST ALL of the newspapers across the country. This is, of course except when pro-environmentalists voted against MUST PASS or POPULAR legislation and the people back home needed to be informed of these terrible transgressions. All of the other material on environmental votes was CENSORED to conceal the extent of this irresponsible legislation and its impact on the environment. For in this way, the American people could not hold the Representatives and the Senators in the ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL forces in the Congress ACCOUNTABLE for their actions.In short, the very protections of the Constitution intended to inform the people and to perpetuate representative government, the Freedom of the Press, has been turned into a weapon against the people and representative government.
Because of this CENSORSHIP, it has been extremely difficult to research the Congressional votes on the Environment since the beginning of the Republican Contract on America.
Some information on 1998, the "Fourth Year of the War," and 1999, the "Fifth Year of the War," - is available from the National Defense Resources Council (NRDC) and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). I therefore began the study with 1998, and have continued on into 1999 and the initial months of the year 2000.
Studies of the years 1995, 1996, and 1997 will be published on this web site as they are completed.
The overall structure of the study is:
1. This introduction
2. 1995 (in preparation)
3. 1996 (in preparation)
4. 1997 (in preparation)
5. 1998 - 6 parts
6. 1999 - 17 parts
7. 2000 - 14 parts
8. Composition of Pro-Environment and Anti-Environment Blocs
9. Spreadsheets showing the compilation of the votes.