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- <text id=90TT1640>
- <title>
- June 25, 1990: American Notes:Ecology
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- June 25, 1990 Who Gives A Hoot?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 25
- American Notes
- ECOLOGY
- U-Turn on Ozone
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> White House chief of staff John Sununu infuriated
- environmentalists last month when he blocked creation of a
- special international fund to help developing countries reduce
- their use of industrial gases that deplete the ozone layer.
- Charging that a U.S. failure to support the fund would
- undermine George Bush's vow to be the Environmental President,
- Democratic Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee called the policy
- "pigheaded and obstinate." He predicted that once the angry
- reaction set in, Sununu would reverse himself.
- </p>
- <p> Last week Sununu did just that. He announced that the U.S.
- would contribute $25 million to a $100 million World Bank fund
- that will help underwrite the cost of
- chlorofluorocarbon-abatement efforts in less developed nations.
- Sununu claimed that the Administration now found itself able
- to endorse the fund because financial safeguards that the
- initial plan lacked have been put in place.
- </p>
- <p> But a White House official pooh-poohed Sununu's explanation
- for the abrupt turnabout in policy as "a mere fig leaf." Said
- he: "It became clear to us that almost everybody was unhappy."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-