Feds opposing Bush on environment afraid to speak out

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Feds opposing Bush on environment afraid to speak out

 

Elizabeth Shogren

Los Angeles Times

Nov. 14, 2003 12:00 AM

 

WASHINGTON - For the first few months of the

Bush administration, if career employees at the

agencies charged with protecting the environment

disagreed with the new president's agenda, they

expressed their concerns primarily among

themselves or sometimes, demanding anonymity, to

reporters.

 

Then several left their

government jobs and

started openly criticizing the administration, calling

it hostile to wilderness,

wildlife and clean air. Others stayed but tried to

sabotage, or at least expose,

administration initiatives by leaking documents to

news organizations.

Thursday, disagreements between the administration's

environmental

officials and some of their employees took a turn

toward the bizarre.

Two longtime National Park Service workers, disguised

by dark glasses,

hats and scarves, arrived at the National Press

Building in a sedan with

tinted windows.

Then, with their voices modified by a " voice

disguiser " from a

counterespionage store, they denounced the Bush

administration for

enacting policies and laws that will destroy the grand

legacy of our national

parks, " as one put it.

The fact that the two men resorted to tactics usually

reserved for organizedcrime

informants suggests the intensity of the conflict

between the Bush

administration and some longtime government employees

who have spent

their careers protecting natural resources.

David Barna, spokesman for the National Park Service

and a 28-year career

official at the agency, said the spectacle made him " angry. "