Greenwashed: Jim Douglas versus the environment

Recently, Gov. Douglas was nationally ranked by Greenopia among the top ten greenest governors (8th overall). It's unfortunate that no actual investigation into this ranking was performed by the online 'zine. As Nancy Remsen of the Burlington Free Press pointed out in VT Buzz, Greenopia based its conclusions on the Governors' own websites rather than on critical analysis of actual results based on policies and procedures established by the various governors during their respective tenures.

While Greenopia based its conclusions on reproducing some of Gov. Douglas' favorite soundbites "Clean and Clear", along with some murkier "accomplishments" like "tax incentives," "biofuel initiatives," and efforts to "make state government greener" it did not seriously consider Douglas' real environmental record on a host of issues.

What Greenopia did not report is Gov. Douglas' efforts to dismantle Act 250 (Vermont's signature land-use planning law), failure to enforce stormwater runoff laws, dismantling of environmental protection staff through state employee layoffs, opening up pristine state wilderness lands to noisy, polluting ATV riders, and on and on. Not to mention placing his Administration in the pocket of Entergy Nuclear power company. The Governor has repeatedly thwarted efforts to make Entergy Nuclear pay for its own clean-up costs, most recently by issuing a veto this past legislative session that would have required Entergy to set aside or replenish sufficient funds to do so.

In short, a more critical and thoughtful analysis of what Gov. Douglas' record on environmental issues really reflects would probably have placed him much closer to his good friend Sarah Palin, who brought up the bottom of the rankings at 48th out of 50 governors on environmental issues. You betcha.

"Two for America..." 8 and 48, respectively.