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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Martha Zoller, Victoria Jones

Aired November 30, 2002 - 17:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, is the current Bush administration moving backward on the environment? Well, joining the debate is radio talk show host Victoria Jones in Washington and radio talk show host Martha Zoller right here in Atlanta. Good afternoon to both of you.
MARTHA ZOLLER, WDUN RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Good afternoon.

VICTORIA JONES, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Good afternoon.

ZOLLER: Hi Victoria.

JONES: Hi Martha.

LIN: All right, Martha, let's start with you. What did you think of Senator Jim Jeffords' remarks? I mean he basically said he's calling President Bush's environmental initiatives the biggest weakening of the Clean Air Act in history. Do you think it's true?

ZOLLER: No, I don't think it is. I think what the president has seen is that what he's going to have to do is help industry be able to move forward. What's happened with the old regulations is that it makes it so difficult to upgrade, so difficult to meet all the regulations that people aren't doing it and so many of the plants were grandfathered in and the problems that they're having now are because they were grandfathered in. He's trying to meet the people halfway. He's trying to make it easier for these industries to meet the standards and to move forward in a positive direction rather than just stay where they are.

LIN: So, Victoria, more flexibility or bias toward the industry?

JONES: Well, definitely bias towards the industry. We know who President Bush's main backers are but what they're doing actually is they're relaxing the standards so they're not making it easier for anyone to meet the previous standard. They've relaxed the standard so nobody has to do anything very much. The way it was was that yes, if you were grandfathered in as a plant, you were grandfathered in, you did have to upgrade if you built new stuff and they got around that by not building new stuff.

And so now, we've gone back to saying OK if you don't build new stuff or if you just continue that's fine. It's not fine. It's not fine at all. Why would we want to make the air more polluted? Why would we want to cut back EPA enforcement, which is what is also happening so that even those plants who are doing nothing can get away with it more because there's no one to check up on them. LIN: All right, quickly let's go through some of the specific allegations to give our audience an idea of what specifically we're talking about or what Jim Jeffords is talking about. For example, the newly-announced regulations on power plant emissions, basically that power plants don't have to install anti-pollution devices in order to modernize their plants - Martha.

ZOLLER: Well, there might be and you know I'm not an expert on this from the standpoint of what the equipment can do today versus when it was originally installed, but one would hope that as they install new equipment and upgrade equipment that those kinds of things had been built in and some of it is going to improve as a result of that. What was happening in the past, though, is people were not updating at all and you know the technology from 20, 30, 40 years ago was worse than what we've got today. So what this is going to do is going to allow them to be able to upgrade to the better, cleaner technology that's in place today.

LIN: Victoria.

JONES: Well that's what it used to do but what it's going to do now is it's going to allow them to not upgrade at all. That's the point. What it used to do was that yes you did have to upgrade and you did have to get up to a higher standard. Now, with the rolling back of the act, which is what this is, it's a roll back, it's not a move forward, it makes it easier for people to do nothing. And, of course, unless there is some kind of enforcement, unless there's some kind of pressure for a business to do something as we've seen with Enron, they're not necessarily going to do the right thing if it costs them money.

ZOLLER: Well, Enron has nothing to do with pollution and I think that what we've got to...

JONES: Enron has everything to do with a lack of oversight and with greed.

ZOLLER: But it is a small portion of what happens in corporations. What happens is is we are...

JONES: I don't know if that's true.

ZOLLER: ...getting people out where they are not upgrading. If you upgrade, the technology is better and a perfect example...

JONES: But they're not upgrading. That's the point.

ZOLLER: But a perfect example is is an automobile today cleaner burning than a 1970 automobile, yes it is. The argument could be made...

JONES: This isn't about automobiles.

ZOLLER: ...that they didn't have - but it's a perfect example of how...

JONES: No, it's not.

ZOLLER: ...as we upgrade it can move forward.

JONES: The point is they're not having to upgrade.

ZOLLER: That's what they're trying to do on these plants.

JONES: The whole point of this rollback is that they're not going to have to upgrade.

ZOLLER: But they will put new technology in if they improve their plants and that new technology...

JONES: but they don't have to upgrade. That's the point.

ZOLLER: ...but they're not going to use the same old technology. They're not going to use the same old technology.

LIN: Let's start with another topic, ladies. Let's start with another topic so we can get through at least some of the other issues.

ZOLLER: OK.

LIN: And Victoria we're going to start with you on this.

JONES: OK.

LIN: Under funding super fund which is the federal fund to help clean up toxic waste sites.

JONES: Yes, well I find this very complicated because when we talk about super fund I start thinking about a different kind of fund. Look toxic waste sites are bad things. We all know that. I think everybody wants them cleaned up whether it's President Bush, President Clinton, or the previous President Bush, who had a good record on the environment. If anything, we need to fund these more. We're finding out more and more that people are suffering illness.

People are dying because of toxicity and because of where these things are placed and this is not the time to say OK, let's not fund it so much just let it go. This is the time for the president to stand up and say, as he certainly can, he's a strong man, look we're not going to allow this kind of stuff. We want a clean planet. We want a clean America.

LIN: Martha.

