Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on "The Junk Science of George W. Bush" in the Nation

WASHINGTON (February 20, 2004) - Earlier this week some 60 top scientists issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact to advance its policy goals, including undermining environmental safeguards. Yesterday, the Nation magazine published a cover story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "The Junk Science of George W. Bush," which details some of the evidence supporting the scientists' contention (click here for more details).

"Led by the President, the Republicans have gutted scientific research budgets and politicized science within the federal agencies," Kennedy concludes. "The very leaders who so often condemn the trend toward moral relativism are fostering and encouraging the trend toward scientific relativism. The very ideologues who derided Bill Clinton as a liar have now institutionalized dishonesty and made it the reigning culture of America's federal agencies.

"The Bush Administration has so violated and corrupted the institutional culture of government agencies charged with scientific research that it could take a generation for them to recover their integrity even if Bush is defeated this fall."

Kennedy, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, is working on a book about President Bush's environmental policies, "Crimes Against Nature," to be published this spring by HarperCollins.