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We believe that the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Administration poses a serious threat to the health and environment of the entire planet. Putting corporate greed above health, the environment and justice, Bush and Cheney are working day and night to make the world a better place for polluters and other industries that destroy and damage our environment. We will regularly post updates about the latest actions and policies of the Bush Administration that endanger public health and our environment. Please use this information to educate yourself and others, and then take action to stop environmental racism and injustice.
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2007 May 2007 5/18/07 Bush has nominated Michael Baroody, industry lobbyist for the powerful National Association of Manufacturers, to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission. If approved by the Senate, Mr. Baroody would be in charge of regulating corporate members of his association that have run up millions of dollars in civil fines for violating the commission’s safety rules affecting millions of consumers. (New York Times) February 2007 2/15/07 U.S. Government’s Top “Environmental” Prosecutor Buys Vacation Home with Oil Lobbyist, Then Let’s Company Delay Pollution Cleanup Nine months before agreeing to let Conoco- Phillips delay a half billion dollar pollution cleanup, the government’s top “environmental” prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company’s top lobbyist. (source: Associated Press) January 2007 1/10/07 Bush lifts oil drilling ban in Alaska’s Bristol Bay President Bush lifted a ban on oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, an area known for its endanger ed whales and the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon. Bush’s action reverses the ban enacted by Congress in 1990 after the huge Exxon Valdez tanker oil spill on the other side of the peninsula in Cook Inlet. (source: Associated Press) 2006 November 2006 11/17/06 Groups Sue Bush Administration for Violating Climate Change Act: A coalition of environmental groups sued the Bush administration for disregarding a congressional order to assess the impact of global warming as required under the Global Change Research Act of 1990. June 2006 6/22/06 WASHINGTON -- The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia." A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." (source: AP) April 2006 4/28/06 WASHINGTON -- As Gas Prices Soar and Oil Companies Make Record Profits, Bush rejects tax on oil companies' windfall profits President Bush on Friday rejected calls to tax oil companies' record profits. (source: CNN) 4/25/06 Washington D.C. - Bush Eases Environmental Rules on Gasoline President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline. (source: Associated Press) March 2006 3/19/06 Court says Bush Administration attempt to evade Clean Air Act is illegal. Clean air advocates who have had little to cheer about for the last five years finally won a big victory. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down as illegal an attempt by the Bush administration to allow power plants and other industrial polluters to evade the Clean Air Act. At issue was a provision of the act known as New Source Review. It requires older power plants to install modern pollution controls when they undergo physical or operational changes that increase harmful emissions. (New York Times) 2005 December 2005 12/14/05 WASHINGTON - EPA Would Ease Pollution Reporting Rules If the Bush administration has its way, some factories won't have to report all the pollution spewed from their smokestacks, making it harder for government scientists to calculate the health risks of the air Americans breathe. (Associated Press) November 2005 11/29/05 MONTREAL - U.S. Rules out Extra Pledges to Fight Global Warming The United States ruled out making extra pledges to fight global warming beyond 2012 on Tuesday, angering environmentalists who accused Washington of blocking a 189-nation conference in Canada. Up to 10,000 delegates are meeting in Montreal, Canada to discuss new ways to fight a build-up of gases released mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars. "The United States is opposed to any such discussions," Watson told a news conference of Canadian proposals to launch talks under the U.N.'s climate convention about new actions to combat global warming beyond 2012. (Reuters) 11/25/05 Greenhouse gas levels highest ever measured There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the last 650,000 years, says a major new study that lets scientists peer back in time at greenhouse gases that can help fuel global warning. By analyzing tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia, a team of European researchers highlights how people – by clearing forests and burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels – are dramatically influencing the buildup of these gases. (Associated Press) October 2005 10/9/05 Bush’s EPA says Lobbyists can help write law The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general said that officials writing an EPA rule appeared to show favoritism to an industry dominated by a major fundraiser for President Bush, but that they broke no laws or policies in doing so. (excerpt from Washington Post story) September 2005 9/15/05 Bush’s US EPA loopholes allow pesticide testing on kids The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules on human testing, which the agency said last week would categorically protect children and pregnant women from pesticide testing, include numerous exceptions, such as one that specifically allows testing of children who have been “abused and neglected” even without permission from parents or guardians. The rules also allow “ethically deficient” research if it is considered crucial “to protect public health.” 9/10/05 Pentagon Drafts “Pre-emptive” Nuke Policy The U.S. Defense Department has written a draft revision of its nuclear operations doctrine that outlines the use of nuclear weapons to pre-empt an enemy's attack with weapons of mass destruction or other non-nuclear scenarios. The draft "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," dated March 15, revised the "discussion of nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations." Other scenarios envisioned in the draft doctrine include nuclear weapons use to counter potentially overwhelming conventional forces, for rapid and favorable war termination on U.S. terms, to demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter enemy use of weapons of mass destruction, and to respond to the use of weapons of mass destruction supplied by an enemy to a "surrogate." (source: Reuters) August 2005 8/31/05 San Francisco - California, New Mexico and Oregon sued the Bush administration Tuesday over the government's decision to allow road building, logging and other commercial ventures on more than 90,000 square miles of untouched forests. In the lawsuit, attorneys general for the three states challenged the US Forest Service's repeal of the Clinton administration's "roadless rule" that banned development on 58.5 million acres of national forest, mostly in western states. The administration's move puts at risk "some of the last, most pristine portions of America's national forests," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "Road building simply paves the way for logging, mining and other kinds of resource extraction." July 2005 7/1/05 Washington - Senate Defeats Move to Stop Nuclear Bomb Study S enate Democrats failed to stop the Energy Department from studying the feasibility of a "bunker buster" nuclear bomb the Bush administration is considering in funds to study the experimental weapon that would penetrate the earth and explode to demolish buried enemy targets. Democrats said it would send a dangerous signal to other countries that the United States was headed toward development of a new class of nuclear weapons, thus encouraging them to develop their own arsenal. May 2005 5/8/05 President Bush has proposed reducing oil imports by increasing the use of nuclear power Bush said in a recent speech that nuclear power was "one of the most promising sources of energy." There is a problem, though: reactors make electricity, not oil. And oil does not make much electricity. Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that studies the economics of oil, said that people who think nuclear power is a way to reduce oil imports are "confusing several issues." Peter A. Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, added, "No one knowledgeable about energy policy would link nuclear power and gasoline prices." (source: NY Times) 5/6/05 Bush Ends Development Ban in Roadless Areas of National Forests The Bush administration ended a 4-year old ban on development in roadless areas of national forests. The move could pave the way for oil and gas drilling, logging, mining and road building in 34.3 million acres of untouched woods. (source: Knight Ridder News Service) March 2005 3/16/05 Day Of Shame: The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate voted 51-49 to approve Bush’s reckless plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is one of the very last pristine and true wilderness areas in the U.S., and is extremely sacred to the Gwich’in indigenous people of the area. Greenaction will join the Gwich’in and many other allies in continuing this fight. February 2005 2/19/05 Scientists say global warming is real, industry to blame Scientists of the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported they have detected the clearest evidence yet that global warming is real – and that human industrial activity is largely responsible for it. Researchers cited a range of evidence that the Earth’s temperatures are rising including:
In response to this new scientific evidence, the Bush administration continued to claim that the science is uncertain. The scientists, however, are certain: “For those who insist that the uncertainties are too great, their argument is no longer tenable. We’ve nailed it,” said Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 2/16/05 Kyoto Protocal to reduce global warming goes into effect, but Bush administration refuses to join worldwide effort. 2/4/05 WASHINGTON -- E.P.A. Accused of a Predetermined Finding on Mercury The
Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general charged on Thursday
that the agency's senior management instructed staff members to arrive
at a predetermined conclusion favoring industry when they prepared a
proposed rule last year to reduce the amount of mercury emitted from
coal-fired power plants. The inspector general's
report, citing anonymous agency staff members and internal e-mail
messages, said the technological and scientific analysis by the agency
was "compromised" to keep cleanup costs down for the utility industry.
