George W. Bush on Environment President of the United States, Former Republican Governor (TX)

Sub-sections under Environment:
• Brownfields + Parks
• Federal Role
• Other issues under Environment

For mountaintop mining in WV; for more water flows in MO

OpEd: Saved 10 lives per year by ending arsenic restrictions

In order to comply with the new rule, small towns in western states, where arsenic naturally occurs, would be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new water plants. The liberal Brookings Institution and the conservative American Enterprise Institute produced a joint study showing that rather than saving lives, the new standard would actually cost about 10 lives annually. Money spent on new water-treatment plants is money that is not being spent on ambulances, cancer research, and healthy food.

[By repealing the rule, those 10 lives would be saved]. But the facts were irrelevant when the word "arsenic" allowed liberals to scream that Bush was poisoning us.

Katrina flyover image interpreted as detached & powerless

In all, we spent about 35 minutes flying at about 2,500 feet over New Orleans and the Mississippi coastal cities. The mood in the cabin was somber. All of us, including the president, were struck by just how devastating the storm had been.

Newscasts that night included pictures of Bush gazing out the window. One commentator said, "It was the most damaging photos of his presidency. The president appeared detached and powerless, unable even to comprehend how he might use the government to help his own people."

Bush was certainly moved by the devastation he witnessed during the flyover, but it's impossible to truly feel the agony of those below from the luxury and comfort of Air Force One. Real empathy can only happen when meeting victims face-to-face.

Proposed different measures to improve the environment

A: Off-road diesel engines, we a reached an agreement to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines by 90%. I’ve got a plan to increase the wetlands by 3 million. We’ve got an aggressive brownfield program to refurbish inner-city sore spots to useful pieces of property. I proposed to the Congress a Clear Skies Initiative to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by 70%. I fought for a strong title in the farm bill for the conservation reserve program to set aside millions of acres of land for - to help improve wildlife and the habitat. We proposed and passed a healthy forest bill to protect old stands of trees and at the same time, make sure our forests aren’t vulnerable to the forest fires that have destroyed acres after acres in the West. I proposed a hydrogen-generated automobile. We’re spending a billion dollars to come up with the technologies to do that.

Clear Skies Initiative improves air quality now

Restrict wetland development, but not arsenic or CO2

The EPA did accept a Clinton rule restricting development in wetlands and said that it would keep new energy-efficiency requirements for washing machines and water heaters. But last month, Bush blocked implementation of a tighter limit on the amount of arsenic in water, suspended new cleanup requirements for mining companies, abandoned US participation in the Kyoto global warming treaty and renounced a campaign promise to restrict carbon dioxide emissions.

More lead emission reporting requirements

In announcing his decision on lead, Bush said he “will continue to support and promote efforts based on sound science to clean our air, water & land.. Lead is a persistent and highly toxic substance that can cause a range of environmental and health problems. Lead has an especially harmful impact on the health of children and infants. And it is found too often in some of America’s older, poorer communities.”

1999: Modernize model of "mandate, regulate and litigate"

Weaken Clean Air; no comment on Clean Water

Incentives for private land stewardship & conservation

To provide resources for conservation and encourage more Americans to take an active role in protecting natural resources and wildlife, Governor Bush proposed:
1. Fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provide 50% for state and local conservation efforts.
2. Provide matching grants for states to establish a Landowner Incentive Program to help private landowners protect rare species while engaging in traditional land management practices, and establish a Private Stewardship Grant Program to provide funding for private conservation initiatives.
3. Establish the President’s Awards for Private Stewardship to recognize and honor the best examples of private conservation.
4. Create a tax incentive to provide capital gains tax relief for private landowners who voluntarily sell their land for conservation purposes.
5. Eliminate the estate tax. This will make it easier for private landowners to pass their land intact to the next generation.

Conservation partnerships to protect lands & watersheds

The federal government has a crucial role to play in conservation-particularly in managing our national forests, our park system, wilderness areas, and national wildlife refuges. But problems arise when leaders reject partnership, and rely solely on the power of Washington-on regulations, penalties, and dictation from afar.

It’s time to build conservation partnerships between the federal government and state governments, local communities and private landowners. In all these efforts, we see the future of conservation. What is the federal role? To provide the scientific and financial resources to help states, local communities and private landowners preserve land and wildlife.

