On December 13, the White House issued a document entitled "2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the American People." The document made various inaccurate and deceptive claims about the Administration's record over the last year. This report by the Center for American Progress seeks to correct those distortions, matching the White House's rhetoric with facts.

The report gives over 20 examples of inaccurate and deceptive claims by the White House relating to health care, the economy, education, Iraq, Afghanistan, homeland security, and the environment:

POWER PLANT EMISSIONS

WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The Bush Administration proposed stringent new rules on power plant emissions."

FACT: "The Bush administration on Friday eased clean air rules to allow utilities, refineries and manufacturers to avoid having to install expensive new anti-pollution equipment when they modernize their plants." - CBS News, 11/22/02

FACT: "More than a dozen state attorneys general yesterday sought to block the federal government from implementing a rule change they argued would lead to more air pollution from the nation's power plants. Fourteen states, and a number of cities - including New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. - are seeking a court injunction to impede a measure by the Environmental Protection Agency before it goes into effect." - AP, 11/18/03

FACT: "The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's civil enforcement office has resigned, complaining the White House is undermining anti-pollution efforts at power plants that violate clean air laws. Eric Schaeffer, a lawyer at the EPA for a dozen years dating from the first Bush administration, said in a letter to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman that the White House "seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce." - CBS News, 3/1/02

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