The goal of senior management, the report said, was to allow the agency
to say that the utility industry could do just as good a job through
complying with the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" legislation as
it could by installing costly equipment that a stringent
mercury-control rule would require. (source: NY Times) 2004 December 2004 12/17/04 WASHINGTON — Bush Administration to Allow Continued Use of Ozone-Depleting Pesticide The Bush administration announced new rules to allow U.S. farmers who grow tomatoes, strawberries and other crops to continue using methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting pesticide that had been scheduled to be phased out worldwide next year. (source: Associated Press) 12/13/04 Bush Allows harvest of larger, older trees in Northern California They’re just over the lip of a rutted dirt road and down a precipitous slope: scores of conifers scattered along a creek, all slashed with blue paint. They differ from the trees comprising the surrounding forest in that they’re bigger – much bigger, some exceeding 3 feet in diameter. In fact, they’re the last truly large trees in this part of the Salmon River basin. And the blue paint means they’ll be cut soon. This is the Meteor timber sale, one of a series of controversial timber sales authorized by the Bush Administration for the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity and Mendocino national forests, all in northwest California. Biologists consider the northwest forests one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) November 2004 11/9/04 Nuclear Power Industry Sees Signs of a U.S. Revival Buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, whose administration has pushed to expand nuclear power as part of its national energy plan, the nuclear power industry is laying the groundwork to build new plants in the U.S. for the first time in more than two decades. While opposition to new plants is likely to be fierce, the companies and Energy Department hope to win approval for construction from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as early as 2009. (source: Wall Street Journal) 11/3/04 Bush vows to try to win ok for oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Gwich’in Indian Nation appeals for help to stop the drilling and to protect the huge caribou herd and this beautiful wilderness from destruction. October 2004 10/28/04 FBI Investigating Halliburton No-Bid Contract The FBI has begun investigating whether the Defense Department improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton Co., seeking an interview with a top Army contracting officer and collecting documents from several government offices. The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. (source: AP) 10/27/04 Bush’s EPA accepts $2 million from chemical industry The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to accept $2 million from the American Chemistry Council to help fund a study exploring the impact of pesticides and household chemicals on young children, prompting an outcry from environmentalists. (source: Washington Post) 10/1/04 Inspector General Says EPA Rule Aids Polluters In a rebuke of the Bush administration, the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency said that legal actions against major polluters had stalled because of the agency’s decision to revise rules governing emissions at older coal-fired power plants. The inspector general, Nikki L. Tinsley, took direct aim at the administration’s revision of the New Source Review rule, one of the administration’s most prominent – and vilified – environmental initiatives, saying that it makes it easier for power plant operators to postpone or avoid adding technologies that reduce polluting emissions. (source: New York Times) August 2004 8/5/04 More words of (no) wisdom from Bush: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said. July 2004 7/22/04 Halliburton bill to U.S. questioned: Vice President Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton Co. charged the government $2.68 per gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq, while a U.S. government agency did the same job for $1.57 a gallon. Halliburton's oil deliveries cost taxpayers an extra $166.5 million. Halliburton received the noncompetitive oil delivery work contract in May 2003. (source: Associated Press) 7/13/04 Bush Seeks Shift in Logging Rules The Bush Administration proposed scuttling a Clinto-era rule that put nearly 60 million acres of national forest largely off limits to logging, mining or other development in favor of a new system that would leave it to governors to seek greater - or fewer - strictures on road construction in forests. Environmental groups reacted with disappointment and outrage to the announcement. 7/9/04 Bush's Military Records Destroyed! Military payroll records that could have more fully documented President Bush's whereabouts during his service in the Texas Air National Guard in the Vietnam war era were inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon. In a letter responding to a freedom of information request by The Associated Press, the Defense Department said that microfilm containing the pertinent National Guard payroll records was damaged and could not be salvaged. The damaged material included payroll records for the first quarter of 1969 and the third quarter of 1972. "President Bush's payroll records for those two quarters were among the records destroyed," wrote C.Y. Talbott, of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information and Security Review section. "Searches for back-up paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful." (source: AP) June 2004 6/24/04 WASHINGTON Toxic chemical releases rise five percent - Toxic chemical releases into the environment rose 5 percent in 2002, marking only the second such increase reported by the Environmental Protection Agency in nearly two decades, and the first since 1997. (source: Associated Press) 6/16/04 WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate backs Bush on new nuclear weapons The U.S. Senate Tuesday backed the Bush administration's plan to study a new generation of low-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, rejecting concerns that the research could spur an arms race. Voting 55-42, the Senate defeated an amendment pushed by Democrats to slash $36.6 million to study so-called bunker-busting nuclear weapons that would be used to destroy underground facilities as well as smaller nuclear arms with half the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Democrats said just considering the new weapons takes nuclear warfare out of the realm of the unthinkable and encourages adversaries of the United States to develop such weapons. "The specter of nuclear war looms even larger with the ominous statements of senior officials in the Bush administration that they in fact consider these new weapons more 'usable,"' said Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Massachusetts Democrat said the smaller weapons still would kill or injure hundreds of thousands of people and leave vast areas uninhabitable for years to come. Senator Feinstein and other Democrats also said pursuing such weapons would undermine U.S. efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons among other countries. "This country ought to be leading in exactly the other direction," said Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. (source: Reuters) May 2004 5/27/04 WASHINGTON - Eco Rules May Ease In Oil Pinch With pump prices soaring, the Bush administration is considering easing environmental regulations and the permit process for new and expanding refineries to lift gasoline production, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans said. Evans told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that the Bush administration is prepared to "take all the steps we can" to increase supplies. Options under consideration, he said, include easing environmental requirements to use different gasoline blends for to reduce air pollution and easing the permit process for building new refineries or expanding old ones. Environmentalists have resisted those moves, and may see Evans' proposal as using the rise in gas prices to achieve policy changes the administration sought long before the current oil squeeze. In another development in federal environmental policy, the Army has told base commanders to forego some environmental programs in order to save money for the war on terrorism. (source: story by CBS/AP) April 2004 4/5/04 WASHINGTON - White House Minimized