Dukakis Warns Polluters They ‘Better Vote for Bush’

Michael S. Dukakis today accused the Reagan Administration of foot-dragging in cleaning up toxic waste and said chronic polluters had “better vote for Mr. Bush” in the November election.

The Democratic nominee and Vice President George Bush both took a few moments out from campaigning to agree on one thing today, praising the successful launch of the space shuttle--then went back to hammering each other over down-to-earth issues.

After taking aim Wednesday at Dukakis’ plan to step up enforcement efforts against tax cheats, Bush told a rally today in St. Charles, Mo., that a Democratic victory in the fall would mean “a government hand in every pocket and a tax agent in every home.”

After the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, Bush told the cheering crowd, “The shuttle is launched successfully and America is back in space.”

Dukakis told college students at a rally in New Jersey that the launch made it “a very special morning. . . . We’re very proud of the astronauts.”

Then Dukakis, in a speech at Rutgers University, said Bush is to blame for blocking regulations to reduce lead in the air as well as a plan to control toxic wastes.

“Mr. Bush’s Administration has had eight years to clean up toxic wastes,” Dukakis said. “They’ve started the cleanup on only 137 sites on the National Priorities List out of a total of 1,200.”

Dukakis promised that if he is elected, “cleanup will be completed or well under way at every single one of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sites on the National Priorities List by December, 1996.”

“For the foot-draggers and the chronic polluters I have just one message: You better vote for Mr. Bush because if I’m elected, the game is over,” Dukakis said.

“Let me say a word about my favorite harbor,” Dukakis added, noting that Bush has criticized cleanup efforts in Boston Harbor.

The Massachusetts governor called it the oldest harbor in America and said, “People starting throwing things into it more than a century before the Boston Tea Party. And Mr. Bush doesn’t know what he’s talking about because we’re cleaning up Boston Harbor. And we’ve had to fight Mr. Bush and the Administration he belongs to every inch of the way.”