Bush's "Environmental" Policy

Okay, so this is too important. I think too many people listen to what spin is coming out of the white house and accept it as the truth, and don't know/care what's really going on within the Bush administration. So here's some of the environmental policy that him and his corporate cronies have ruined.

1. The EPA weakened mecury reduction requirements for power plants.

2. Passed an air pollution plan that allows various industries to opt out of a Clean Air Act provision that requires reductions in toxic emissions by 2007. This plan would also delay until after 2018 power plant sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission cuts that were supposed to occur by 2010 under the Clear Air Act. It rolls back a requirement to reduce mercury emissions by 90% by 2008. (Mercury has been linked to birth defects)

3. Bonds that have been posted by oil and gas industries to drill on federal lands have fallen drastically short of the projected cleanup cost, leaving taxpayers with upwards of $1 billion in cleanup costs after the development ends.

4. Rewrote the forest rules to allow for more logging saying that it will decrease forest fires. Forest fires are actual extremely natural and healthy for forests. The rewrite also eliminates the environmental review process for forest management plans which provides the public with information about forest planning and a chance to participate in management decisions about public lands.

5. The EPA signed off on legeslation that allows U.S. Farmers who grow tomatoes and strawberries to continue using methyl-bromide, an ozone-depleting, cancer-causing pesticide that, according to U.S. and international treaties, had been scheduled to be phased out worldwide in 2005.

6. Superfund: The Bush administration is against "polluter (aka industry) pays" policies, instead adopting policies of the government (aka taxpayers) pay for cleanup of toxic waste sites. They favor a policy where they use current funds to cleanup projects that are currently underway, and don't list new hazardous waste sites for cleanup.

7. Let us not for get about the Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge policy.

There are so many more, I just don't have time to go on. The National Resources Defense Council has a complete list of all the environmental policies of the Bush administration.