the Risks of Mercury in Proposed Rules, Scientists Say While working with Environmental Protection Agency officials to write regulations for coal-fired power plants over several recent months, White House staff members played down the toxic effects of mercury, hundreds of pages of documents and e-mail messages show. (source: New York Times) March 2004 3/31/04 237 Specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice in 125 separate public appearances: See the database posted by Congressman Waxman at www.reform.house.gov/min February 2004 2/24/04 U.S. Opens Fraud Probe of Halliburton Washington - Pentagon officials said that they have opened a criminal fraud investigation of Halliburton, the giant Texas oil-services concern, in an inquiry that will examine the "potential overpricing" of fuel taken into Iraq by one of the company's subcontractors. Halliburton is the company tied to Vice-President Dick Cheney. (source: New York Times) 2/19/04 Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad. The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a 38-page report accusing the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases. "Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front," the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies." The letter was signed by luminaries from an array of disciplines. Among the Nobel winners are David Baltimore and Harold Varmus, both biomedical researchers, and Leon M. Lederman, Norman F. Ramsey and Steven Weinberg, who are physicists. According to the report, the Bush administration has misrepresented scientific consensus on global warming, censored at least one report on climate change, manipulated scientific findings on the emissions of mercury from power plants and suppressed information on condom use. The report asserts that the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests. Dr. Sidney Drell, an emeritus professor of physics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who was not a signatory to the statement, said, "I am concerned that the scientific advice coming into this administration seems to me very narrow." Dr. Drell has advised the government on issues of national security for some 40 years and has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, including those of Presidents Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson. "The input from individuals whose views are not in the main line of their policy don't seem to be sought or welcomed," he said. (source: New York Times) 2/6/04 Bush nominates former mining and cattle lobbyist for Ninth Circuit appeals court Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee took up Bush's nomination of William G. Myers III, longtime lobbyist for ranching and mining interests, to a seat on the federal appeals court that covers nine Western states. Myers' speeches often used the strong language of large ranchers and other Western landowners who maintain that they suffer oppression at the hands of federal environmental regulators. Myers once said that environmental regulations were akin to King George's tyranny of the American colonies. As the Interior Department's chief lawyer, his current post, Myers once drafted a ruling that upheld a regulatory change allowing a foreign-owned gold mine on American Indian land in California. A federal judge later ruled that Myers' opinion misconstrued the "clear mandate" of federal law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has had numerous cases involving the environment and property rights and has long been a target of conservative critics. (source: New York Times) 2/5/04 Justice Department: Did Cheney's Halliburton bribe for Nigerian natural gas project? The Justice Department is looking into allegations that a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. was involved in the payment of $180 million in bribes to win a contract for a natural gas project in Nigeria. The $4 billion Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Plant was built in the 1990's by a consortium that included Kellogg, Brown & Root during a time when Vice President Dick Cheney headed Halliburton. The Justice Department and the SEC are reviewing the allegations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Halliburton is already under fire for its handling of contracts related to the war in Iraq. (source: Associated Press) January 2004 1/23/04 Bush Administration to open North Slope area of Alaska to drilling. Interior Slope to oil and gas development. Some of the drilling could occur in areas important for migratory birds, whales and wildlife. The area is to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where President Bush wants to open a 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to drilling as one of his top energy priorities. The Senate has rejected drilling there. Environmentalists say the management plan threatens the health of Arctic tundra, ponds, and lakes that are home to wildlife and migratory birds and provide a vital subsistence hunting and fishing ground for native Alaskans.Secretary Gale Norton agreed to a plan for opening most of an 8.8 million-acre swath of Alaska's North. (source: AP) 2003 December 2003 Shown is a 1990 photo of the Tongass National Forest on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. The patches of bare land show where clear-cutting has occurred. (source: Associated Press) 12/3/03 Bush Administration Proposes Easing Rules on Mercury Emissions The Bush Administration is proposing that mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants should not be regulated in the same way as some of the most toxic air pollutants, reversing a stance on air pollution control taken by the Clinton Administration in 2000. The change in planned regulations for mercury emissions from power plants is the first big policy decision by Michael O. Leavitt,who took over as the EPA's administrator last month. The agency is suggesting that mercury emissions be removed from the most stringent regulations of the Clean Air Act that have been used to limit the most toxic air pollutants. Mercury, a known neurotoxin, accumulates in the environment and builds up in the tissue of fish and the species, including humans,that eat them. It is considered particularly hazardous for pregnant women because of the developmental effects on fetuses. In November, the EPA's chief of enforcement told his staff that the agency would stop pursuing Clean Air Act enforcement cases against coal-burning plants. (source: New York Times story by Jennifer Lee) November 2003 11/6/03 Bush's EPA drops probes of polluting plants; move prompted by revision of Clean Air Act The Bush administration has dropped enforcement actions against dozens of coal-fired power plants that were under investigation for violating the Clean Air Act and allegedly spewing thousands of tons of illegal pollution into the air, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday. The Bush administration had said it would vigorously pursue the enforcement actions, which were launched by the Clinton administration. However, the Bush administration recently eased a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires companies to install modern pollution controls when they build new plants or expand or modernize old ones. Under the new policy, the alleged release of pollution that sparked the enforcement would be legal. In another change of environmental safeguards, Bush administration officials have drafted a rule that would significantly narrow the scope of the Clean Water Act, stripping many wetlands and streams of federal pollution controls and making them available to be filled for commercial development. The rule, spelled out in an internal document says that Clean Water Act protection would no longer be provided to "ephemeral washes or streams" that do not have groundwater as a source. Streams that flow for less than six months a year would also lose protection. The impact would be greater in California and other parts of the arid West, where many streams flow only seasonally or after rain or snow melts. 