CONTINUING his re-emergence from the margins of US politics after
losing the 2000 presidential election, former vice president Al
Gore strongly criticised White House environmental and energy
polices, in an opinion piece appearing on Sunday in the New York
Times.
Gore decried White House environmental policy as ”completely
dominated by a group of current and former oil and chemical company
executives.”
”At a time when the world needs enduring leadership from the
United States to rally all nations to join in a concerted effort to
stop global warming, the administration is working overtime to
block any progress whatsoever,” wrote Gore, who has long been a
champion of environmental issues.
”On the environment, this administration has consistently sold
out America’s future in return for short-term political gains,” he
said in the newspaper.
His comments were timed to mark annual Earth Day celebrations,
observed Monday this year, to promote ecological awareness across
the United States.
”We need real, forward-thinking leadership and a renewed focus
on the environment,” Gore said.
Gore, who served as vice president during the presidency of Bill
Clinton from 1993 to 2001, is currently a professor in his native
state of Tennessee at Fisk University and Middle Tennessee State
University.
Gore’s opinion piece is the latest of several recent forays into
the public eye as he raises his profile for another possible run at
the US presidency.
Last weekend he reappeared at a Democratic meeting in Florida — the state at the centre of the disputed 2000 presidential election
— to lash out at what he said was failed White House stewardship
of US domestic policy.
”They have returned us to the days of deficits and debt, the
days of irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy, the days of
loosening environmental safeguards to satisfy the polluters.”
”They have turned their back on America’s covenant with our
nation’s greatest generation, raiding the Social Security and
Medicare trust funds without pause, without remorse and without
even a thought as to the long-term consequences of their actions,”
Gore said. – Sapa-AFP