Blue Skies:  Bush on the Environment

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Toles 'Toons 6/22/03

Global Warming

U.S. Environmental Policy

Bush Ignores DOD Warning*

A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. . .
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network. . . .Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.  Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, The Guardian 2/22/04

 

CLIMATE COLLAPSE: The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it. David Stipp , fortune.com 1/26/04

 

Bush Warms Us Up*

A Washington Post survey found that only a tiny number of American companies, 54 at last count, have agreed to participate in Mr. Bush's program of voluntary reductions of global warming gases — the strategy Mr. Bush chose when he rejected the mandatory emissions caps called for in the Kyoto Protocol. As further evidence of industry's indifference, . . . Mr. Bush regards mandatory emissions caps as "top-down" regulatory management and therefore unacceptable. But his own bottom-up voluntarism is going nowhere. Meanwhile Alaska melts. The McCain-Lieberman bill did better than anyone expected last year. It deserves another try. NY Times Editorial 1/25/04

Bush Isn't Sure There is Global Warming*

Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says.
The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion.
They say cutting greenhouse gases and storing the main one, carbon dioxide, could save many species from vanishing.
The United Nations says the prospect is also a threat to the billions of people who rely on Nature for their survival.  Alex Kirby, BBC News, 1/7/04

Bush on Global Warming

On the Bush web site for the 2000 election campaign, it states that he: "Recognizes that global warming should be taken seriously but will require any decisions to be based on the best science; opposes Kyoto Protocol." as quoted by Julia Olszewski, Brandeis.

A large ice shelf that has jutted into the Arctic Ocean from the northernmost part of Canada for at least 3,000 years has broken up over the last two years, providing fresh evidence that the region is warming past thresholds that can produce abrupt changes, scientists said today. ANDREW C. REVKIN, NY Times 9/23/03

For more on recent Bush initiatives, the administration: click HERE

Bush Environmental Initiatives:

Among recent initiatives, the administration: click HERE

  • Dropped a Clean Air rule requiring thousands of the dirtiest power plants and refineries to install pollution control equipment when upgrading facilities.

  • Ruled that carbon dioxide - the chief cause of global warning - can't be regulated, thereby precluding requirements any time soon for new pollution controls on cars and plants.

  • Reversed a 25-year-old policy by allowing the sale of land contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a banned chemical once used for cooling and lubrication and now blamed for adverse health effects.

  • Appointed a new Environmental Protection Agency administrator - Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt - viewed by conservation groups as overly sympathetic to industry.
     It was also disclosed last week that two former EPA officials, including the chief of staff in the air and radiation office, had taken jobs at utilities that stand to gain from the administration's new power plant policy. EPA officials said that the officials had not taken part in recent rulings.      ILL LAMBRECHT St. Louis Post-Dispatch (KRT) in Colorado Daily9/23/03
     

    • Bush: Global Warming

    Ever since George Bush renounced the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming two years ago, the industrialized world has been waiting patiently for signs that Americans are ready to focus on the pressing issue of climate change. Lately some American politicians have begun to take the matter more seriously, even if Mr. Bush has not.  Last week Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman extracted a pledge from their colleagues to hold a floor vote later this year on a promising and, by Senate standards, adventurous proposal for mandatory controls on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. NY Times Editorial 8/3/03

     

     

    "The [EPA report] editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.

    ANDREW C. REVKIN with KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, Washington Post, 6/19/03

     

    BUSH SACRIFICES SAFETY, ENVIRONMENT FOR BUSINESS

    Information From The New York Times:

    • The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the new rule on the public release of auto-safety information on July 28, 2003, . . .the agency published a revised final rule on April 21, 2004, it exempted from public release warranty-claim information, industry reports on safety issues and consumer complaints, among other data, saying that releasing that information would cause "substantial competitive harm."

    • The administration, at the request of lumber and paper companies, gave Forest Service managers the right to approve logging in federal forests without the usual environmental reviews.

    • In March of 2003, the Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed new regulation that would dilute the rules intended to protect coal miners from black-lung disease.