11/6/03 Congress caves in to Bush on new nuclear weapon - - House and Senate negotiators agreed Wednesday to give President Bush most of the money he had sought to study new types of nuclear weapons, as critics warned the move could spark a new nuclear arms race. The funds were approved as part of a $27.3 billion bill funding energy and water programs next year, which also includes spending for a controversial nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert that opponents have vowed to block. (source: Reuters) October 2003 10/31/03 Bush Administration Opens Up Oil and Gas Drilling In Utah Wilderness Areas - U.S. government to auction off oil and gas leases in scenic parts of Utah - The Bush administration will allow oil and gas drilling on land in the state of Utah once reviewed for possible wilderness protection, and environmentalists said Thursday that other areas may follow. In a lease sale next month, the Bureau of Land Management will auction rights to drill for oil and gas on more than 6,800 hectares (17,000 acres), mostly in the Book Cliffs region of eastern Utah, an area that a 1999 review under the Clinton administration had determined could warrant wilderness designation. (source: Associated Press) 10/17/03 EPA won't restrict sludge fertilizer, despite possible cancer-causing dioxins Farmers and others who use sewage sludge as fertilizer will not face government restrictions over the possible cancer-causing dioxins it may contain. The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it would not regulate dioxins in land-applied sludge because it believes there to be minimal danger from dioxins, a class of organic chemicals that the agency's studies have shown pose a possible cancer risk in humans. "The risk of new cancer cases from this source is small, is substantially smaller than other chemicals we regulate," said Geoffrey Grubbs, who heads the EPA Office of Water's science and technology programs. "We just do not see a basis or justification for further regulation of this particular set of contaminants in sludge." (source: San Francisco Chronicle)
10/11/03 Bush Administration is proposing far reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture or import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries (source: San Francisco Chronicle) 10/11/03 Bush's Interior Department has overturned a Clinton administration opinion that reduced the amount of land for waste from mining operations, rolling back another pro-environment decision made under Bush's predecessor. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) September 2003 9/15/03 IT IS NOW APPARENT that the Bush administration misled the public about the health dangers posed by the plume rising from New York's World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Within days of the explosions that killed nearly 3,000 people, the White House jeopardized thousands more by pressuring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conceal the truth about the dangerous air quality. Professor emeritus Thomas Cahill led a UC Davis study of the site in the weeks after the attacks at the request of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. Samples found the air there polluted with concrete dust, fine metals, glass particles, asbestos and other fibers that can be sucked into the lungs and bloodstream. Nearly a year after the attack, 78 percent of the 3,500 on-site workers examined had lung, ear, nose and throat problems. Now medical experts worry that others among the 40,000 who aided in the recovery and cleanup may face severe, long-term health consequences. "I think the EPA should have known . . . (it) had its own reports saying it could be dangerous," said Cahill. But, even without empirical data, the air smelled and tasted bad. Yet the EPA assured the public the air posed no health risk, though it lacked information to make such a determination. Even the agency's inspector general now calls those assurances misleading. Rightly, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is blocking the appointment of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as the new EPA administrator until the White House takes responsibility for ordering the EPA to abandon its mission of protecting the public. Sadly, the White House is eroding credibility, increasing suspicion that it's willing to manufacture and manipulate information -- even if it means risking the health of its own citizens. (source: SF Chronicle, 15 September 2003) 9/10/03 WASHINGTON - Bush plan to simplify logging approval on track. Managers of the nation's 155 national forests are getting more leeway to approve logging and other commercial projects with less formal environmental review under a Bush administration plan. Environmentalists accused the administration of bowing to the timber and paper industries and weakening the standards for protecting endangered or threatened species. The plan would overhaul application of the landmark 1976 National Forest Management Act. The final rules would leave intact some of the most controversial proposals from an earlier version released in November. Like that version, the final plan would give regional managers of the Forest Service more discretion to approve logging, drilling and mining operations without having to conduct formal scientific investigations known as environmental impact statements. Officials argued that the plan maintains and even strengthens environmental protections, while increasing flexibility for forest managers. But environmentalists denounced the proposal as a giveaway to business interests, which want to increase commercial activity in national forests. "President Bush has repeatedly shown that he doesn't think science should play much of a role in the environmental policies of his administration. The revised forest-planning regulations cut out scientific assessment to meet the needs of timber, oil and gas industries," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, an advocacy group. Industry groups have applauded the regulations, saying the administration is returning common sense to forest planning. (source: Oakland Tribune, 10 September 2003) 9/3/03 Washington -- The Bush administration has quietly allowed the sale of properties contaminated with PCBs, reversing a 25-year-old policy aimed at protecting people from exposure to the highly toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency said the change would speed the redevelopment, and possibly even the cleanup, of former military installations and other hazardous sites. Environmental activists and congressional Democrats warned that it removed an important incentive to clean contaminated properties and could even result in some properties' being redeveloped while still tainted. Under the old rules, said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the federal government in effect oversaw the transfer of PCB-contaminated properties because the properties could not be sold until the seller proved that the PCBs were gone. Now, she warned, that protection seemed to be lost. "I can't believe they would ease the rules around one of the most persistent and dangerous chemicals known to mankind," Boxer said. "This administration is really waging war against our health." PCBs were used for decades in electronic equipment, paint, dyes and many other industrial and commercial products. Congress considered them so dangerous to humans that they were the only chemical substances specifically banned as part of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, or Superfund act. (source: SF Chronicle, 9 September 2003) August 2003 8/27/03 WASHINGTON - In one of its most far-reaching environmental actions, the Bush administration today adopted a final rule that will allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries and industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install costly new anti-pollution devices. The measure covers 17,000 power plants, refineries, pulp and paper mills, chemical plants and other industrial facilities. The new rule, for which industries have lobbied the Bush administration for two years, could save them billions of dollars in costs. Explaining their rationale for the rule, administration officials said it would clarify an otherwise subjective standard and allow plants to modernize more easily, thus leading to greater efficiencies. But critics said that it rolled back an important section of the landmark Clean Air Act and would lead to significantly more pollution. Several environmental organizations and states attorney generals vowed to take the Environmental Protection Agency to court to try to stop it from taking effect. The rule allows industrial facilities to avoid installing pollution-control devices when they replace equipment - even if the upgrade increases pollution - as long as the cost of the replacement is less than 20 percent of the cost of essential production equipment. That is, if a plant wanted to replace a boiler, as long as that boiler cost less than 20 percent of the cost of the entire production unit - the boiler, turbine, generator and other parts