Bush the Environmentalist?!?

Via Think Progress:

Today Tony Snow said this at his press conference: “contrary to stereotype,” President Bush has been “actively engaged in trying to fight climate change.” He also took issue with a reporter’s comment that the United States has been absent from a global emissions and cap trade program, arguing that the Bush administration has “actually taken the lead on those kinds of innovations.”

How can you take the lead on innovations to curb the threat of something that you won't even admit exists? Yet another example of Bush's double-think; exp. being stay the course for 3 and a half years and then all of a sudden one day never having been stay the course. George Orwell: 1984, great book. It's amazing how relevant that book is today.

Anyways, here's a short summary of the Bush Administrations environmental policies over the last 6 years (and some as governor) that i found in the comment thread.
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Bush’s war on the environment:

Pulled out of the Kyoto agreement on global warming, which was agreed upon by 178 other countries.

Proposes to legalize the release of inadequately treated sewage into waterways while cutting funding for water quality investments(32%) and infrastructure (40%).

Doctored the EPA’s Draft Report on the Environment so it wouldn’t include any mention of the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding the global warming threat.
Proposes to remove regulations on mercury pollution.

Proposed weakening the New Source Review regulation of the Clear Air Act. The changes allow older coal-fired power plants and other facilities to avoid installing pollution controls when they expand or repair existing facilities. According to environmental advocates, just 51 of the power plants subject to new source review enforcement helped cause the premature deaths of 5,500 to 9,000 people each year many from respiratory diseases, and could cause 30,000- pollution related deaths over the next 20 years.

Clear Skies allows more than twice as much S02 for nearly a decade longer (2010 - 2018), than the Clean Air Act currently allows. The plan also allows more than one and a half times as much NOx for nearly a decade longer (2010-2018). This act also allows power plants to emit triple the amount of mercury into the environment.

• More on that: The Republican Neurological Disorder Promotion Act
  

Bush took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Opened 191 million acres of public lands to increased commercial logging (The Health Forest Initiative). After this, he proposed to reverse a federal regulation to protect 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.

Cut $500 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget.

Bush proposed a bill to prevent groups from suing to have an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.

Came out against international efforts to restrict the use of sonar anywhere in the world, especially by the U.S. Navy, even though the sonar poses a threat to ocean wildlife. This decision puts the administration at odds with many European nations as more evidence emerges linking the use of active sonar and the beaching of whales and other ocean mammals.

Revoked rule to reduce the acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water. Proposed to cut $35 million from the national lead poisoning prevention program and refused to regulate mercury (while secretly altering scientific findings as to its danger) through the same tough approach used for other hazardous air pollutants (Bush adopted industry supported rules).

Requested Congress to exempt the Pentagon from environmental laws pertaining to air pollution, toxic waste dumps, and endangered species.

Bush refused to federally fund the continued clean up of a uranium-slag heap in Utah.

Proposes building 63 new nuclear power plants ($4.7 million increase in nuclear power funding), increasing funding in the Coal Research Initiative by $69 million and the Clean Coal Power Initiative by $109 million (60 percent), and seeks to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The AP reports that Bush’s top energy priority as he enters his second term is to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

On October 7, 2002, Bush stated “We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.”
Proposes energy industry tax breaks and subsidies costing $23 billion over the next 10 years. Cut funding for renewable energy resources in 2002 by $190 million, by $35.8 million in 2003, by $137 million in 2004, and the 2005 budget will cut overall energy efficiency and conservation by more than $2 million. Proposes cutting solar energy programs by more than $3 million and biomass by $14 million.

Bush pushed the deadline up indefinitely for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars.
Had his administration manipulate the 2005 cattle grazing report in order to loosen regulations for cattle grazing on over 160 million acres of public lands.

Alcoa, the third largest contributor to the Bush campaign, was allowed by Bush (as governor) to work a loophole into the Texas environmental regulations which allowed Alcoa to emit 60,000 tons of sulfer dioxide each year.

Failed to protect three million acres of the Tongass National Forest from logging. The Tongass has the highest concentration of bald eagles on earth and has already lost 700 square miles to logging with 33 more longing permits pending.

Bush eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.

Eliminated the Wetland Reserve Program. It was designed to encourage and reward farmers for maintaining a wetlands habitat on their property.

Abolished rules mandating energy-saving regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.

Bush plans to have nuclear waste stored at the volcanic Yucca Mountain facility.
Proposes cutting core energy efficiency line items for building by $1.5 million and industrial technologies by $35 million (38 percent).

Bush nominated Linda Fisher - an executive for Monsanto - to the Environmental Protection Agency. Monsanto is one of the largest farming and pesticide biotechnology companies in the world.

