NEWS
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 9
Kerry proposes ban on Mich.
trash imports from Canada
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat-
ic presidential candidate John Kerry
said yesterday he would immediately
ban Canadian trash shipments into
Michigan if he is elected.
"It's time to end Canadian trash
dumping in Michigan," Kerry said
in a news release. "George W. Bush
has let Michigan become Canada's
landfill."
Kerry said he wouldn't allow fur-
ther shipments until the U.S. Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency begins
enforcing a 1992 treaty that requires
Canada to notify the EPA for each
shipment of waste entering the Unit-
ed States.
The treaty allows the EPA to reject
shipments for health or environmental
reasons.
Democrats say the EPA has the
power to enforce the treaty now. But
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt says
the treaty only covers hazardous waste
and that Congress needs to expand the
EPA's authority if it wants to regulate
other kinds of trash.
Leavitt said in July that the Bush
administration was working on leg-
islation that would expand the EPA's
authority, but that legislation hasn't yet
been introduced.
Leavitt also has asked Canada to
begin voluntarily notifying the EPA
of trash shipments beginning early
next year.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and
U.S. Rep. John Dingell, both Michigan
Democrats, insist the treaty covers all
types of trash.
They said the Bush administration is
stalling because of pressure from waste
management companies and trash-
exporting states like New York.
"I think that they support the inter-
ests that are making money off this
situation," Stabenow said.
Bush campaign officials referred
questions to Chris Paulino, a spokes-
man for the Michigan Republican
Party.
Paulino couldn't say why several
Republican-sponsored bills that would
control Canadian trash shipments have
been stalled in Congress. Instead, he
said Democrats have gone from say-
ing trash is a state issue to blaming the
president.
"It's time to end Canadian trash dumping
in Michigan. ... George W. Bush has let
Michigan become Canada's landfill."
- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, in a news release
"This is the Democrats getting a lit-
tle desperate and doing anything they
can to get some press," Paulino said.
Dingell, whose district includes Ann
Arbor, been trying unsuccessfully to
halt Canadian trash shipments since
President Clinton was in office. Still,
he feels confident Kerry "is seeing this
situation the same way we in Michigan
see it."
Stabenow said the issue took on a
new urgency during Bush's presiden-
cy because Toronto started sending
all of its trash to Michigan in Janu-
ary 2003.
Michigan now gets about 180 truck-
loads of trash each day from Canada,
and Stabenow said one-quarter of
Michigan's landfill space is now being
taken up by trash from Canada and
other states.
Late last year, Dingell inserted a pro-
vision into a spending bill that requires
the EPA to spend $1 million enforcing
the trash treaty.
Michigan lawmakers still are wait-
ing for action on a series of other bills.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers
(R-Mich.) would ban Canadian trash
shipments but not shipments from
other states in an effort to appease
trash-exporting states.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Green-
wood (R-Pa.) would give states more
authority to control trash.
Dingell said the House Energy and
Commerce subcommittee may vote on
those bills as early as next week.
. Flight records show Bush ranked in
middle of Air National Guard class
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush ranked in
the middle of his Air National Guard flight class and
flew 336 hours in a fighter jet before letting his pilot
status lapse and missing a key readiness drill in 1972,
according to his flight records belatedly uncovered
yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Pentagon and Bush's cam-
paign have claimed for months Bush flew,
that all records detailing his fighter
pilot career have been made public, in a fighte
but defense officials said they found h l i
two dozen new records detailing he let his
his training and flight logs after status laps
The Associated Press filed a law-
suit and submitted new requests missed a k
under the public records law.
"Previous requests from other
requesters for President Bush's Individual Flight
Records did not lead to the discovery of these records
because at the time President Bush left the service,
flight records were subject to retention for only 24
months and we understood that neither the Air Force
nor the Texas Air National Guard retained such
records thereafter," the Pentagon told the AP.
"Out of an abundance of caution," the government
"searched a file that had been preserved in spite of
this policy" and found the Bush records, the letter
r
p
said. "The Department of Defense regrets this over-
sight during the previous search efforts."
Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air
National Guard has become an issue in the presiden-
tial campaign as the candidates spar over who would
make the best commander in chief. Supporters of
Democratic nominee John Kerry,
336 hours a decorated Vietnam combat vet-
eran, have criticized Bush for
jet, then serving stateside in the National
Guard. Kerry's Republican critics
claim Kerry did not deserve some
e and of his five medals.
Bush has repeatedly said he is
ey drill, proud of his Air National Guard
service. White House spokes-
men said as late as last week the
administration knew of no other records of Bush's
military service.
"These documents confirm that the president
served honorably in the National Guard," White
House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said last night.
The newly released records show Bush, a lieuten-
ant in the Texas Air National Guard, ranked No. 22 in
a class of 53 pilots when he finished his flight train-
ing at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in 1969.
Over the next three years, he logged 326.4 hours as
a pilot and an additional 9.9 hours as a co-pilot, most-
ly in the F-102A jet used to intercept enemy aircraft.
Of the 278 hours he flew in the interceptor, about 77
hours were in the TF-102A, the two-seat trainer ver-
sion of the one-seat fighter jet.
The records show his last flight was in April 1972,
which is consistent with pay records indicating Bush
had a large lapse of duty between April and October
of that year. Bush has said he went to Alabama in 1972
to work on an unsuccessful Republican Senate cam-
paign. Bush skipped a required medical exam that cost
him his pilot's status in August of that year.
Bush's 2000 campaign suggested the future presi-
dent skipped his medical exam in part because the
F-102A was nearly obsolete. Records show Bush's
Texas unit flew the F-102A until 1974 and used the
jets as part of an air defense drill during 1972.
A six-month historical record of his 147th Fighter
Interceptor Group, also turned over to the AP yester-
day, shows some of the training Bush missed with his
colleagues during that time.
Significantly, it showed the unit joined a "24-hour
active alert mission to safeguard against surprise
attack" in the southern United State beginning on
Oct. 6, 1972, a time when Bush did not report for
duty, according to his pay records.
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