that convert coal into electricity - it would not have to install pollution controls. (source: New York Times) 8/8/03 Bush Orders Speed-up of energy extraction in the west The Bush Administration directed government land managers to REMOVE environmental and procedural obstacles that are slowing development of oil and gas resources in several areas of the West with a high potential for energy production. Oil industry representatives applauded the policy changes, which they say will streamline the bureaucracy involved in energy production on federal lands. But environmental groups accused the Bush administration of sacrificing environmental quality in its effort to boost energy production in government-managed areas. The new policies, which take effect immediately and do not require congressional approval, are the latest in a series of administrative initiatives aimed at increasing oil and gas production on federal lands. The policies are directed at areas managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, Wyoming's Powder River and Green River basins, Utah's Uinta Basin, Colorado's Piceance Basin and New Mexico's San Juan Basin. The new policies direct land managers to allow companies to make up for environmental damage in the areas with the highest energy potential by improving the environment elsewhere. The new policies also give land managers the option to review existing leases for oil and gas drilling and REDUCE existing requirements to protect the environment. (excerpt from Los Angeles Times) July 2003 7/3/03 WASHINGTON - Judge Voids Federal Cleanup Plan for Wastes at Bomb Plants The Energy Department's plan for cutting billions of dollars and several years off the bomb-waste cleanup at three government nuclear reservations is illegal, a federal judge has ruled, because it would leave some of the wastes in shallow burial despite Congress's prescription that they can be safely disposed of only in a deep "geologic" repository. The radioactive wastes are in tanks, many already rusting, at a reservation in Hanford, Wash., another near Aiken, S.C., and a third in Idaho. 7/1/03 Washington -- EPA holding back data on clean air bill; Senate plan challenges Bush's proposals The Environmental Protection Agency for months has withheld key findings of its analysis showing that a Senate plan to combat air pollution would be more effective in reducing harmful pollutants -- and only marginally more expensive -- than would President Bush's Clear Skies initiative for power plant emissions. The Clear Skies proposal is designed to reduce power plant emissions over the next 20 years. A centerpiece of Bush's environmental policy, its passage could burnish his 2004 re-election credentials. But the president's plan does not address carbon dioxide emissions, which many scientists consider an important greenhouse gas that may contribute to the Earth's warming. Bush's stand has drawn sharp criticism on several fronts, and a bipartisan group of senators has proposed an alternative bill that would limit carbon dioxide emissions. Unreleased information from an EPA internal analysis concludes that the competing bill would provide health benefits substantially superior to those envisioned under Clear Skies. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, has a carbon dioxide-reduction plan that can be carried out at "negligible" cost to industry. The presentation also said Carper's bill by 2020 would result in 17, 800 fewer premature deaths from power plant air pollution than would Clear Skies. That would save $140 billion per year in health benefits -- about $50 billion more than Clear Skies. (Excerpted from story by Guy Gugliotta, Eric Pianin, Washington Post) June 2003 6/19/03 Report by the E.P.A. Leaves Out Data on Climate Change The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs. The report, commissioned in 2001 by the agency's administrator, Christie Whitman, was intended to provide the first comprehensive review of what is known about various environmental problems, where gaps in understanding exist and how to fill them. The 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. Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion. (source: New York Times) May 2003 5/21/03 WASHINGTON - Outgoing EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman has left a legacy of polluted water, dirty air and unhealthy communities. As US EPA administrator Christie Whitman announced her resignation, the truth is that her agency for promoted the weakening of critical health and environmental protections. Whitman's credibility had been damaged beyond repair by the administration's decision to block tougher standards for arsenic in drinking water and to abandon the Kyoto global warming agreement. Environmental groups have subsequently criticized Whitman's agency for dismantling an array of longstanding environmental laws. During the past two years, EPA has signed off on a rule allowing polluters to dump industrial waste into waterways and proposed a Clean Air Act change that would allow the nation's dirtiest power plants to expand. The agency has also cut the number of toxic cleanups in half and dramatically reduced its enforcement of pollution control laws, and is currently considering a Clean Water Act change that would remove 60 percent of streams from protection under the law. (source: www.commondreams.org, May 21, 2003) 5/21/03 EPA Chief Quits, Polluters Influence to Grow Even More Governor Christine Todd Whitman stepped down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency today, praising President Bush for his commitment to "innovative, effective" environmental policies in her farewell note. But rumor has it that Mrs. Whitman may have finally had enough of the stranglehold that the White House and its allies in the energy lobby have placed on the EPA. The White House has scheduled a meeting for later this month to decide how much further it will go to weaken Clean Air laws that apply to power plants and refineries. The EPA has proposed rules that would allow these industries to upgrade old units and increase emissions without installing modern pollution controls. (source: Eric V. Schaeffer/www.tompaine.com, see complete article) 5/20/03 EPA Administrator Christie Whitman resigns - will Bush appoint someone even worse? Whitman was considered a "moderate" by many, although she stated she had no disputes with President Bush on his (anti) environmental policies. It is now feared that Bush will appoint a boldly pro-industry, pro-polluter advocate to the nation's top environmental position. 5/4/03 NY Times Editorial - The End Of Wilderness From the beginning, President Bush has been far more interested in exploiting the public lands for commercial purposes than in protecting their environmental values. On matters ranging from snowmobiles in Yellowstone to roadless areas in the national forests, his administration has tried steadily to chip away at safeguards put in place by the Clinton administration - largely in an effort to help the oil, gas, timber and mining industries, and often in cavalier disregard for environmental reviews mandated by law. Now comes another devastating blow: The revelation that his Department of the Interior is no longer interested in recommending any of the millions of acres under its jurisdiction for permanent wilderness protection. Complete editorial April 2003 4/24/03 US back in nuclear bomb-making business The United States says it has regained the capability to make nuclear weapons for the first time in 14 years and has resumed production of plutonium parts for bombs. The Energy Department's announcement on Tuesday marks a symbolic and operational milestone in rebuilding America's nuclear weapons complex, which began a long retrenchment in the late 1980s as the Cold War ended and the toll of environmental damage from bomb production became known. Under a Bush Administration plan, the Energy Department will begin limited production of plutonium parts for the country's stockpile of nuclear weapons and begin laying plans for a new factory that could produce parts for hundreds of weapons a year. The Energy Department's previous Rocky Flats site in Colorado was shut down after serious violations of environmental laws and the FBI raided the plant. (source: Los Angeles Times) 4/12/03 WASHINGTON - The Interior Department wants to limit Bureau of Land Management lands eligible for wilderness protection to 23 million acres nationwide, a figure environmental groups say leaves millions of acres vulnerable to development. The department told Congress on Friday that it intended to