Bush has declared war on the environment - says
Richard Nixon's former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Russel Train.
"We're at war in Iraq. They tell us we're at war against terrorism. I'd say that George W. Bush has declared war on the environment. And I think that people ought to stand up and be counted in opposition to that.
The first National Park, Yellowstone, was created in 1872. Now that was a Republican year, right after the Civil War. General Grant, then the president, was the person you have to give credit to for Yellowstone. You can go back to Teddy Roosevelt and say he Roosevelt was a great conservationist. He created our National Forest and our national wildlife refuges and he took a strong interest in conservation. You get to Richard Nixon and you get a fantastic blooming of environmental interest and initiatives on the part of the administration. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, was a creature of Richard Nixon. The Clean Air Act of 1972, the Clean Air Act of 1970, ocean dumping controls, clean drinking water, the Noise Control Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, you name it.
So, during the Nixon administration and the Ford administration we accomplished a great deal. I was never officially part of the administration of George H.W. Bush -- Bush the First. We were good personal friends and our families were friends. He asked me for advice on the environment; he asked me to explain the environment to him, although that wasn't exactly an easy thing to do in a short while, but we sat down and talked in Florida for an hour or so. He really wanted to know. He entered the presidency with the intention of being a good environmental president. He sponsored the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, and that's the law under which we live today. He had a very good environmental record, and his heart was very much in the right place on the issue.
I feel George W.'s heart is in the wrong place on this issue. Calling something the Clean Air Act, the Healthy Forest Act when what you're really doing is opening up the forest to logging. It's almost an ideological antagonism. And there's no understanding, I feel, of the importance of this issue. It's addressed from the standpoint of, "What is such-and-such a regulation going to do to a particular industry that is a pretty good contributor to our campaign cause. And I think that's what's motivated its approach to environmental matters.
There has been a tendency on the part of this administration, this White House, to -- some call it -- distort science. And if they don't like the science, they take out that particular finding. As I understand it, the EPA did do a study -- at least a preliminary study, in New York, which showed some very troublesome, hazardous air pollutant problems. And they were told by -- I don't know whether the White House or the Council on Environmental Quality -- to change those results.
I think this administration is not a conservative administration. I think it's a radical administration. It represents a radical rollback of environmental policy going back to a period many, many years ago. It's backward."
USA Today - Courts mow down development strategy
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-10-federal-lands_x.htm
Court rulings on environment go against Bush administration
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070415/NEWS/70415005
Learn more about the Bush administrations evironmental record.
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/2005.asp
Earthjustice: Environmental Law
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/index.jsp?page=1
Greg Palast Journalism and Film
http://www.gregpalast.com/
The Junk Science of George W. Bush
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040308/kennedy
Bad Science and the Bush Record
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/science/default.asp
Go/Left TV
http://www.goleft.tv/
Go/Left TV
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of GoLeft.tv and Air America's Ring of Fire gives a speech at the 2007 Live Earth concert in New Jersey.
http://goleft.tv/view.asp?v=260
Go/Left TV: Mainstream Media is Dead
Mike Papantonio talks about how Mainstream Media is dead, but there is a new rise of the "citizens' media".
http://goleft.tv/view.asp?v=36
theREALnews network
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php
Tags: bush at war with environment richard nixon's epa head
