CEI Criticizes Environmental Mis-Education Bill

Washington, DC, June 26, 2001—The Competitive Enterprise Institute released a study today revealing how pending legislation will continue federal funding of environmental activism.  The bill, introduced by Senators James Inhofe and Hillary Rodham Clinton, would reauthorize the Environmental Education Act.  It was recently inserted into President Bush’s education package, which is headed for House and Senate conference.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

 

Environmental education has become a popular subject in many classrooms, but most Americans probably don’t realize that some of the federal funding for environmental education helps promote the liberal agendas of groups like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.  ABC News is airing a John Stossel special this Friday, June 29, exposing some of the liberal indoctrination children receive in the classroom under the guise of environmental education.

 

“Funding these groups essentially means funding their agendas,” said Angela Logomasini, director of risk and environmental policy at CEI.  “If members of Congress want to ensure that the government does not pay for advocacy and miseducation, their best option is to eliminate funding of these programs.”

 

In the CEI paper released today, “Inhofe-Clinton Enviro Miseducation Bill,” Logomasini points out that the Environmental Protection Agency is partners with advocacy groups in promoting misinformation.  In some cases, these groups have even crossed the line of what they are legally allowed to do with federal funds, wandering into the area of direct lobbying.

 

“At the very least, Congress should change the EPA’s program from ‘environmental education’ to ‘science education.’  Funds could then be transferred to a potentially more neutral agency, one that is committed strictly to science education, such as the National Science Foundation,” said Logomasini. 

 

The “Inhofe-Clinton Enviro Miseducation Bill” paper is available on CEI’s website at http://www.cei.org/OnPointReader.asp?ID=1528, or you may obtain a copy by calling the media relations department at 202.331.1010 or [email protected].  In addition to Ms. Logomasini, the director of CEI’s Center for Environmental Education Research is also available for interviews.

 

Founded in 1984, CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government