halt all reviews of its Western land holdings for new wilderness protection and to withdraw that protected status from about three million acres in Utah. Suspending wilderness reviews would limit the amount of land held by the bureau eligible for wilderness protection at 22.8 million acres. Congress could order additional areas protected. (source: New York Times) 4/3/03 Houston, Texas - Cheney's "ex" firm Halliburton Rocked By Asbestos Claims, Close To Settling Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) today said it is close to an agreement in principle with plaintiffs' attorneys representing more than 300,000 claimants that will resolve all of the asbestos-related personal injury claims against the company. Company officials stated that the transaction is not complete yet and if it is achieved it would still be subject to financing, board approval, and court approval, none of which can be assured. However, the company outlined tentative terms including saying it would involve as much as $2.8 billion in cash payments and up to 60 million shares of Halliburton common stock. (source: Halliburton website) 4/3/03 SF Chronicle Editorial: At war with the environment? For decades, the military has heeded federal pollution and wildlife laws on 25 million acres of bases, ports and airfields. The admirals and generals grudgingly agreed to steps such as cleaning up firing ranges or avoiding tank maneuvers in bird-nesting areas. But the Defense Department now wants to use the Iraq war to exempt itself from these environmental rules. At stake are endangered species protections, cleanups of toxic rocket fuel, ocean tests that may jeopardize marine mammals, clean air laws and other hazardous waste regulations. It's a new form of shock and awe, aimed at the outdoors. Complete text... March 2003 3/7/03 Houston - Halliburton Wins Contract For Iraq Oil Firefighting A Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) has won the contract to oversee any firefighting operations at Iraqi oilfields after any U.S.-led invasion, a Defense Department source said on Thursday. KBR was widely viewed by many in the oilfield services industry as the likely candidate to oversee firefighting in Iraq's oilfields. Halliburton does extensive logistic support work for the U.S. military. Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000. A possible beneficiary of Thursday's deal is oilwell firefighting company Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc., with which Halliburton has had an alliance since 1995. A Halliburton spokeswoman declined comment and referred all questions to the Defense Department. (source: Reuters) 3/5/03 Washington - Military Seeks Exemptions on Harming Environment The Defense Department is asking for broad exemptions from environmental regulations in an expanded version of a bill that was defeated last year in the Senate. The proposed legislation, introduced today by the White House, would give the military more discretion in activities that affect marine mammals and endangered species. In particular, the military is asking for exemptions from sections from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which officials said would give needed flexibility to sonar and underwater bombing exercises. In contrast, the last version of the bill gave limited exemptions for small numbers of marine mammals in specified regions. Environment groups have criticized military sonar exercises over the last several years for beaching whales, in a few cases because of burst eardrums. The Pentagon also wants to override current regulations that govern the disposal of hazardous waste and the cleanup of contaminated sites. Specifically, the bill excludes explosives and munitions from the solid waste that is governed by environmental regulations if it is hazardous. (source: New York Times story by Jennifer Lee) February 2003 2/14/03 GOP plan would revive use of nuclear arms A group of House Republicans proposed a fundamental shift in America's nuclear weapons strategy on Thursday, saying the GOP would push for the design and manufacture of a new generation of warheads, a more aggressive policy on their use and steps that would make it easier to resume nuclear testing. The group of 23 lawmakers, as members of the policy committee that helps set the House legislative agenda, specifically called for the repeal of a decade-old law that prohibits the development of smaller, low-yield weapons of less than 5 kilotons. The panel, known as the House Policy Committee, also urged that the U.S. government be allowed to initiate pre-emptive nuclear attacks against hostile nations with caches of biological or chemical weapons. It called upon the government to rebuild industrial sites for manufacturing key nuclear components and to speed up preparations for a resumption of underground testing after a 10-year moratorium. Word that Republicans were considering such a fundamental change in nuclear policy -- as reported by The Chronicle on Wednesday -- has prompted angry opposition from some Democratic lawmakers and nuclear experts who warn that introducing so-called "low-yield" weapons would have dangerous international repercussions. This proposal, which has been mentioned by Bush administration officials previously, has been harshly criticized by some lawmakers. The 'Unthinkable' In a letter to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote "a first use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. should be unthinkable . . . and responding to a nonnuclear attack with nuclear weapons would violate the principle of proportionate response that has been a central tenet of just war and U.S. military tradition since the birth of our nation." Feinstein added that such a "provocative posture . . . may well provoke the very nuclear proliferation activities we seek to prevent." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) 2/4/03 Bush Administration Acts to OK More Logging in Sierra Nevada Forests The Bush Administration is acting to overturn a Clinton-era management plan for the 11 national forests of the Sierra Nevada, replacing the conservation-based approach with one that would significantly accelerate logging. The possible torpedoing of the Sierra Nevada Framework Plan was revealed in a document leaked to environmental organizations by a "concerned inside source." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) January 2003 1/31/03 Decrease in Polluters' Penalties Civil and criminal penalties for breaking federal environmental laws have dropped significantly since President Bush took office, according to Environmental Protection Agency data. Civil penalties fell by nearly half to $55 million, according to the EPA data, and criminal penalties dropped by more than one-third to $62 million. Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who released the data without EPA's consent, said "The numnbers show an extremely disturbing trend towards weaker enforcement over the last two years." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) 1/30/03 Bush Administration Seeks Waivers on International Pesticide Ban According to a report in the New York Times, the Bush administration is moving to help industries keep using methyl bromide, a pesticide that is set to be banned under an international agreement to restore the Earth's protective ozone layer, several government officials say. Methyl bromide is a toxic gas that breaks down in the atmosphere, and the bromine it contains attacks ozone molecules, which shield the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. 