Environment

Startling Recap of Bush Administration's Environmental Legacy

by Geneva B | January 19, 2009 at 04:07 pm

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As we reflect on the past eight years of government in the U.S., the Bush administration's irresponsible and highly questionable approach to environmental policy remains one of the most striking aspects of Bush's "Reign of Terror". The funny thing about economics is that a functioning planet is a prerequisite for any theory or equation; the planet always comes first.

In recent weeks, experts from the Natural Resources Defense Council culled through eight years of policies and actions under the Bush administration to create a dynamic, online timeline that highlights the government’s systematic undermining of environmental protections. During this time, America has witnessed the federal government’s willful neglect of protections for the air, land, water, public health, and the climate, as President Bush put cronyism above experience, corporate interests over science, and profits before natural heritage.

This timeline can also be viewed by date. PBS is running a program next month titled The Bush Environmental Legacy: 9 Landmark Decisions, reviewing nine major decisions that will have persistent effects on the environment.

Some "bad decision" highlights include Bush's outlandish rebuttals to climate change science, declaring carbon dioxide not a pollutant, rejecting the Kyoto Protocol and weakening air pollution regulations, and advocating for more nuclear power plants. One good thing to come of Bush, however, was his recent creation of a large marine conservation area.

Praise for Bush in the environment department is minimal, though.

"He has undone decades if not a century of progress on the environment," said Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, one of America's largest environmental groups.
"The Bush administration has introduced this pervasive rot into the federal government which has undermined the rule of law, undermined science, undermined basic competence and rendered government agencies unable to do their most basic function even if they wanted to. We're excited just to push the reset button."

Although Bush is on the way out, the deplorable environmental legacy he has left behind for years to come will take a lot of cleaning up.

Other controversial actions included:
• Gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts

• Dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act

• Opening millions of acres of wilderness to mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging

• Defunding programmes charged with the clean-up of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead and mercury

• Reducing the enforcement effort in the Environmental Protection Agency

• Removing grizzly bears and wolves from the endangered species list

• Endorsing commercial whaling

• Approving mountain-top removal for coal mining

Bush pursued the grand plan of deregulation to his last days in the White House, with a series of last-minute rule changes. Under the new rules, oil companies will be able to drill within sight of the Arches national park in Utah. Federal agencies will no longer be compelled to consult with government wildlife experts when they open up new areas for logging or road construction, and he also barred the EPA from looking at the effects of global warming on protected species.