Republican EPA Administrator Jumps Ship

This seems to be "Republicans attack Bush" week on this blog.

A environmentalist friend of mine sent me this link to the Bush Greenwatch website.

Here's the scoop, again from a new book, Politics, Pollution and Pandas: An Environmental Memoir (Island Press, December 2003):

Russell Train, a lifelong Republican who played a key role in forging environmental policy under Presidents Nixon and Ford, charges in his recently published memoirs that the current
Republican Administration not only lacks leadership on crucial environmental issues, it fails to grasp the "long-term
implications" of its bias toward the energy industry...

Now chairman emeritus of WWF [World Wildlife Fund], Train also offers his insights on the current lack of U.S. leadership on environmental issues, going so far as to say that President Bush "is not playing square with the American people" by "blatantly ignoring" solid scientific research, particularly on man's contribution to climate change.

Train writes that he does not blame the EPA or other federal agencies, because "it has been clear from the beginning of the George W. Bush Administration that it is the White House that is calling the tune. Moreover, it seems that the tune is being called not by program staff in the White House, but by political operatives. I find it unacceptable that the current U.S. political leadership should demonstrate such disregard for and disinterest in values that are among the most crucial concerns of humanity today."

Train was Undersecretary of the Interior under Nixon and later the second Administrator of the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (1973-1977).

This is nearly as damning as the Democratic critique.

Update: Thanks to Tom Street at Bad Attitudes, I can send everyone to Mother Jones for an interview with Train.