Our Latest Stories:

I am a Democrat, but I am a liberal first. I am a Democrat because the Democratic Party does the best job representing my values at the local, state and national level. However, the Democratic Party is far from perfect, and I make sure to vote in primary elections whenever I can, to help keep the Democratic Party from falling prey to those who try to move the Democratic Party to the right, or sell the Democratic Party into the back pockets of corporate influence peddlers.

I am a fervent liberal, and unashamed to be so. However, I am not a partisan. When Democratic politicians do the wrong thing, I do not hesitate to point them out and assign them blame.

Yesterday, seven Democratic senators did something shameful: They voted in favor of mercury pollution. They voted against a measure that would have reversed a Bush Administration rule that derails the Clean Air Act and proposes creating hot spots of mercury pollution in the United States in which mercury emissions by industry are allowed to rocket upward with practically no regulation.

The mercury rule that George W. Bush is putting in place uses market motivations to manage mercury pollution. In the Bush system, industrial plants will be able to purchase the right to spew as much mercury out of their smokestacks as they want. The trouble with this system is that, although mercury pollution could be reduced in some places, hot spots of excessive mercury pollution would appear throughout the country. Local residents would have absolutely no say. The only market-based solution that local residents would have would be to flee their homes, selling their property at drastically reduced rates. That’s the kind of market-based solution that belongs in a Charles Dickens novel, not in America.

The Bush Administration defends its rule by saying that American corporations just can’t afford to clean up. It’s just too expensive for industry to not poison America, Bush says. Most of the Republicans in the United States Senate agreed with Bush on this point yesterday, voting no.

The following Democratic Senators shamefully went along with the President’s plan to create mercury pollution hot spots across America:

Senator Max Baucus of Montana
Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota
Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas

Then there’s John Rockefeller. Senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia didn’t even bother to show up for the vote. This was on the first day of the confirmation hearing of John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Surely Senator Rockefeller was around - but couldn’t be bothered to vote against mercury pollution hot spots in America.

What’s truly tragic about this is that the legislation could have passed if just three of these eight cowardly Democratic senators had voted yes instead of no. That’s because nine Republican senators and independent Vermont Senator James Jeffords voted in favor. The following Republicans did the right thing, and are to be commended:

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island
Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota
Senator Susan Collins of Maine
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
Senator John McCain of Arizona
Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine
Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire