If you didn’t live in Virginia when George Allen was Governor you may not understand just how anti-environmental he is. In the US Senate he had an abysmal record but those were only votes.
It was as Governor where George Allen demonstrated his utter contempt for environmental laws. Right after he was sworn in as Governor, he gutted the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Allen, bringing in what we then caused “wise users” at the time to run this key environmental agency is today’s equivalent of putting the Tea Party in charge. There were mass firings and mass resignations of agency staffers who refused to follow orders to ignore pollution violations.
Allen also interfered with an on going EPA lawsuit against Smithfield Foods for water pollution. The CEO of Smithfield at the time, Joe Luter, gave Allen a $100,000 campaign contribution and after Allen was elected he had the state intervene in that EPA lawsuit, effectively neutralizing federal action against Smithfield. As unethical as this may sound, it apparently is not illegal in Virginia where there is no limit on campaign contributions.
The Allen Administration even lied to the US EPA about the status of data collected on toxic emissions. When the EPA sought the toxic pollution data from the state, the response was that they did not have it, all the while it was actually locked in safe at the DEQ.
If elected to the US Senate, George Allen will continue his war against the environment, attacking EPA funding and regulations and voting as he has before to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. We must not let this happen.
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