Egregious Inhofe

The Senator from Oklahoma is apparently unimpressed by the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators/Association of Local Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA/ALAPCO):

The Republican head of the Senate's environment committee directed two national organizations to turn over their financial records after they criticized President Bush's plan for cutting air pollution.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., also requested membership lists and tax returns in a letter to the groups' representative who told a Senate subcommittee last month that Bush's Clear Skies Initiative was too lenient and undermined state efforts to regulate emissions.

The organizations said the action was meant to intimidate opponents. The request appeared to be "some sort of retaliation against some very legitimate criticism of (Bush's) Clear Skies proposal," said William Becker, executive director of (STAPPA/ALAPCO). The two groups represent the views of state and local regulators before the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress.

Andrew Wheeler, majority staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, defended the request. He said the panel had an oversight responsibility and wanted to determine if the organizations got funding from environmentalists and other outside interests.

"It has nothing to do with Clear Skies," Wheeler said. "If we wanted to intimidate them, we would have done it before they testified, not after." Becker said neither association receives money from private interests. "We have a limited constituency - the 50 states and local agencies," he said. "These are the only ones for whom we can work."

Inhofe must have a very primitive idea of who the various interested parties are in air pollution work. STAPPA/ALAPCO is in an in-between place, neither with the utilities (the good guys), or with the environmentalists (the bad guys), similar to how, with medical care, doctors are in an in-between place, neither with the drug companies (the good guys) or with the patients (the bad guys). Imagine, air pollution program administrators have two - TWO! - similar-sounding programs, working together. Are they good guys, or are they bad guys? Who can tell? Must be an enviro/communist plot of some sort! Demand to see their records (notice nobody else gets asked!)

What an ass Inhofe must be!