Bush cut 28% of government funding for researching cleaner, more efficient automobiles.
Cut government funding to research renewable energy sources by 50%.
Appointed Spencer Abraham to be Secretary of Energy. Here is some information on Spencer Abraham:

- As a former senator from Michigan, Abraham voted to abolish the department that he now leads.
- He opposed research into renewable energy..- Wanted to repeal the federal gas tax.
- Abraham had such a strong anti-environmental record hat the League of Conservation Voters gave him a zero rating.
- Strong supporter of drilling in Alaska
- Received $700,000 from automotive company DaimerChrysler, which is part of the Coalition for Vehicle Choice, a trade group trying to stop an increase in fuel economy standards.
Appointed Gale Norton to be Secretary of the Interior. Here is some information on Gale Norton:- She started her legal career with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative environmental think tank funded by oil companies.
- She has declared the Endangered species act to be Unconstitutional.
- She’s written numerous legal opinions against the National Environmental Protection Act.
- Lobbied for NL Industries (formerly known as National Lead) while it defended itself in lawsuits over children’s exposure to lead paint.
- She helped the state of Alaska challenge an Interior department fisheries law.
- She was national chairwoman of the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates, a group funded by Ford Motor Company and BP Amoco.
Bush appointed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, the former CEO of the now defunct American Automobile Manufacturers Association which lobbied against stricter fuel emissions standards.

Bush passed the “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act” (TERSA) which triggered a firestorm of opposition across the entire spectrum of environmental organizations. Drawing particular alarm is a provision that would end the protection of critical habitat necessary for the survival and recovery of plants and animals. Under the current law, areas designated “essential to the conservation of species” qualify as “critical habitat” and are subject to federal protection. TERSA replaces “critical habitat” with a recovery plan that merely identifies areas that are valuable to the species, but does not mandate any specific federal protection, unlike the Endangered Species ACT (ESA). Moreover, while the current ESA requires that all decisions be based on the “best scientific and commercial information” available, TERSA removes that authority from scientific experts and transfers it to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, whose record consistently favors commercial interests over environmental protection.Bush appointed Susan Dudley as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs which holds sway over federal regulatory agencies like the EPA and helps set regulatory policy for a wide range of issues, from workplace safety to water quality. Here is some background information on Susan Dudley:– Opposed EPA plans to set tougher public health standards for smog.– Opposed lower-polluting cars and SUVs and cleaner gasoline.– Opposed air bags in cars– Opposed stronger regulations for arsenic in drinking water,Proposes to rewrite Clean Water Act regulations, thereby removing 20 million acres of wetlands, streams and other isolated waters from protection under the law.Announced plans to open up Montana’s Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil drilling.

Rescinded a law that safeguarded public access to information about the potential consequences of chemical plant accidents.

Proposed to eliminate marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii.

Proposed to redraw the boundaries of national monuments to allow for oil and gas drilling “outside” of them.

Nominated an advocate for repealing the Endangered Species Act, Bennett Raley, as the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.

Gas industry has stockpiled leases and drilling permits on 34 million acres of public lands in the Rockies, but is only producing oil or gas on 32 percent of that land.

Seeks to exempt industrial laundries from EPA requirements.

Environmentalists have called Bush and co. the most anti-environmental administration ever.
Bush’s 2005 energy Bill:- Extends the “dual-fuel vehicle” loophole giving automakers credit for producing vehicles capable of running on alternative fuel but that almost never do. This provision will increase our gasoline consumption by 10 billion gallons through 2015.
- Does not outline any new strategies for improving mass transit
- Excludes a Renewable Electricity Standard that would have required major electric utilities to gradually increase their use of clean renewable energy such as wind, solar, and bioenergy. Although the renewables standard passed the Senate with bi-partisan support, House leadership stripped it from the final bill.
- Removes an existing requirement that recipients of highly enriched uranium—purchased for producing medical isotopes—commit to converting to the use of low enriched uranium when feasible. This misguided provision would lead to unnecessary shipments of nuclear weapons-usable materials abroad
- Heavily weighted toward the traditional oil, gas, coal and nuclear power industries. The tax title was particularly lopsided in its approach. Of the $14.5 billion tax package, renewable energy and energy efficiency received only $4.5 billion while fossil fuels received $5.6 billion and nuclear power received $1.3 billion.
- Includes a waiver that would protect the chemical makers, which are some of the biggest oil giants in the United States, from all MTBE liability lawsuits filed since September 2003. MTBE is a Dangerous Chemical used in gasoline that has been known to occasionally seep into civilian water supplies. Its powerful turpentine-like taste and odor make water undrinkable. Contamination usually results from leaks in at gasoline stations.

Comment by neopro — October 31, 2006
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This guy did his research... very impressive. From what I know and from the facts above that I've had the time to investigate, everything seems to check out.

Has your elected republican majority stood up to this blatant attack on environmental conservationism? No, they were too busy raising funds for their re-election campaigns to actually be concerned about the direction of our country.