Comment ▼ Top 10 stupid environmental policies of the Bush Administration
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t’s time for another Top 10 list of the most seriously stupid environmental policies. This editorial is dedicated exclusively to looking back on the Bush Administration’s environmental record. Sadly, it’s too easy to find stupid policies. 10. A supply-side energy policy developed behind closed doors with oil company executives. Never before have energy, security, and the environment been so strongly coupled. Bush “protects” our economy while ignoring the lifeblood of future environmental and economic progress—conservation and renewable energy. 9. “Clear Skies” mercury rule. Required mercury reductions from coal-fired power plants are slowed by this policy. Instead, it establishes a cap-and-trade system. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and of greater concern than any other air toxic. Meanwhile, 1 in 12 women of childbearing age have higher levels of mercury in their bloodstreams than the reference dose recommended as safe for fetal development ( J. Am. Med. Assoc. 2003, 289, 1667). More than 40 states and tribes have advisories on eating mercury-contaminated fish. 8. “Healthy Forests” Initiative (HFI), aka “No Tree Left Behind”. Together with the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, HFI allows cutting on millions of acres of national parks and forests newly opened by roads. Under the guise of a fire-control initiative, Gale Norton and George W. Bush have given away the tree farm to big lumber companies. 7. U.S. climate policy and greenhouse gases. Our climate policy fails to recognize CO2 as a pollutant and does not even set a targeted guideline for lower emissions. Recommending only that we decrease our “energy intensity”, U.S. climate policy is widely recognized as a sham. Meanwhile, growth causes an inevitable ~1% increase each year in U.S. carbon emissions. While the earth warms, ice melts, and hurricanes flail, we fiddle. 6. Environment as a dirty word. In most developed countries, EPA is a cabinet-level agency and its head is a minister. In the U.S., the head of EPA is an “administrator” (pejorative). President Bush once referred to the climate-policy urgings of Administrator Christine Whitman as coming from “just another of those bureaucrats”. During the entire 2004 presidential campaign and its three debates, a question about the environment was asked only once. For Policy Number 6, the blame lies not just with the Bush Administration but also with the candidates, the press, and the American people. 5. Failure to ban the herbicide atrazine. The U.S. EPA © 2007 American Chemical Society
rejected a ban on atrazine in favor of asking the principal manufacturer, Syngenta, to monitor levels in streams and effects on frogs. The EU has banned atrazine, and Canada is close to banning it, but 76 million lb/yr are still apparently beneficial for Midwestern crops and the economy. Frogs are overrated. 4. Corporate average fuel efficiency standards. Stay the course. Since 1985, our fuel efficiency standards have remained at 27.5 mpg for passenger cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks (including SUVs, under Bush). Imagine, in a nation with more cars than drivers’ licenses, we have not had the technology or the political will to improve automobile efficiency in 22 years. 3. New Source Review (NSR). Thirty years of legislation and court rulings on upgrading power-plant emission controls have been set back in a single administration. If we don’t enforce NSR, we are destined to endure an aging infrastructure for another 30 years. How long can 17,000 industrial facilities operate without modern technologies to reduce pollution? 2. Bureaucrats revising reports after peer review. Government administrators with little or no scientific training have been altering reports after scientific peer review. The worst offender was Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Previous administrations have spun science, but the Bush Administration has taken the practice to a new and dangerous level, seeking to create confusion and uncertainty even where none exists. . . . And (drum roll, please) the Number 1, most supremely stupid environmental policy to emanate from the Bush Administration is . . . 1. Barring environmental scientists from speaking freely. Never in recent memory has it been as difficult as it is in the current administration to get government scientists to talk openly about policy on the record. The most famous “gaggings” were James Hansen of NASA and Rick Piltz of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. From NASA to NOAA to the Department of the Interior, a chill is felt at top government agencies when scientists speak freely. What a stupid policy in a democratic country whose greatest strength is its creativity and freedom of expression.
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
[email protected] JUNE 1, 2007 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 3787
