Protecting the environment, he said, isn't for the animals or fish, but the country's social and economic health.

"We're not protecting the environment for the sake of fishes and the birds," he said. "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment."

He said Americans should be frightened by the amount of pollution in the country's waterways.

"About five years ago, the federal EPA announced that in 19 states it is now unsafe to eat any freshwater fish caught in the state because of the mercury coming from those coal burning power plants."

In 49 states, he said, "at least some of the fish are unsafe to eat from mercury contamination."

"We're living today in a science fiction nightmare when my children and most of the children in Oklahoma can no longer safely engage in a seminal primal activity of American youth: which is go fishing their father at the local fishing hole then come and safely eat the fish. All because somebody gave money to a politician."

In 100 percent of the situations, he said, good economic policy is compatible with good economic policy.

"In a true free market you can't make yourself right without making your neighbors rich and improving your community," he said. "But what polluters do, they make themselves rich by making everyone else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. And they do that by escaping the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter and I'll show you a subsidy."

The 54-year-old Kennedy is the son of former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed 40 years ago while campaigning for president.

M. Scott Carter 366-3545 scarter@normantranscript.com