1/18/03 U.S. May Open Oil Reserve in Alaska to Development The Bush administration today proposed opening up part of the nation's largest remaining block of unprotected public land to oil and gas development. The proposal affects nearly nine million acres of the Alaska North Slope in the government's National Petroleum Reserve. Home to distinctive wildlife and tundra, the land is near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which the administration still hopes to win the necessary Congressional approval to open up to oil drilling. (source: New York Times) 1/13/03 Pentagon to Seek Exemptions from Environmental Laws The Pentagon plans to ask Congress next month for relief from environmental regulations that protect endangered species and critical habitats on millions of acres of military training ranges across the country, saying those controls impede crucial exercises and combat readiness. Defense officials said last week in interviews that their plan is designed to strike a "common sense" balance between environmental stewardship and wartime readiness. But what DuBois and other Pentagon officials consider "common sense" solutions strike environmental groups as an assault on six major environmental laws, from the Endangered Species Act to the Clean Air Act. "The essence of what they're saying is, national defense requires destroying what it is they're trying to defend," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Washington-based environmental group. "And for the military on environmental issues to say 'trust us,' given their horrendous record, is insane." Both sides describe the stakes in a looming battle on Capitol Hill as high. Vast expanses of military land, required for highly mobile combat training and bombing practice, contain some of the most pristine natural habitats in the United States, home to more than 300 federally protected plant and animal species. (source: The Washington Post Company) 1/10/03 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration opened the way today for a redefinition of federal rules that could remove obstacles to development on millions of acres of isolated wetlands historically protected under the Clean Water Act. Inviting public comment on the shaping of new rules, the administration said it was acting in response to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that limited the scope of the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction over isolated wetlands. But in contrast to the Clinton administration, which interpreted that opinion very narrowly, the Bush administration signaled its willingness to consider a much broader approach that could ultimately remove from federal jurisdiction up to 20 percent of the country's wetlands. (source: New York Times) 2002 December 2002 12/29/02 WASHINGTON DC -- White House Budget Office Thwarts EPA Warning on Asbestos-Laced Insulation The Environmental Protection Agency was on the verge of warning millions of Americans that their attics and walls might contain asbestos-contaminated insulation. But, at the last minute, the White House intervened, and the warning has never been issued. The agency's refusal to share its knowledge of what is believed to be a widespread health risk has been criticized by a former EPA administrator under two Republican presidents, a Democratic U.S. senator and physicians and scientists who have treated victims of the contamination. "When the government comes across this kind of information and doesn't tell people about it, I just think it's wrong, unconscionable, not to do that. Your first obligation is to tell the people living in these homes of the possible danger," said Former EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus, who worked for Presidents Nixon and Reagan. (Source: St Louis Post-Dispatch/Andrew Schneider) 12/15/02 Read
San Francisco Chronicle column on Bush, Cheney and the Oil Politics: This darned democracy is in the wrong
place November 2002 11/27/02 11/27/02
Bush Rules Could Speed Up Commercial Forest Projects The Bush Administration is poised to release new rules as soon as today to speed logging and other development in the nation's forests by weakening a requirement that the Forest Service must maintain viable populations of sensitive wildlife. Environmentalists, who have obtained draft copies of the proposed rules, say the regulations will gut the 1976 National Forest Management Act, which required the agency to write a plan for each national forest to protect species that are not threatened or endangered by whose populations are considered sensitive. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) 11/23/02 11/22/02 11/22/02 11/19/02 In the Oct. 21 memo to members of the Nuclear Weapons Council, Defense Undersecretary Edward Aldridge said, "It would ... be desirable to assess the potential benefits that could be obtained from a return to nuclear testing with regard to weapon safety, security, and reliability." A leading arms control specialist, Daryl Kimball, said the memo was another sign the Bush administration is moving toward a resumption of nuclear weapons tests, a step that would probably generate an international outcry. When the tests ended, the United States said it was confident it could manage and maintain its stockpile of thousands of nuclear warheads through computer simulations and "sub-critical" tests that do not produce nuclear explosions. The Bush administration has asked Congress for money to improve the readiness of the nuclear test sites and to explore the idea of bunker-busting weapons. U.S. officials say the administration has not made any decision to resume nuclear tests. But the administration has abandoned its predecessor's commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear tests in perpetuity. October 2002 10/10/02 10/1/02 September 2002 9/27/02 The White House says it is trying to cut red tape and speed decisions on important projects. Administration officials say environmental reviews often take too long, slowing efforts to reduce congestion by building roads or cut the risk of wildfires by thinning forests. But environmentalists see an effort to increase logging, oil drilling and other development by weakening the act, a landmark law that requires detailed environmental impact reports and extensive public comment on all major government decisions. They say the attempt to water down the law is part of a broad attack by the Bush administration on environmental protection. More... August 2002 8/28/02 8/26/02
8/22/02 President Bush ignited a political conflagration today, announcing a new proposal that would increase logging in federal forests, allegedly as a means of reducing wildfire risk. The Bush plan would limit environmental reviews and legal challenges to logging plans on 190 million acres of federal forest land. This announcement is a total capitulation to the logging industry, which contributed heavily to Bush's election campaign. Profits first, healthy planet second: U.S. ADOPTS "DEFENSIVE" STRATEGY FOR EARTH SUMMIT. The U.S. is adopting a "defensive and conservative" strategy around the upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africe, and will oppose any doings that will effect international agreements on trade. July 2002 The Bush Attack on American Wilderness The Bush Administration and its backers in multi-national oil and gas conglomerates are planning to violate the unspoiled special places of America's Redrock Wilderness, 9 million acres of spectacular canyons, plateaus, and forests in southern Utah. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, both former heads of oil companies and major energy investors, have made the destruction of wilderness for the benefit of multinational oil companies the first priority of the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies. According to the Wilderness Society, the government's own figures show that the maximum amount of drilling in the Redrock Wilderness and a number of national monuments would provide enough oil to meet only 15 days of US demand. Check out the complete timeline and background. 7/24/02 7/4/02 7/1/02 The cuts, imposed because the cleanup fund is hundreds of millions of dollars short of the amount needed to keep the program on schedule, mean that work is likely to grind to a halt on some of the most seriously polluted sites in the country. The administration wants to reduce the payments from the fund by covering fewer sites. To do that it would shift the costs of further work to the government's general accounts, paid for by all taxpayers. Congressional critics have said this amounts to abandoning the precept that "the polluter pays," on which the Superfund program was founded. Like all sites covered by the Superfund program, the 33 that are targeted for reductions are among the most contaminated grounds in the country and pose some level of health and environmental hazards to their communities. The report makes clear that under the administration's approach the costs of cleaning up these sites would eventually shift to all taxpayers, and that in the meantime the whole program would be slowed down.It also shows that the administration is putting less money into continuing 54 long-term remediation projects around the country. June 2002 6/22/02 6/14/02 HOUSTON - One day after the Bush/Cheney U.S. "Environmental Protection" Agency proposed weakening clean air protections on more than 1,700 old power plants, refineries and other polluters, President Bush is travelling to one of America's smoggiest city to raise money. Home to a number of energy giants, including Enron, Houston is currently violating Clean Air Act limits for asthma-causing ground level ozone. In the last three years, Houston residents have been exposed to ozone smog more often and at higher concentrations than residents of any other city in the United States. Yesterday's announced plan would weaken "New Source Review," an important Clean Air Act program that requires antiquated power plants and factories to install modern pollution-control equipment when they expand. The proposal from the Bush EPA would create loopholes so that some old facilities will be able to increase pollution without installing modern pollution fighting technology. 