ZOLLER: Well, I think on this particular issue that what we need to do is get more of the super fund money back into the hands of the localities. I'm going to agree with Victoria on that. We do need to clean these sites up. They need to be completely cleaned up but more of the power has to be on the local and regional level, not so much on the federal level.

LIN: All right, let's move on to oil drilling on national land, specifically the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve. Martha it looks like it's got a better chance than not now.

ZOLLER: Well, I think it needs to be done. If there's one thing that we have learned from what happened on September 11th is we are more dependent upon foreign oil rather than less. The biggest problem is though if tomorrow we had enough oil that we drilled that we didn't need any more foreign oil, we wouldn't have the refineries because of the environmental standards that have been put in place to be able to refine it. So, drilling is part of it and I support that but also getting refineries up and running again is the other part of it.

LIN: All right, Victoria we need the oil.

JONES: Well, we don't need the oil from the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. There isn't very much oil there and it's going to take ten years to get it out.

ZOLLER: Well, there's some dispute on that.

JONES: We already use - well nobody says there's very much there. We already used 25 percent of the world's oil and our dependence on foreign oil is never going to go away because we don't have enough oil to support ourselves, particularly at the rate we use it. We only get one out of eight barrels from the Middle East.

We buy most of our oil from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and ourselves so we're not as dependent on the Middle East as we're being led to believe. The Alaska Wildlife Refuge is doing no harm to anybody. It is pristine. The American people do not want it drilled. It is not necessary to drill it. Can we not try and find somewhere else and just leave one place alone?

ZOLLER: Well, we're talking about 2,000 acres though out of two million acres and we certainly have learned a lot since Prudhoe Bay and I think that it would be prudent for us to do that but whether our oil comes from the Middle East we have been buying oil from Iraq every single day since September 11th and that is unacceptable and we must get support where we don't need it.

JONES: We're going to continue to buy oil from Iraq.

ZOLLER: We have been.

JONES: We're not going to stop buying oil from Iraq. We buy oil from Saudi Arabia, which funds the terrorists and provided most of them (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZOLLER: And we shouldn't do that either.

JONES: But we don't see any move not to do that. Well, it's not going to happen. We're going to continue to do it because our government is friends with Saudi.

LIN: All right ladies.

JONES: And so most Americans don't support that. LIN: Victoria, I'm going to give you the last word. Martha, I gave you the first so in the sense of fairness, I want to thank both of you for joining us this afternoon.

ZOLLER: Good to see you both.

JONES: Thanks very much.

LIN: You're very smart women joining us this afternoon. Thank you so much.

ZOLLER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 30, 2002 - 17:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, is the current Bush administration moving backward on the environment? Well, joining the debate is radio talk show host Victoria Jones in Washington and radio talk show host Martha Zoller right here in Atlanta. Good afternoon to both of you.
MARTHA ZOLLER, WDUN RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Good afternoon.

VICTORIA JONES, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Good afternoon.

ZOLLER: Hi Victoria.

JONES: Hi Martha.

LIN: All right, Martha, let's start with you. What did you think of Senator Jim Jeffords' remarks? I mean he basically said he's calling President Bush's environmental initiatives the biggest weakening of the Clean Air Act in history. Do you think it's true?

ZOLLER: No, I don't think it is. I think what the president has seen is that what he's going to have to do is help industry be able to move forward. What's happened with the old regulations is that it makes it so difficult to upgrade, so difficult to meet all the regulations that people aren't doing it and so many of the plants were grandfathered in and the problems that they're having now are because they were grandfathered in. He's trying to meet the people halfway. He's trying to make it easier for these industries to meet the standards and to move forward in a positive direction rather than just stay where they are.

LIN: So, Victoria, more flexibility or bias toward the industry?

JONES: Well, definitely bias towards the industry. We know who President Bush's main backers are but what they're doing actually is they're relaxing the standards so they're not making it easier for anyone to meet the previous standard. They've relaxed the standard so nobody has to do anything very much. The way it was was that yes, if you were grandfathered in as a plant, you were grandfathered in, you did have to upgrade if you built new stuff and they got around that by not building new stuff.

And so now, we've gone back to saying OK if you don't build new stuff or if you just continue that's fine. It's not fine. It's not fine at all. Why would we want to make the air more polluted? Why would we want to cut back EPA enforcement, which is what is also happening so that even those plants who are doing nothing can get away with it more because there's no one to check up on them. LIN: All right, quickly let's go through some of the specific allegations to give our audience an idea of what specifically we're talking about or what Jim Jeffords is talking about. For example, the newly-announced regulations on power plant emissions, basically that power plants don't have to install anti-pollution devices in order to modernize their plants - Martha.

ZOLLER: Well, there might be and you know I'm not an expert on this from the standpoint of what the equipment can do today versus when it was originally installed, but one would hope that as they install new equipment and upgrade equipment that those kinds of things had been built in and some of it is going to improve as a result of that. What was happening in the past, though, is people were not updating at all and you know the technology from 20, 30, 40 years ago was worse than what we've got today. So what this is going to do is going to allow them to be able to upgrade to the better, cleaner technology that's in place today.

