Ex-Gov. Brown Is Back--With a Blast at Bush

Former California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., gradually re-entering the political spotlight, attacked the Reagan-Bush Administration’s record on the environment as one that favored new weapons systems and protection of polluters at the expense of the health of millions of Americans.

Brown said also that fellow Democrat Michael S. Dukakis would be more likely than Vice President George Bush to make the United States a world leader in cleaning up pollution.

“I wish it weren’t partisan, the environmental cause, but in fact it is,” Brown said at a dinner of environmental activists on a Santa Monica beach Friday night. “(Bush) has not supported tough measures to combat acid rain, nor to control the poisons which spew into our environment every day. Michael Dukakis has, consistently, for the last 10 years.”

Brown said that any time a clash occurs between free enterprise and the environment, Bush comes down on the side of business. But the former governor, who presided over an era in which an extensive array of environmental controls were introduced in California, said free enterprise does not work without clear, tough government rules to prevent pollution.

Bush, “like so many people in his party, has deified the notion of free enterprise, the market system,” Brown said. “It’s idolatry, it doesn’t work, it’s profit for a few at the expense of the health of many.”

Brown was especially critical of the military buildup under President Reagan, who was Brown’s predecessor as governor. Instead of federal aid to scientists being split half-and-half between the military and civilian needs such as disease and safe energy, Brown said, 85% now goes to research on weapons and military equipment.

Brown was warmly received by his audience, about 400 people--many of them former Sacramento friends and aides--who contributed $75 each to the California League of Conservation Voters. But he got his biggest ovations when he expanded on his view that America’s enemy is not the Soviets, but environmental damage allowed to occur because of reluctance by politicians to enforce controls against industry.

“The enemy is right here, it’s us, it’s the dark underside of our own affluence,” Brown said. “There are more people dying from poisons that our industrial processes are putting in our lives than have ever died from the Russians.

“If you think the free market and macho nationalism can do what is required to secure the blessings of prosperity and liberty for this country, then vote for George Bush,” Brown said.