    • In May 2003, the Bush administration dropped a proposed rule that would have required hospitals to install facilities to protect workers against tuberculosis.

    • The Department of Labor, responding to complaints from industry, dropped a rule that required employers to keep a record of employees' ergonomic injuries.

    • The administration's 2004 budget proposed to cut 77 enforcement and related positions from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, while adding two new staff members whose jobs would be to help industry comply with agency rules.

    • Consumer and driver-safety groups, including Public Citizen and Parents Against Tired Truckers, started lobbying the new agency to shorten the number of hours drivers could stay behind the wheel.  . . .Last year, the Department of Transportation finally issued a new rule, saying in a prepared statement that it would "save hundreds of lives" and "protect billions in commerce." The change would increase allowable driving time from 10 hours without a break to 11 hours. But after 11 hours, drivers would have to take 10 hours off instead of eight. . . .Public Citizen and the other safety groups filed suit, saying the new rule, in all its detail, actually increased driving hours per week by 30 percent

    • Last August, . . . the administration relaxed its clean-air rules by allowing thousands of corporations to upgrade their plants without having to install expensive pollution-control equipment,

    • the Department of Energy announced in May 2002 that it would weaken a standard issued during the Clinton administration to make home air-conditioners more efficient.

    • A federal judge blocked a plan by the Department of the Interior to allow an energy company to drill for oil at one proposed location, adjacent to the Arches National Park in Utah, saying the government had not adequately considered the environmental impact of the plan.

    • An Interior Department judicial agency blocked a plan to develop the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

    Representative Obey [D, WI] said he believed most Americans remained unaware of many of the changes. "Most people are busy just trying to make a living," he said. "And with all the focus on Iraq and bin Laden, it gives the administration an opportunity to take a lot of loot out the back door without anybody noticing."

    JOEL BRINKLEY, The NY Times, 8/14/04

    34 Superfund Projects Not Funded

    Thirty-four Superfund projects in 19 states will go unfunded this year, according to a letter an acting assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency sent to two Democratic lawmakers.  Thomas P. Dunne, whose letter to Democratic Reps. John D. Dingell (Mich.) and Hilda L. Solis (Calif.) was made public by Dingell yesterday, said that, despite some construction delays, "I can assure you that we are doing our best to manage the Superfund program in a way that ensures the protection of human health and the environment from imminent threats while making the best use of the funds we do have."  The Superfund program, which is facing historic budget shortfalls, has come under fire from Democrats and environmental groups in recent months for failing to clean up toxic sites fast enough.  Dingell and Solis, who demanded in August that the EPA describe the full impact of the budget shortfalls, said yesterday that the agency has yet to give Congress a full accounting.   "EPA's failure to inform Congress and the public about the site specific needs of the Superfund program in a timely manner makes it much more difficult to get the support necessary to address this serious problem," the two lawmakers said in a statement.  Washington Post, 10/24/04 MORE

    Bush Prosecutes Greenpeace with Law not used for 100 Years*

    In a move unprecedented in U.S. history, John Ashcroft's Justice Department has indicted an entire organization – Greenpeace! -- for the peaceful protest activities of its members. For years, we have been working to halt environmental destruction and human rights abuses by criminal enterprises in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. In April 2002, miles off the coast of Florida, two Greenpeace activists boarded a ship that was carrying wood illegally exported from the Brazilian Amazon. Their goal was to hang a banner that said "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."

