Idiot Wind: The Day After Tomorrow

You have seen the movie and here now are some facts¹:

Air - Bush policies have rolled back protections in one of the strongest and most health-protective environmental laws ever written, the Clean Air Act, allowing old power plants to continue polluting without taking steps to clean up their operations and without any threat of meaningful enforcement.

Water - Bush’s stated support of the Clean Water Act contradicts his policy decisions that diminish funding for clean water infrastructure, increase water pollution, and do not adequately protect wetlands.

Toxic Waste - The Bush administration has been content to allow the Superfund (a program to address the effects of toxic waste on New Hamsphire’s environment) to go broke, and in March 2003, the Senate killed a Democratic attempt to reinstate the tax, thereby slowing cleanups and jeopardizing the health of those who live near toxic waste sites which are treatening the surface and drinking water supplies.

Global Warming - After only sixty days in office, President Bush violated his campaign promise to support mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the primary cause of global warming. In addition, he withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the international agreement targeting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy - The Bush administration shows unwavering support for the coal and oil industries, while giving mere lip service to alternative forms of, and methods for, securing efficient technologies and clean energy resources. In addition, this administration has cut the budgets of renewable energy programs over the past 3 years, and in the proposed budget for FY2005, the administration proposes cuts in efficiency improvement programs for vehicle efficiency technology research, industrial efficiency projects, renewable energy and liquid fuels from farm products, and state energy programs.

And in Oregon, what the White House did were:

Repeal of the roadless rule, which protected nearly 2 million acres of federal forests in Oregon
An initiative that allows logging of large healthy trees in the back country under the guise of fire protection
Repeal of the old growth habitat protection rules in the Northwest Forest Plan

Posted on July 30, 2004 10:48 AM
Categories: General ,Living ,The Bad

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