Environmental Criticism of U.S. Irks Sununu

White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu angrily rejected criticism today by environmental groups that the United States and its industrial allies are polluting the planet, saying the complaints are just “emotional rhetoric.”

Speaking as a summit of the world’s seven leading economic powers started, Sununu said the United States had set an outstanding example in allocating funds to the environment.

“If you look at it in terms of the real cleanup, the United States has an outstanding performance relative to the rest of the countries of the world,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America”.

“They can rate their emotional rhetoric. When they come around to rating performance, the United States does very, very well,” he said.

Sununu was responding to a score card on environmental performance issued by a group of international ecological groups Sunday that severely criticized the records of all seven summit participants--the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy.

The score card said West Germany did the best of the seven and Italy the worst in protecting the environment. The United States was rated “fair to poor” in most categories.

Sununu is viewed by environmentalists as their main opponent within the Bush Administration. They say he constantly presses the President to water down ecological initiatives because they might inhibit economic growth.

The United States is likely to find itself under pressure at the summit over proposals to combat global warming by limiting emissions of greenhouse gases.