6/6/02 6/4/02 6/3/02 May 2002 5/31/02 The American Lung Association announced that more than half of all Americans breathe polluted air that can damage their health because the government doesn't fully enforce clean air laws. The group said that nearly 400 counties in the U.S. have smog levels above the legal limits, and that most are in California. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle stated his belief that Enron broke the law while manipulating electricity supply and prices during the California energy crisis. Republican Rep. Mary Bono said, "We now have reason to believe that illegal acts took place." The Bush Administration had an extremely close relationship with scandal-plagued Enron. The Bush Administration announced it will allow new mining to resume on nearly one million acres of southwestern Oregon's Siskiyou region, one of the most diverse ecological habitats in the United States. The decision to cancel a two-year moratorium on new claims opens the area to more prospectors, many of whom build shacks on national forest and Bureau of Land Management land and use giant gasoline-powered dredges to suck steam beds in search of gold. This area has 15 wild rivers tumbling through forested canyons and more than 280 plants unknown anywhere else on Earth. (Los Angeles Times) April 2002 President Bush celebrated Earth Day by proclaiming, "If you own your own land, every day is Earth Day." Bush was photographed hammering nails into a tree - not most peoples' idea of a positive Earth Day activity. EPA Ombudsman Robert Martin resigned in disgust, citing his inability to independently investigate cases where the EPA mishandled Superfund sites. His resignation came after Christine Whitman moved to disband Martin's office. Martin's files and computers had been confiscated, and the locks were changed on his office. The United States Senate voted to reject plans promoted by Bush, Cheney and their oil industry friends to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Despite the Senate's rejection of these reckless oil drilling plans, Bush vowed to continue his efforts to drill for oil in this beautiful Arctic Wilderness, which is sacred to the Gwich'in Indian Nation. March 2002 Public interest groups and many elected officials complain to the president that all but one of the 65 people who met with Deputy Energy Secretary Francis Blake to discuss clean air rules represented energy companies or industry groups. Energy Department spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said, "The notion there's something improper about Energy Department officials meeting with energy experts is absurd.", and that campaign contributions were "not relevant." February 2002 The World Resources Institute announced that Bush's new global warming plan will increase greenhouse gas emissions by 14%, and is laden with misleading statistics. The plan calls for voluntary emissions reporting. January 2002 The Bush administration is criticized by elected officials and public interest groups for tailoring its energy plan to benefit Enron. For example, Rep. Waxman said he found 17 different policies in the energy plan that were either advocated by Enron or benefited Enron. United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Christine Whitman is accused of conflict of interest by one of her own staff. EPA Ombudsman Robert J. Martin had opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost. Martin has filed a lawsuit to prevent being muzzled by Whitman, whose husband is involved with Citigroup. 2001 December 2001 Just after Christmas, the Bush administration overturns a ban on awarding contracts to companies that repeatedly violate environmental laws. November 2001 Rebecca Watson is nominated by Bush as the assistant secretary for land and minerals management for the Department of the Interior. Watson gained favor by representing logging and mining industries. Attorney General John Ashcroft announces a reduction in the Justice Department's environmental enforcement. October 2001 The Bureau of Land Management disregards management rules for several national monuments to allow for mining. No public notice is given. The Department of the Interior endorses an open-pit gold mine near El Centro, California that would devastate the environment and desecrate an area sacred to the Quechan Indians. The Kyoto Protocol is agreed upon by 160 nations, while the U.S. calls it unworkable. September 2001 The Bush administration suffers its first defeated environmental nomination. Donald Schregardus, Director of Ohio EPA, withdraws his name from consideration for an enforcement position in the US EPA, after a draft report finds Schregardus' enforcement record to be among the worst in the country. Bush uses the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as an excuse for increased coal mining and oil drilling. August 2001 The General Accounting Office demands the release of documents from the secret Energy Task Force meetings. Bush invokes executive privilege and refuses to reveal that Cheney met with Enron officials. The Justice Department seeks to overturn a federal court order blocking oil and gas exploration off the coast of California. July 2001 The Bush administration proposes to open 1.5 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling. William G. Myers, former lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, is named the Interior Department's new Solicitor. Christine Whitman admits that the EPA plan on power plant emissions includes overturning several Clean Air Act programs. Gale Norton calls for the release of water from Upper Klamath Lake, California, in direct violation of the Endangered Species Act. While 185 nations back the Kyoto Protocol during climate talks in Germany, the Bush administration backs out. June 2001 Disgusted over Bush's unfriendly environmental policies, Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican Party to become an Independent. May 2001 Bush nominates James Connaughton, lawyer for General Electric in Superfund battles with the EPA, to chair his Council on Environmental Quality. Linda Fisher, former head of Monsanto's government affairs office, is approved by Congress as second-highest officer in the EPA. Bush places a freeze on expansion of the national park system. Bush's energy policy, planned in strict secrecy by a task force headed by Cheney, is unveiled. The EPA lowers standards for arsenic in drinking water. April 2001 Bush proposes a $500 million cut in the EPA's budget. Bush breaks another campaign promise to invest $100 million per year in rainforest conservation. The Interior Department moves to limit citizen-initiated lawsuits for the Endangered Species Act. Vice President Cheney begins meetings with Enron executives and looking for direction while heading up Bush's secret energy task force. March 2001 Bush breaks his campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and withdraws from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Bush nominates mining industry lobbyist J. Steven Griles for Interior Deputy Secretary. Febuary 2001 The new, Republican-led Senate introduces a bill to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Norton says she will seek to "adjust the boundaries" of 22 national monuments to allow for drilling and mining. January 2001 Bush and Cheney take office after a disputed election in which Bush received less votes that his main opponent. Bush halts implementation of Clinton's end-of-term environmental orders, including improved standards for arsenic in drinking water. Anti-environmentalist Christine Todd Whitman is named head of the U.S. EPA. Gale Norton, an even more brazen friend of dirty industry, is confirmed as Secretary of the Interior. |
12/24/03 Bush
opens part of Alaskan forest to loggers WASHINGTON -- Reversing a
Clinton-era policy, the Bush administration on Tuesday opened 300,000
more acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest,
to possible logging or other development.