    But instead of intercepting the contraband and prosecuting the smugglers, the federal government has charged Greenpeace with crimes for boarding the ship. This case poses a serious threat to citizens' right to free speechand to engage in peaceful dissent.  Take Action:

    The Bush Mercury Scandal *

     the foxes have been put in charge of the henhouse. The head of the E.P.A.'s Office of Air and Radiation. . . previously made his living representing polluting industries (which, in case you haven't guessed, are huge Republican donors). On mercury, the administration didn't just take industry views into account, it literally let the polluters write the regulations: much of the language of the administration's proposal came directly from lobbyists' memos.  . . . According to The Los Angeles Times: "E.P.A. staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. . . . E.P.A. veterans say they cannot recall another instance where the agency's technical experts were cut out of developing a major regulatory proposal."  Krugman, NY Times, 4/6/04

     

    Bush's War on Parks*

    A retired superintendent of Utah's Dinosaur National Monument released internal National Park Service memos Wednesday that coached park bosses on ways to hide the true nature of Bush administration cutbacks in park services from the public. . . The Park Service "was trying to jam more people into the parks at the same time it was setting the stage for cuts in essential services," said Huffman, who retired as superintendent of the renowned fossil bed on the Utah-Colorado border in 1997 after more than 30 years with the agency. . . he believes all park employees are living in a "culture of fear" since the December ouster of U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers after she told media outlets budget cuts had forced a reduction of patrols around Washington area monuments.  Christopher Smith
    The Salt Lake Tribune

     

    Bush Policy Endangers Kids*

    More than one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb, . . .

    Mercury pollution has become a contentious environmental issue with the Bush administration's proposal to create a market-based trading-pollution system. Advocates have been pushing for stricter limits on mercury emissions from power plants, which emit almost 50 tons of mercury annually. . .

    "I think between these new calculations and research findings, it is now abundantly clear for this government to get serious about mercury polluters," Linda Greer, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. "We just can't watch these numbers go up in the bloodstream of American women." JENNIFER 8. LEE, NY Times, 2/10/04

     

    Bush Assaults the Air*

    President Bush and his congressional allies seem bent on blocking progress made by California in recent years. Their challenges, clothed in erudite language about state versus federal powers, are really outright concessions to car and engine makers and oil refiners. When Southern California cities or their private contractors replace worn-out diesel-engine buses, trash trucks and street sweepers, they are required to do so with cleaner-fuel vehicles. Nearly 60% of local transit buses — more than 3,000 of them — now run on natural gas or other clean fuels, along with hundreds of airport shuttles, school buses and dump trucks.  The White House is backing a lawsuit that would invalidate these local fleet rules adopted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District over the last three years. LA Times Editorial, 1/10/04

     

    Bush Violates Old Growth Forests*

    On Tuesday, it [the Bush administration] announced that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska would be denied protections provided by the so-called roadless rule, a federal regulation prohibiting the building of roads — and by definition most commercial activity — on 58.5 million acres of national forests. . .

    It is no exaggeration to say that these acres constitute the forest's biological heart. And because these acres are not all in one place, but are distributed among 50 different logging projects, the new roads required to reach them will inevitably violate even more of the forest. . .

    The administration's action is prelude to what is most likely to be an even broader assault on the roadless rule, which has been challenged in the courts by timber interests and six other states where logging is big business. NY Times Editorial, 12/27/03

    Bush Poisons America*

    The White House called the shots when Christie Whitman was running the Environmental Protection Agency, and from the looks of things, the White House is still calling the shots. Michael Leavitt's first major action as E.P.A. administrator last week was to rescind a Clinton-era proposal to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. The reversal came right out of the Karl Rove playbook, a long-promised payoff to President Bush's big contributors in the utility industry. . . The country's coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of airborne mercury, a toxic pollutant that threatens human health after it enters the food chain, usually through fish.  NY Times Editorial 12/7/03

    Bush's Amazing Energy Bill*

    This is an amazing energy bill because it will not (A) reduce our dependence on foreign oil; (B) provide significant new energy sources; (C) create many jobs; (D) improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts; (E) promote energy efficiency or conservation; or (F) do anything about global warming.
    But -- it will give at least $20 billion in subsides to fossil fuel companies. . . .
    Our economy wastes more energy than any other country -- perhaps as much as half our total energy. This bill does nothing to encourage energy efficiency or fuel economy standards. . .
    No wonder the energy companies have given more than $71 million in contributions to politicians, over 80 percent to Republicans, since 1999. They're getting a $20 billion return on that little investment just in direct subsidies, and there is much more in the bill in indirect subsidies.      Molly Ivins
    Star-Telegram, 11/27/03

    Bush Cooks Environment*

     In the past two years the Bush administration has altered, suppressed or attempted to discredit close to a dozen major reports on the subject [of global warming]. These include a ten-year peer-reviewed study by the International Panel on Climate Change, commissioned by the president's father . . .After disavowing the Kyoto Protocol, the Bush administration commissioned the federal government's National Academy of Sciences to find holes in the IPCC analysis. But this ploy backfired. . . .

