Sunday, February 27, 2005
Conservatives are Anti-Conservation
I challenge Bush voters to tell me with a straight face how someone like Bush, who has done more to endanger the environment than any president in history, can be considered a "conservative" in any sense of that word.
This article highlights Bush's horrendous record on the environment:
--Over 400 major environmental rollbacks (and there's a great link in the article to the NRDC site that specifies what each rollback is) have been carried out under Bush.
--A "stealth attack" on the environment has been hidden from the public, consisting of quietly putting pro-business and pro-industry lobbyists in positions they used to advocate against.
For example, "The head of the Forest Service is a timber industry lobbyist who is probably the most rapacious timber industry lobbyist in American history. The head of public lands is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional. The head of the Air Division at the EPA is a utility lobbyist who has represented the worst polluters in America for twenty years. The head of Superfund is a woman whose former job was advising companies how to evade Superfund." Fox/henhouse anyone?
--Our water in this country, according to EPA, is getting dirty for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed.
--We know that the principal source of ozone and particulates in our air is coming from 1,100 coal-burning power plants that are burning coal illegally. They were supposed to install controls over fifteen years ago. The Clinton administration was prosecuting 75 of the worst of those plants. But this industry gave $48 million to President Bush during the 2000 campaign, and they've contributed $58 million since. One of the first things that President Bush did when he came to office was to order the Justice Department to drop all 75 of those suits. The Justice Department lawyers were shocked. This has never happened in our history before, where somebody running as a presidential candidate accepts money from a criminal and then lets that criminal off the hook.
--There are 630,000 children born in this country every year who have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury in the womb.
Recognizing this threat to the American public, the Clinton administration reclassified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act; that triggered the requirement that those companies remove 90 percent of that mercury within three and a half years. Eight weeks ago, Bush announced that he was scrapping the Clinton-era rules and substituting, instead, rules that were written by the industry's lobbying firm Latham and Watkins.
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceburg--the article goes on to list multiple examples of Bush's and Cheney's kickbacks to their business and industry buddies at the cost of our health and clean environment:
"We are living today in a science fiction nightmare, a world where, because somebody gave money to a politician, our children are brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe."
What did we really expect from a failed oil-man from Texas and his evil Halliburton sidekick? If you are among the proud 48% who saw things clearly, breathe a sigh of relief you are not responsible for this nightmare (but don't breathe too deeply, given the increased pollutants in the air).
--For the Sake of Our Children
This article highlights Bush's horrendous record on the environment:
--Over 400 major environmental rollbacks (and there's a great link in the article to the NRDC site that specifies what each rollback is) have been carried out under Bush.
--A "stealth attack" on the environment has been hidden from the public, consisting of quietly putting pro-business and pro-industry lobbyists in positions they used to advocate against.
For example, "The head of the Forest Service is a timber industry lobbyist who is probably the most rapacious timber industry lobbyist in American history. The head of public lands is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional. The head of the Air Division at the EPA is a utility lobbyist who has represented the worst polluters in America for twenty years. The head of Superfund is a woman whose former job was advising companies how to evade Superfund." Fox/henhouse anyone?
--Our water in this country, according to EPA, is getting dirty for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed.
--We know that the principal source of ozone and particulates in our air is coming from 1,100 coal-burning power plants that are burning coal illegally. They were supposed to install controls over fifteen years ago. The Clinton administration was prosecuting 75 of the worst of those plants. But this industry gave $48 million to President Bush during the 2000 campaign, and they've contributed $58 million since. One of the first things that President Bush did when he came to office was to order the Justice Department to drop all 75 of those suits. The Justice Department lawyers were shocked. This has never happened in our history before, where somebody running as a presidential candidate accepts money from a criminal and then lets that criminal off the hook.
--There are 630,000 children born in this country every year who have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury in the womb.
Recognizing this threat to the American public, the Clinton administration reclassified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act; that triggered the requirement that those companies remove 90 percent of that mercury within three and a half years. Eight weeks ago, Bush announced that he was scrapping the Clinton-era rules and substituting, instead, rules that were written by the industry's lobbying firm Latham and Watkins.
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceburg--the article goes on to list multiple examples of Bush's and Cheney's kickbacks to their business and industry buddies at the cost of our health and clean environment:
"We are living today in a science fiction nightmare, a world where, because somebody gave money to a politician, our children are brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe."
What did we really expect from a failed oil-man from Texas and his evil Halliburton sidekick? If you are among the proud 48% who saw things clearly, breathe a sigh of relief you are not responsible for this nightmare (but don't breathe too deeply, given the increased pollutants in the air).
--For the Sake of Our Children
