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The article claims that the U.S. administration is weakening the national environmental laws of the country. Industry-funded polemicists and politicians who deride national standards as inefficient command and control approaches argue that problems can be better solved at the local level. The federal government has slashed spending on clean water, even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the nation's sewage-treatment facilities need $390 billion over the next 20 years. U.S. President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress have tried to give responsibility to whatever level of government is least likely to do a good job. The Bush Administration and the radical right in the U.S. Congress are trying to destroy modern pollution control, while trying to strip citizens of their power to stop them. When California required that automakers to sell zero-emission vehicles in the state, the administration and auto companies sued. Some of the judges on the federal bench dispute the right of citizens to challenge the lax enforcement of environmental laws in court.

The article focuses on the growing problem of electronic-waste in the U.S. Since computers and other electronics contain lots of heavy metals and chemicals, dumping them is a serious concern in moat countries. Monitors can contain four to eight pounds of lead each, and once one goes into a landfill, it can sink to the bottom and the lead can get into the water. Large electronics companies are now making new products with less metals. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only about 10 percent of obsolete computers are currently recycled in the country.

The article discusses what U.S. Congressmen are doing about issues related to environmental protection. The popularity of the U.S. Congress has dipped below that of the U.S. president's because of the long and growing list of environmental crises needing urgent attention. However, doing something serious about such issues would discomfit the same corporate interests that put politicians in power. Senator Conrad Burns made it clear that nothing meaningful will be done to fund needed to keep the country's water pollution free. Representative Charles Taylor promised that U.S. Forest Service resources would not be redirected to protecting rural communities on his watch.