    A May 2002 report by scientists from the EPA, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, . . . predicted similarly catastrophic impacts. When confronted with the findings, Bush dismissed it with his smirking condemnation: "I've read the report put out by the bureaucracy. . . ." Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Rolling Stone, 12/11/03 edition

    Bush Energy Giveaway*

    Nobody believes this bill will bring any significant reduction in U.S. oil imports, nor any abatement of the pollution associated with domestic production, nor any greater flexibility or reliability in the national electricity grid.  . . What it will do is transfer a lot more public money to the administration's friends in the energy companies and the big oil and gas states, and a little bit more to other special interests, like corn farmers and ethanol distillers in the Upper Midwest. . . .If Sen. Schumer, a New York Democrat, follows through on his pledge to mount a filibuster, he will be offering his colleagues a graceful way out of this mess -- a chance to let this bill die the quiet death it deserves. They shouldn't hesitate to take it. Editorial, Minneapolis Star Tribune

    Reduce Childhood Asthma or Give $20 B to Bush Contributors

    A change in enforcement policy will lead the Environmental Protection Agency to drop investigations into 50 power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act, lawyers at the agency who were briefed on the decision this week said. . . The lawyers said the new rules include exemptions that would make it almost impossible to sustain the investigations into the plants, which are scattered around the country and owned by 10 utilities. ..Representatives of the utility industry have been among President Bush's biggest campaign donors, and a change in the enforcement policies has been a top priority of the industry's lobbyists. . .One career E.P.A. enforcement lawyer said the decision, coupled with the changes in the underlying rules, could mean that the utility industry could avoid making as much as $10 billion to $20 billion in pollution-control upgrades. DREW and OPPEL Jr. NY Times, 11/6/03

    Drilling in the Parks

    A group of former high-ranking National Park Service employees -- including five with Utah ties -- took a Yellowstone-sized swipe at the Bush administration Friday.

    Their charge: that the president and his Interior Department have not put their money where their mouths are when it comes to funding the National Park system. And that their policies -- from privatizing more park functions to allowing gas and oil drilling near park boundaries -- are threatening the system from inside and out.

    "I've spent 32 years in the National Park Service, and I'm not a particularly partisan person," said Don Castleberry, a retired NPS regional director from Omaha. "But in recent years, it appears that support for the National Park Service has been politicized to a degree that I never saw when I was working. Joe Baird, Salt Lake Tribune, 8/23/03

    Bush Gifts to the Energy Sector

    EPA enforcement officials were very concerned that the proposed rule—addressing when a company could consider a [electricity generating] facility change “routine maintenance, repair, or replacement” and exempt from [a requirement for a New Source Reveiw (NSR) for emissions cleanup]—could have a negative impact on the [pending DOJ antipollution] cases. The concern was that proposing one specific definition for this exclusion that differed from the way the agency had applied it in the past could affect the cases’ outcome. . . .Also under the rule, companies will now determine whether there is a “reasonable possibility” a facility change will increase emissions enough to trigger NSR—in effect policing themselves. GAO Report on Clean Air Act New Source Reviews 10/22/03

    Bush Polluted  *

    A Bush appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave false and misleading testimony to two U.S. Senate committees when asked whether revisions to air quality rules would threaten current and future lawsuits against companies whose coal- fired electric generation plants have been responsible for “massive” pollution. . .. Electric utility companies that faced air quality lawsuits were among the earliest financial supporters of President Bush’s 2000 campaign. . .

