Statement From Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton put out the following statement in response to reports that President Bush personally intervened to order the EPA to weaken its new limits on ozone:

President Bush opened a new front in his administration's war on science this week. His personal intervention to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency's new limits on ozone proves that he has abandoned even a pretense of scientific integrity in decision-making. His efforts are directly at odds not only with accepted science, but with his government's own arguments before the United States Supreme Court.

This is only the latest in a long series of examples where the Bush administration's perversion of science helps special interests at the expense of public health -- though it is certainly one of the more brazen. I will work with Senate Environment Committee Chair Barbara Boxer to investigate the President's decision and to hold him accountable.

And when I am President, I will end the Bush war on science. And I will work to revise the ozone standard to reflect the available standard and to protect the public health, as the clean air act requires. Months ago, I outlined a detailed agenda to restore scientific integrity to government decision-making. I promised that as President I would issue an executive order to revive the longstanding practice of giving experts a central voice in agency rulemaking and call on agencies to pursue evidence-based decisions, and to direct all department and agency heads to safeguard against instances of political pressure threatening scientific integrity and promote openness and transparency in decision-making.