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Bush Versus the Environment - Softcover

Devine, Robert S.

 
9781400075218: Bush Versus the Environment
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1400075211 ISBN 13: 9781400075218
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Since becoming president, George W. Bush has walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, pushed for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, undermined protections for endangered species and wilderness, and retreated from his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide. But the president’s agenda reaches deeper than these well-known policies. In Bush Versus the Environment, Robert Devine shows how the White House is quietly undermining the entire system of environmental safeguards that has developed over the past thirty years. The administration's tactics include:

-Encouraging lawsuits against the federal government that challenge existing environmental laws, and then feebly defending the cases in court.
-Ignoring science that doesn’t support the president's goals, and pressuring government scientists to produce the results the administration wants.
-Using fuzzy math to overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits of regulations that protect human health and the environment, which can lead to the elimination of much-needed rules.

These are just a few of the administration’s strategies, which are being pursued beneath the radar of a public that overwhelmingly supports environmental protections. Bush Versus the Environment is a compelling and important look at one of the most important issues facing America today, one that will have consequences that last long after Bush has left office.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert S. Devine started focusing on the environment early in his career. He was an editor at Rocky Mountain Magazine, which won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence during his tenure there. He has been a freelance journalist since 1982, writing mostly about the environment, natural history, and outdoor travel for a number of publications including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, National Geographic Traveler, Mother Jones, and Travel & Leisure, among many others. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with his wife and daughter.

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Since becoming president, George W. Bush has walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, pushed for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, undermined protections for endangered species and wilderness, and retreated from his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide. But the president's agenda reaches deeper than these well-known policies. In Bush Versus the Environment, Robert Devine shows how the White House is quietly undermining the entire system of environmental safeguards that has developed over the past thirty years. The administration's tactics include:
-Encouraging lawsuits against the federal government that challenge existing environmental laws, and then feebly defending the cases in court.
-Ignoring science that doesn't support the president's goals, and pressuring government scientists to produce the results the administration wants.
-Using fuzzy math to overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits of regulations that protect human health and the environment, which can lead to the elimination of much-needed rules.
These are just a few of the administration's strategies, which are being pursued beneath the radar of a public that overwhelmingly supports environmental protections. Bush Versus the Environment is a compelling and important look at one of the most important issues facing America today, one that will have consequences that last long after Bush has left office."

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Chapter 1

The Fox Is Guarding the Henhouse

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush offered clues as to how he would deal with the environment. In his speeches he said nice things about cleaning up pollution and protecting wildlife and supporting parks, even going so far as to make some specific promises (several of which he broke soon after assuming office). But people who looked beneath his words and heeded the old Watergate adage-follow the money-quickly saw where Bush's loyalties lay. The trail of campaign dollars led to big corporations and powerful industries, many of which will lose a lot of money if the federal government does a better job of protecting the environment, and will make a lot of money if the government weakens certain environmental regulations. The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group, took the campaign contribution data compiled by the Federal Election Commission and coded it by industry. Using that coded information, Public Campaign, a progressive public interest group, and Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, figured out how much money the various industries affected by environmental regulation had given to which politicians and political parties. Mining, timber, chemical and other manufacturing, oil and gas, and coal-burning utilities together contributed a staggering $44.1 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign and to the Republican National Committee.

Public Citizen and Earthjustice then did something even more interesting. They took the industry-by-industry breakdown of campaign contributions and compared it with the environmental policies undertaken by the Administration during Bush's first 18 months as president. For example, the timber industry gave $3.4 million and the Administration introduced and pushed an initiative designed in part to open up more federal lands to logging. In another example, the coal-burning utilities gave $2 million and the Administration has made regulatory changes and has not enforced existing laws so that these utilities can avoid the expense of installing the most effective pollution-control technology.

