Crimes Against Nature
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| Tue, 12-23-2003 - 2:14pm |
Bush is sabotaging the laws that have protected America's environment for more than thirty years
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr
George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats. The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor during his tenure in Texas. Texas became number one in air and water pollution and in the release of toxic chemicals. In his six years in Austin, he championed a short-term pollution-based prosperity, which enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is set to do the same to America. After three years, his policies are already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans.
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In a March 2003 memo to Republican leadership, pollster Frank Luntz frankly outlined the White House strategy on energy and the environment: "The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general and President Bush in particular are most vulnerable," he wrote, cautioning that the public views Republicans as being "in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle maniacally as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit." Luntz warned, "Not only do we risk losing the swing vote, but our suburban female base could abandon us as well." He recommended that Republicans don the sheep's clothing of environmental rhetoric while dismantling environmental laws.
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After one meeting with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Cheney dismissed California Gov. Gray Davis' request to cap the state's energy prices. That denial would enrich Enron and nearly bankrupt California. It has since emerged that the state's energy crisis was largely engineered by Enron. According to the New York Times, the task-force staff circulated a memo that suggested "utilizing" the crisis to justify expanded oil and gas drilling. President Bush and others would cite the California crisis to call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Although congress will have its final vote on the plan in November, the White House has already devised ways to implement most of its worst provisions without congressional interference. In October 2001, the administration removed the Interior Department's power to veto mining permits, even if the mining would cause "substantial and irreparable harm" to the environment. That December, Bush and congressional Republicans passed an "economic-stimulus package" that proposed $2.4 billion worth of tax breaks, credits and loopholes for Chevron, Texaco, Enron and General Electric. The following February, the White House announced it would abandon regulations for three major pollutants -- mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
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Growing up, I was taught that communism leads to dictatorship and capitalism to democracy. But as we've seen from the the Bush administration, the latter proposition does not always hold. While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154

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Has bush gutted federal law? Not yet, see post 3--but he is trying. I have seen too many articles not to believe this.
From post 3.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked new Bush administration changes to the Clean Air Act from going into effect the next day.
Renee
>>One problem with defending the Bush environmental record, however, is that it is not so clear what there is to defend. While the administration has largely avoided calling for grand new federal programs and another round of federal regulations, it has made little visible effort to rethink and reform existing environmental laws. For all the talk of "market-based" reforms and a "new environmentalism," there has been little action. While it is relatively easy to poke holes in an error-filled screed like Kennedy's "Crimes of Nature," it is difficult to write a proactive defense of the administration's positive agenda, as it is not clear such an agenda exists. As a result, the administration's allies are permanently on the defensive, merely responding to groundless attacks. In the end, the administration's lack of a positive environmental agenda is not just bad policy, it's bad politics as well. <<
Edited 12/31/2003 11:00:32 AM ET by jadethief
There is indeed two way of looking at the environment. Some think the earth and its wealth was given to man to do what he wished. The other view is that earth is all we have and we should take care of it. It's a matter of stewardship.
Ah yes, the evil captialists who doesn't care if his precious daughter will have safe water to drink in forty years as long as he can make more money that he doesn't need off the backs of the poor down trodden wretches vs. the wide eyed and well meaning group of environmentalists who are out to save the world. I saw that one just last week.
A straw man and a black and white world may be suitable for cartoons, but the real world requires a mature understanding of people, the issues, a variety of possible solutions and ways to achieve them.
Edited 1/2/2004 2:47:38 PM ET by wrhen
Renee
black and white world: I consider this your viewpoint. Therefore, "a variety of possible solutions and ways to achieve them, and a level of critical thinking that you apearantly don't have" is an insult with two barbs.
Tsk, tsk, tsk...you're letter more out of the bag than the 'environmentalists' want.
Renee
Renee
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