James Gerber | Through the Smokescreen
March 1If there's anything you could say about President Bush during the last four years, it's that he's a man of strong words. Unfortunately, the policies of his administration have proved contradictory to his promises, particularly when it comes to the President's environmental record. In his Healthy Forest Initiative speech on May 20, 2003, Bush said that "we must fulfill our promise to the next generation, that's what we must do, and leave behind a world as blessed and beautiful as the one our parents left us." It was certainly powerful rhetoric, but the Bush Administration used its first term to unleash the most thorough and destructive campaign against America's environmental safeguards in the past 40 years. Under Republican leadership, this government has tried to force the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, in spite of the fact that the amount of oil or natural gas reserves expected would be insignificant. The amount of oil that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates could be recovered from the Arctic Refuge would amount to less than a six-month supply for American consumers. Even less natural gas lies beneath the Arctic Refuge relative to U.S. demand. At no time would oil from the refuge be expected to amount to more than two percent of U.S. demand. It would take seven to 10 years for any oil to make it to market, and 95 percent of Alaska's north slope is already available for oil and gas exploration. The administration's anti-environmental agenda goes well beyond opening up preserved refuges to drilling; it has enacted various policy changes that represent radical alterations to our core environmental laws. For example, despite Bush's words, the Bush team has persistently tried to narrow the scope of the Clean Water Act by stripping environmental protections from thousands of wetlands and streams. The administration continuously turns a blind eye to today's most pressing challenges. On an international scale, scientists from around the world called for urgent action to reduce global warming pollution (the Kyoto treaty), but the United States now stands alone in opposing even the most basic effort to move forward cooperatively. Here at home, while the threat of mercury poisoning from the consumption of locally caught fish is a national threat, the administration promotes its misleadingly titled Clear Skies Act, a proposal that would dramatically weaken mercury pollution control requirements in the existing Clean Air Act. The Clear Skies Act is meant to update and replace its predecessor, yet it would fail to set any limit on carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming. The new plan would actually result in more pollution. While the Clear Skies Act actually delays the enforcement of public health standards for smog and soot until December of 2015, it sets a pollution cap that does not take full effect until 2018. The effect of this new deadline would be to allow coal burning plants to delay their adoption of pollution controls that are ready and available to wash clean their emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. The Environmental Protection Agency's own air quality calculations have painted a dire and threatening picture of what the Bush administration's plan would mean to the future of our public health. According to their predictions, swapping the Clean Air Act for the Clear Skies Act would result in 4,000 more deaths each year. Far from cleaning up the environment, the Bush air pollution plan represents a step backward from current law. These types of misleading promises and proposals have been a pattern in the Bush Administration's first four years. Unfortunately, strong, enthusiastic rhetoric is what the public votes on, not the actions that follow it after the election. My hope is that eventually, this strategy will come full circle and the public will smarten up. Only then will Bush be held responsible for the damage he's caused. He has charged us with the task of leaving behind a world as beautiful as the one we inherited. We're doing what we can, Mr. President. It's time for you to come through on your end of the deal.