Now, for a moment I'd like to indulge in some educated speculation. From what I've learned about the President and his values, I'd guess that his generous treatment of the industries that filled his war chest is for the most part not a matter of simple corruption. The simple corruption scenario goes like this: a politician needs money for his campaign; he gets money from a corporation, a union, a wealthy individual, or some other contributor who is shopping for access and influence; after the politician gets elected, he gets a visit he can't refuse from lobbyists working for the contributor; some arm-twisting ensues, and then the politician gives the contributor at least some of what he wants, even if it requires doing something that is not in the public interest. However, I think that usually there is an essential difference in the way this Administration interacts with its big campaign contributors.

Rather than getting a visit they can't refuse and having their arms twisted by lobbyists, the Administration invites the lobbyists to the White House and together they map out mutually satisfying plans that require no arm-twisting. Corporate leaders and owners from oil and gas, timber, chemical manufacturing, mining: these are George W. Bush's people. It comes as no surprise that he would cater to them and that they would contribute to his campaigns. Consider the notorious energy task force convened by Vice President Dick Cheney, which brought dozens of energy industry honchos together behind closed doors to help develop the President's energy policy. In addition, much of the time industry doesn't even have to meet with White House officials to make its desires known because the Administration is run largely by people from industry, and they are already on the same wavelength with industry lobbyists.

Nowhere is this close-knit relationship between the White House and industry more apparent than in the people that the President has appointed to offices in the natural resource agencies. The main agencies are the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Interior's responsibilities include national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges, fish and wildlife, and the vast range and mineral resources of the hundreds of millions of acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). EPA addresses a wide variety of issues but is especially concerned with pollution, pesticides, and other environmental influences on human health. Several other agencies, such as the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture (which includes the Forest Service), devote a significant minority of their time to environmental matters.

As you read this book, you may get the feeling that these agencies are schizophrenic, one moment acting as champions of the environment, the next moment serving industry at the expense of the environment. Partly, this inconsistency reflects a fundamental tension between the appointees, who occupy the top ranks of the agencies, and the career civil service employees, who hold the rest of the positions. Though the appointees hold the upper hand and can get most of what they want, the career employees enjoy institutional savvy and certain protections, so sometimes they can influence decisions when they disagree with the appointees. In the Bush Administration, struggles occur constantly between appointees and ecologists, land managers, wildlife biologists, and other career civil servants. Often the Administration has retaliated against agency employees whose views and scientific studies impede the President's agenda, but still there remain pockets of resistance to some environmentally harmful White House policies.

Though the Bush White House demands strict adherence to its agenda and dictates in unusual detail what it wants its appointees to do, the nature of the people who occupy the top positions still matters a great deal. Bush may be the commander in chief, but these appointees are the generals and colonels, and they exert enormous influence on America's environment. I've chosen for brief examination three Administration figures. They occupy prominent posts and are representative of the kinds of people Bush has placed in nearly every high-level office and in most of all the appointed positions.

As Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), James Connaughton is the President's senior advisor regarding the environment. He is responsible for developing the broad policies that constitute Bush's environmental agenda. He also serves as one of the head cheerleaders for the President's purported approach to the environment, zealously spreading the gospel of free-market solutions and voluntary compliance with environmental laws. Connaughton previously was a partner in the Environmental Practice Group in the law firm of Sidley & Austin, where he counseled a wide array of corporations and trade associations. For example, he represented companies that were balking at cleaning up sites that were so wretchedly polluted that the EPA had placed them on the Superfund list. Among those clients was General Electric, responsible for more Superfund sites than any other corporation in America, according to one measure used by EPA. Connaughton also lobbied government on Superfund matters on behalf of Atlantic Richfield, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the Aluminum Company of America, and other corporate interests looking to avoid cleanup bills. In 1993, Connaughton coauthored a law journal article entitled "Defending Charges of Environmental Crime-The Growth Industry of the 90s."

Mark Rey serves in the Department of Agriculture as Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, which means that his main job is to...

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Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1400075211
ISBN 13 
9781400075218
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
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Verantwortliche Person
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