Huckabee, Edmondson Exchange Barbs; Edmondson Criticizes Arkansas For 'Poor Job'

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee says his state's poultry industry has been made a "scapegoat" by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson. His comments came in Tulsa during the first day of a 2-day tour of Oklahoma on behalf of Republican candidates and his own possible 2008 presidential campaign.

Edmondson, a Democrat, is suing chicken and turkey processors over alleged pollution of the Illinois River watershed. "To single out the poultry industry and make them the scapegoat is also, I think, very offensive to us," Huckabee said of Edmondson's actions.

The industry has spent "millions of dollars of their own resources over the past 20 years to voluntarily push for higher levels of compliance with those strict environmental protections," he said. Huckabee also defended his state's regulation of the poultry industry and called one of Oklahoma's pollution goals "unattainable."

Edmondson fired back, saying that Huckabee is "clearly a poultry company apologist." Arkansas is attempting to intervene in Oklahoma's federal lawsuit against the poultry industry. Edmondson filed the suit in 2005 after 3 1/2 years of negotiations with Arkansas poultry producers.

Huckabee characterized the lawsuit as a political act by Edmondson. He said Edmondson "seems totally bent toward making this a platform for his own political future than he does in actually solving the dispute." Edmondson said in a statement that Huckabee "should be ashamed of the poor job Arkansas has done in regulating the poultry industry.

Huckabee's second day, in Oklahoma City, got off to a rocky start when he failed to show for a scheduled 7 a.m. interview on news/talk radio station KTOK.

In Arkansas, the online Arkansas Times reported on Huckabee's long-active political action committee: "One of Gov. Mike Huckabee's trademark slush funds is no more. We learned this week that his chief of staff, Brenda Turner, notified the secretary of state in July that the Conservative Leadership for Arkansas Political Action Committee (CLAPAC) was going out of business." For more details, click here, then go to "News" and read Max Brantley's column.

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