LIN: Victoria.

JONES: Well that's what it used to do but what it's going to do now is it's going to allow them to not upgrade at all. That's the point. What it used to do was that yes you did have to upgrade and you did have to get up to a higher standard. Now, with the rolling back of the act, which is what this is, it's a roll back, it's not a move forward, it makes it easier for people to do nothing. And, of course, unless there is some kind of enforcement, unless there's some kind of pressure for a business to do something as we've seen with Enron, they're not necessarily going to do the right thing if it costs them money.

ZOLLER: Well, Enron has nothing to do with pollution and I think that what we've got to...

JONES: Enron has everything to do with a lack of oversight and with greed.

ZOLLER: But it is a small portion of what happens in corporations. What happens is is we are...

JONES: I don't know if that's true.

ZOLLER: ...getting people out where they are not upgrading. If you upgrade, the technology is better and a perfect example...

JONES: But they're not upgrading. That's the point.

ZOLLER: But a perfect example is is an automobile today cleaner burning than a 1970 automobile, yes it is. The argument could be made...

JONES: This isn't about automobiles.

ZOLLER: ...that they didn't have - but it's a perfect example of how...

JONES: No, it's not.

ZOLLER: ...as we upgrade it can move forward.

JONES: The point is they're not having to upgrade.

ZOLLER: That's what they're trying to do on these plants.

JONES: The whole point of this rollback is that they're not going to have to upgrade.

ZOLLER: But they will put new technology in if they improve their plants and that new technology...

JONES: but they don't have to upgrade. That's the point.

ZOLLER: ...but they're not going to use the same old technology. They're not going to use the same old technology.

LIN: Let's start with another topic, ladies. Let's start with another topic so we can get through at least some of the other issues.

ZOLLER: OK.

LIN: And Victoria we're going to start with you on this.

JONES: OK.

LIN: Under funding super fund which is the federal fund to help clean up toxic waste sites.

JONES: Yes, well I find this very complicated because when we talk about super fund I start thinking about a different kind of fund. Look toxic waste sites are bad things. We all know that. I think everybody wants them cleaned up whether it's President Bush, President Clinton, or the previous President Bush, who had a good record on the environment. If anything, we need to fund these more. We're finding out more and more that people are suffering illness.

People are dying because of toxicity and because of where these things are placed and this is not the time to say OK, let's not fund it so much just let it go. This is the time for the president to stand up and say, as he certainly can, he's a strong man, look we're not going to allow this kind of stuff. We want a clean planet. We want a clean America.

LIN: Martha.

ZOLLER: Well, I think on this particular issue that what we need to do is get more of the super fund money back into the hands of the localities. I'm going to agree with Victoria on that. We do need to clean these sites up. They need to be completely cleaned up but more of the power has to be on the local and regional level, not so much on the federal level.

LIN: All right, let's move on to oil drilling on national land, specifically the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve. Martha it looks like it's got a better chance than not now.

ZOLLER: Well, I think it needs to be done. If there's one thing that we have learned from what happened on September 11th is we are more dependent upon foreign oil rather than less. The biggest problem is though if tomorrow we had enough oil that we drilled that we didn't need any more foreign oil, we wouldn't have the refineries because of the environmental standards that have been put in place to be able to refine it. So, drilling is part of it and I support that but also getting refineries up and running again is the other part of it.

LIN: All right, Victoria we need the oil.

JONES: Well, we don't need the oil from the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. There isn't very much oil there and it's going to take ten years to get it out.

ZOLLER: Well, there's some dispute on that.

JONES: We already use - well nobody says there's very much there. We already used 25 percent of the world's oil and our dependence on foreign oil is never going to go away because we don't have enough oil to support ourselves, particularly at the rate we use it. We only get one out of eight barrels from the Middle East.

We buy most of our oil from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and ourselves so we're not as dependent on the Middle East as we're being led to believe. The Alaska Wildlife Refuge is doing no harm to anybody. It is pristine. The American people do not want it drilled. It is not necessary to drill it. Can we not try and find somewhere else and just leave one place alone?

ZOLLER: Well, we're talking about 2,000 acres though out of two million acres and we certainly have learned a lot since Prudhoe Bay and I think that it would be prudent for us to do that but whether our oil comes from the Middle East we have been buying oil from Iraq every single day since September 11th and that is unacceptable and we must get support where we don't need it.

JONES: We're going to continue to buy oil from Iraq.

ZOLLER: We have been.

JONES: We're not going to stop buying oil from Iraq. We buy oil from Saudi Arabia, which funds the terrorists and provided most of them (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZOLLER: And we shouldn't do that either.

JONES: But we don't see any move not to do that. Well, it's not going to happen. We're going to continue to do it because our government is friends with Saudi.

LIN: All right ladies.

JONES: And so most Americans don't support that. LIN: Victoria, I'm going to give you the last word. Martha, I gave you the first so in the sense of fairness, I want to thank both of you for joining us this afternoon.

ZOLLER: Good to see you both.

JONES: Thanks very much.

LIN: You're very smart women joining us this afternoon. Thank you so much.

ZOLLER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com