Fifth in a series reviewing the major issues of the presidential campaign.Green party candidate Ralph Nader says he sees little to choose between Al Gore and George Bush in terms of how they would deal with environmental issues. But he may be one of the few who feel that way. To many people, the environment may be where the differences between the candidates are most apparent.
Protection of the environment is a cause that Gore, more than almost any other major political figure, has long been strongly identified with. Indeed, the high expectations some environmentalists had for the Clinton-Gore administration because of Gore's well-known environmental views led some to feel deeply disappointed by his performance.
Bush, conversely, has made it clear that, as a matter of basic political philosophy, he favors market-based incentives, voluntary standards and privately funded environmental efforts over government regulations and enforcement measures. His record reflects that philosophy. ''The 30-year-old federal model of `mandate, regulate and litigate' needs to be modernized,'' he says.
Environmental groups charge that his record in Texas includes some of the worst pollution and most lenient enforcement of environmental laws in the nation. His supporters counter that these were largely problems inherited from earlier administrations, and that progress is being made.
On some issues, the candidates have made their differing views very clear:
Bush favors oil exploration in currently protected lands in Alaska as a way of alleviating American dependence on foreign oil, while Gore opposes such drilling as an unacceptable risk to a pristine ecosystem. Gore supports the Kyoto agreement to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, an agreement that he helped to forge. Bush opposes the agreement, which he says unfairly targets some nations and omits others.
In terms of land conservation, the differences in philosophy are again apparent. The Clinton-Gore administration fought to use the Antiquities Act to protect five natural areas whose total area they say is the greatest (in the contiguous 48 states) ever protected by any administration. Bush criticized the protection of those areas because of the way the decision was made: By federal mandate, with what Bush considers insufficient consultation with local residents and state officials.
As for the pollution record in Texas, there has been a loud dispute between the two campaigns over the factual record, and of who or what is responsible for it. The Gore campaign points to the fact that Houston is now the nation's smoggiest city and Texas leads the nation in industrial air pollution. The Bush campaign counters that Texas is number one in the nation in reducing the release and disposal of toxic pollution, and has reduced air pollution by 11 percent.
The Bush campaign says that Texas has enacted a law to require older power plants to reduce their emissions, a law that was called by Environmental Defense, a non-profit advocacy group, the ''strongest in the nation,'' and for which they credited Bush.
Many environmental groups are prohibited by their tax-exempt status from taking a position for or against political candidates. Among those not bound by that restriction, the largest group - the Sierra Club, with 600,000 members - has come out very strongly in favor of Gore.
David Struhs, former head of the Massachusetts Division of Environmental Protection and now in the same post in Florida, says that Bush ''has done more and gone further in terms of advancing the cause for cleaner air than any politician in America.'' He said that when Bush was elected, Texas led the nation in toxic emissions, but under his administration now ranks fifth.
Pope, of the Sierra Club, sees it quite differently. While it is true that Bush pressed for passage of a tough law on powerplant emissions, he says, the corresponding law applying to industrial facilities and refineries was purely voluntary, and Texas has ''the worst clean-air enforcement record'' of any state.