$60M for private stewardship; tax break on conservation land

Superfund failing: too costly; too litigious; too complex

The federal Superfund statute was passed by Congress in 1980 to ensure that the worst contaminated sites in the country would be promptly cleaned up. However, Superfund has failed in its mission:
1. It has proven both expensive and inefficient. Of the 1,231 Superfund sites, only 595 have been cleaned up as of June 30, 1999. Moreover, while Superfund was expected to cost $5 billion and complete all cleanups in less than five years, actual Superfund spending has exceeded $30 billion and the current average length of cleanups is eight years.
2. Superfund has promoted costly litigation: 36% of the $11 billion spent by the private sector on Superfund in the first ten years of the program went not to clean up contaminated sites, but to pay consultants’ and lawyers’ fees and other litigation costs
3. Superfund has actually had a chilling effect on brownfield cleanup, because a brownfield can be subjected at any time to Superfund and its complex regulations and liability scheme.

Keep drilling; keep dams; keep private property

• Supports moratorium against offshore drilling in California and Florida
• Opposes breaching dams in Pacific Northwest
• Supports conservation of land, wetlands and habitat, particularly by private landowners
• Supports protection of private property rights

$6.5B to erase national parks' repair backlog

Proposes $211M to cleaning up brownfields

$450M annually for wildlife and open spaces

The Bush plan.
• Accelerate the cleanup of industrial sites to fully protect human health & the environment, working in partnership with citizens, businesses & government.
• These sites can be used for parks, recreation or other public purposes.
• Commit $5 billion to restore the health of all our National Parks within the next five years.

$4.9B to repair “crumbling” national parks

Reinvest in Conservation Fund; repair parks & refuges

• Reinvest in America’s natural resources by fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and guarantee a 50% share of the LWCF for state and local conservation
• Supports alleviating the substantial repair and improvement backlog facing our national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands

Katrina: Posse Comitatus Act prevents feds from sending help

It seemed her big concern was public safety: she wanted the US military to restore order. But that was illegal. Since the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the military cannot be used for law enforcement & only the president can command the US military, not state or local officials. Blanco didn't seem to get this.

Because we weren't getting clear information or specific requests from Blanco, our strong preference was to "federalize" the event. FEMA director Mike Brown asked Blanco to federalize the effort on Tuesday, the day after Katrina hit. She declined.

Katrina response overshadowed by FEMA botch-job perception

The first was his off-key focus on the heavily damaged vacation home of Republican Senator Trent Lott. Surrounded as he was by the devastated homes of thousands of Mississippians, the remarks seemed ill timed at best, callous at worst.

The second clinker: Bush singled out the beleaguered Michael Brown for praise, using a line that has become infamous: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" Even Brown looked embarrassed, and no wonder; most Americans had already concluded that the FEMA director was in over his head. Brown ultimately resigned. For Bush to commend him publicly suggested either that the president's well-known belief in personal loyalty was overwhelming his judgment or that he still didn't realize how bad things were on the Gulf Coast.

Good stewardship is personal responsibility and public value

Natural resources & environment funding in FY04 highest ever

1999: Superfund cleanup is inefficient and cumbersome

Federal standards+local collaboration; no command & control

BUSH: I don’t believe in command and control out of Washington, D.C. I believe Washington ought to set standards, but we ought to be collaborative at the local levels.

Q: Would the federal government still have some new regulations to pass?

BUSH: Sure, absolutely, so long as they’re based upon science and they’re reasonable, so long as people have input.

GORE: I’m not for command and control techniques either. I’m for working with the groups, not just with industry but also with the citizens groups and local communities to control sprawl in ways that the local communities themselves come up with.

Replace mandate/regulate/litigate with decentralized efforts

Bush’s environmental record in Texas is notably poor, and he has never suggested he cares. On his watch, the air in Houston has become so foul that the city has recently displaced Los Angeles as the city with the worst smog in America. Bush says he wants to:
• Tackle the brownfield problem by replacing the “old system of mandate/regulate/litigate” with decentralized state-led efforts
• Conserve wilderness areas by encouraging states and even private citizens to take up wildlife management, rather than leaving everything to the federal government
• Tackle global warming, which he acknowledges may be a real threat. However, he pours scorn on the Kyoto Treaty on climate change (which Gore is proud of) and says he favors market-friendly alternatives instead.
• Keep energy prices low, in part by encouraging further exploration on federal lands. He blamed the summer gasoline crisis on new laws mandating cleaner gas; precisely the sort of initiative Gore would love.

Can’t sue our way to clean air & water--work with industry

Keep fed enviro role but give money & flexibility to states

Base enviro decisions on science & market-driven solutions

• Believes environmental standards must be based on the best science, market-driven technologies can provide solutions, and government should encourage innovation and going beyond compliance
• Recognizes that global warming should be taken seriously but will require any decisions to be based on the best science; opposes Kyoto Protocol