    According to an EPA consultant, violations at 51 coal- fired plants that triggered the NSR lawsuits were responsible for “massive amounts of air pollutants” that were to blame for 5,000 to 9,000 premature deaths and 80,000 to 120,000 asthma attacks every year. "EPA's Smoke Screen," Public Citizen, 10/03

    Trade in the Bush *

    The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.

    Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat. . .

    Killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, conservationists say. Many charge that the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation.  Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post 10/11/03

    Bush Candor *

    In an exclusive interview, Inspector General Tinsley, the EPA’s top watchdog, tells NBC News the agency simply did not have sufficient data to justify such a reassurance.
           In fact, a new report by Tinsley’s office says, at the time, more than 25 percent of dust samples collected before Sept. 18 showed unsafe levels of asbestos. And the EPA had no test results at all on PCBs, dioxins or particulates in the air that can cause respiratory problems.

     Tinsley said, “The EPA did not give the people of New York complete information. It had put together press releases that were more informative than those that it ultimately released.”
           CHANGED PRESS RELEASES
           So what happened? Tinsley’s report charges, in the crucial days after 9/11, the White House changed EPA press releases to “add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.”      Lisa Myers
    NBC NEWS, 9/3/03

     

    Bush: One for Oil *

    It's hailing now against the side of the tent and my fingers are freezing, but I'm thrilled to be here. This land is the last untouched bit of America, and if we develop it we will have robbed our descendants of the chance ever to see our country as it originally was. There is something deeply moving about backpacking through land where humans are interlopers and bears are kings.

    One of those bears, a grizzly, approached as I was preparing lunch, then lumbered away. I'm packing bear spray, a kind of Mace used to fend off grizzlies and polar bears. Walt Audi, a legendary bush pilot here, explained how to use the spray: "If a bear attacks you, just spray yourself in the face, and you won't see it." So it's hard to feel that this a place where humans are in charge. And that is precisely what makes the Arctic refuge so special.  NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF from the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, NY Times 9/2/03

    Eco-Terrorism? *

    The proposed changes in the [Clean Air] act, formally announced yesterday, are so transparently a giveaway to Mr. Bush's corporate allies and so widely unpopular among the officials responsible for air quality in the individual states that they have already assumed a place in the nascent presidential race. Democratic candidates are competing to see who can express more outrage — John Kerry, for instance, calls the changes a " `get out of jail free' card" for polluters. Moderate Republicans are dismayed and embarrassed. The issue will acquire even greater momentum when the new rules are published as a fait accompli in the Federal Register, and a dozen or more states sue in federal court to have them stayed and then overturned.  NY Times Editorial 8/28/03

    NY Eco-Terrorism by Bush? *

     the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed [that] in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse, the agency systematically misled New Yorkers about the risks the resulting air pollution posed to their health. And it did so under pressure from the White House.

    The Bush administration has misled the public on many issues, from the budget outlook to the Iraqi threat. But this particular deception seems, at first sight, not just callous but gratuitous. . . the main danger comes from toxic dust that seeped into buildings and remains in carpets, furniture and air ducts. . . . not just of dioxins but also of asbestos and other dangerous pollutants. . . .under White House direction, the E.P.A. suppressed warnings about indoor pollution. . . [and so]. . .hundreds of cleaning workers and thousands of residents may be suffering chronic health problems.  Paul Krugman, NY Times, 8/26/03

    Environment Protection for Whom?

      At the White House’s direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.

    For example, the inspector general found, EPA was convinced to omit guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and tips on potential health effects from airborne dust containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete.  AP at MSNBC 8/22/03

    Bush's True Color:  Black Smoke

    After more than two years of internal deliberation and intense pressure from industry, the Bush administration has settled on a regulation that would allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries and industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install new anti-pollution devices, according to those involved in the deliberations.

    The exemption would let industrial plants continue to emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere and could save the companies millions, if not billions, of dollars in pollution equipment costs, even if they increase the amounts of pollutants they emit. KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, NY Times, 8/22/03