ENVIRONMENT: The Bush Administration's Swift and Steady Sabotage
American Progress
Last
week, the Washington Post reported thirty-four Superfund projects in 19
states will go unfunded this year. The Environmental Protection Agency
acknowledged that Superfund, which is the government's toxic waste
cleanup program, is now nearly bankrupt. Why are these crucial sites
being neglected? Carol Browner, the administrator of the EPA from
1993-2001, explains, “Because the fees that are used to pay for these
cleanups are no longer being collected.” In a sop to the oil industry,
the Bush administration ended the tax on corporate polluters that
funded the program by refusing to ask Congress to reinstate the fee oil
and chemical companies paid that generated the money for cleanups. This
is part of an overall pattern of a swift and steady sabotage of
environmental safeguards.
THE ENVIRONMENT AT A GLANCE:
A new study by Knight Ridder, for example, found that the steady
improvement in air and water quality of the past three decades “has
stalled or gone in reverse in several areas” since January 2001.
Specifically, Superfund cleanups of toxic waste fell by 52 percent;
fish-consumption warnings for rivers doubled; the number of beach
closings rose 26 percent; civil citations issued to polluters fell 57
percent; asthma attacks increased by 6 percent; and there were
“record-low” additions to national parks, wilderness, wildlife refuges
and the endangered species list. (For a look at how Iowa stacks up with
health, safety and the environment, check out American Progress' new
interactive map.)
LETTING THE INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM:
The Washington Post reports that the chemical industry has given $2
million to the EPA for a study supposedly “exploring the impact of
pesticides and household chemicals on young children.” (For those of
you keeping track, the American Chemistry Council is the same group
that fought against the finding that wood treated with arsenic
shouldn't be used in playground equipment.) The EPA already has a $572
million research budget; no word on why the agency needed to take money
from the chemical industry to conduct an independent study. The EPA
admits the money means “We will seek their opinions.” Carol Henry, a
vice president at the American Chemistry Council, also acknowledges the
association has set up a board of hand-picked academics and industry
officials to be a “resource to investigators,” adding, “We'll give them
our guidance.” (The administration has a track record of allowing
corporations to call the regulatory shots; check out this comprehensive
report about the special interest takeover.)
DRILLING AWAY THE WILDERNESS:
George W. Bush has claimed, “I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of
the land.” Not really. According to the Los Angeles Times,
environmentally damaging policies put in place by Secretary of the
Interior Gale Norton take away the safeguards which for decades have
protected potential wilderness areas. Even more egregious, the
administration claimed that the Department of the Interior “is barred –
forever – from identifying and protecting wild land the way it has for
nearly 30 years.” In effect, “The administration is giving industry
virtual carte blanche to look for oil and gas wherever it wants outside
of existing parks and wilderness areas.” The Washington Post points out
that Bush has “approved about 70 percent more drilling permits on
public lands during the first three years of his administration” than
the three preceding years. And, writes the New Yorker, “By stripping
away restrictions on the use of federal lands, often through
little-advertised rule changes, the Administration has potentially
opened up sixty million acres, an area larger than Indiana and Iowa
combined, to logging, mining, and oil exploration.”
GLOBAL WARMING:
A top NASA climate expert yesterday joined a long line of scientists in
criticizing the Bush administration for its disregard of science. Dr.
James E. Hansen, who has twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney's
task force on global warming, charged, “In my more than three decades
in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to
which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened
and controlled as it is now.” Hansen also “said the administration
wants to hear only scientific results that 'fit predetermined,
inflexible positions.'” Specifically, he charged the White House edited
reports that outline the potential dangers of global warming to make
the problem appear less serious. “This process is in direct opposition
to the most fundamental precepts of science,” he said. “This,” he
warned, “is a recipe for environmental disaster.”
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