UNITY – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recalled his father telling him in the 1960s about the double impact of strip mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Not only was it destroying the mountains, the elder Kennedy told his son, but it was also killing jobs and unions.
Kennedy brought his own environmental message to Maine on Friday, where he had harsh words for President Bush’s policies. “This is the worst environmental White House we’ve had in American history – bar none,” he said at a windup event marking the 40th anniversary of Unity College.
An environmental activist for more than two decades, Kennedy is chief attorney for the New York-based group Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, which also champions clean water policies.
The son of the former U.S. attorney general and senator from New York who was assassinated in 1968 during a presidential run, Kennedy is author of the book “Crimes Against Nature,” in which he accuses the Bush administration of rewriting scores of environmental laws to suit polluters and turning over control of regulatory agencies to former industry leaders and lobbyists.
He reiterated that message during a speech under brilliantly sunny skies and a light wind Friday. He also had ample criticism for the news media, saying a “negligent and indolent” press has let the public down by turning a blind eye to anti-environmental excesses and contributing to “a huge information deficit.”
“There is no liberal media in the United States,” Kennedy said. “There is a right-wing media.”
Kennedy defended the environmental movement against those who portray it as part of a left-wing, liberal agenda.
“There’s nothing radical about clean air and clean water for our children,” Kennedy said. “Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy.”
His appearance at Unity highlighted observances marking the 40th anniversary of the small, independent college, whose campus has student-tended gardens and where one building sported solar panels that were recycled from the White House. The school specializes in environmental and natural resources-related studies.
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