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Posted by: omarleeds Jun 7 2004, 03:51 PM

One Thousand Reasons to Vote Against George Bush

One Thousand Reasons to Vote Against George Bush
Compiled by One Thousand Reasons


Reasons are in alphabetical order, by category
Last updated June 6, 2004



Attitude: A Willful Ignorance
According to The New York Times, President Bush was genuinely surprised to learn from moderate Islamic leaders that they had become deeply distrustful of American intentions. The report on the "perception gap" suggests that the leader of the war on terror has no idea how badly that war -- which must, ultimately, be a war for hearts and minds -- is going. Mr. Bush's ignorance may reflect his lack of curiosity: "The best way to get the news," he says, "is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff." Two words: emperor, clothes. NY Times 2003-10-28 link


Attitude: Administration has "bullyboy" attitude
But it's a larger issue, and here's where the Bush people are so vulnerable. Given that their bullyboy, in-your-face attitude had worked so well, in their hubris they really thought they could do and say anything and get away with it forever. So they told all sorts of whoppers about why Iraq supposedly was an 'imminent' danger to the U.S., and grossly manipulated non-existent facts to generate pro-war hysteria in time to meet the go-date for the bombing and invasion - which, of course, had been set a half-year before. All of that was so blatant and obvious, it was no wonder millions of protesters took to the streets, and the European leaders and the U.N. would have nothing to do with the Bush Administration and even shouted at them in public. Democratic Underground 2003-07-25 link


Attitude: American hypocrisy on democracy
With bombs going off in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and skirmishes raging in Afghanistan, George W. Bush is championing democracy for Muslims as an antidote to terrorism. But, as usual, he tells only half the truth. Toronto Star 2003-11-13 link


Attitude: Arrogance of power leads to assaults on critical thinking and dissent
They are clear that Washington's arrogance of power and reckless global war is leading to assaults on critical thinking and democratic dissent. American Friends Service Committee 2002-04-14 link


Attitude: Arrogrance leads to fantastic predictions for Arab world
The Bush administration will now attempt to refashion Iraq as a U.S. ally in the Arab world, democratic and globalized, friendly to Israel, dotted with U.S. bases, open to foreign ideas, institutions, and missionary efforts. But the neocons' Achilles heel is arrogance. Counter Punch 2003-07-26 link


Attitude: Bush and Cheney try to stop 9/11 investigation
You do remember that both Bush and Cheney quietly asked the then-leaders of the House and Senate, Gephardt and Daschle, not to investigate the pre-9/11 period for reasons of national security. Perhaps one of the things they'd like to keep hidden was the fact that they were warned by the outgoing Clinton Administration specifically about the enormous dangers posed by Osama bin Laden/Al Qaida, but, in their arrogance, the incoming Bush Administration decided not to pay any attention to those warnings; instead, they said they were going to set up their own commission to look into terrorism, with Dick Cheney as head. Cheney -- too busy putting together an energy policy with Kenneth Lay's Enron and the other energy companies -- did nothing and the promised report on terrorism never materialized. The Crisis Papers 2003-02-06 link


Attitude: Bush and Rumsfeld arrogantly refuse to provide WMD evidence
This has not stopped our national misleaders from insisting that they are our ticket to security. But for that assertion there has been as little evidence offered as there has been for the claims that Saddam Hussein is a threat to Americans or that he had anything to do with al-Qaeda. "We don't need no stinkin' evidence" is the attitude that oozes from President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Future of Freedom Foundation 2002-12-04 link


Attitude: Bush characterizes German anti-war behavior as undemocratic
The Americans have been furious with the Germans since last autumn's general election campaign when Gerhard Schroeder adopted a rather critical attitude towards Bush's policy on Iraq. Schroeder was well behind in the polls until he emphasised that Germany would not cooperate with the Americans in attacking Iraq. This struck a chord in the German people, because the campaign turned around and Schroeder's coalition won re-election. Yet this is depicted in Washington as undemocratic, which says more about the Bush administration than anyone else. Irish Examiner 2003-10-04 link


Attitude: Bush equates pacifism with "doing nothing"
Pacifism does not have to translate into just doing nothing. Either-or-thinking, such as Either we attack or we do nothing, is just lazy, selfish and dangerously limited. Emma Goldman once said, It takes less mental effort to condemn than to think. The world and human beings are a lot more complicated than the 0 or 1 parameters we feel so comfortable imposing. psst! 2003-10-05 link


Attitude: Bush exhibits "perils of hubris"
As Richard Helms, the CIA director for much of the Vietnam War, said in 1981, "We were dealing with a complicated cultural and ethnic problem which we never came to understand. In other words, it was our ignorance or innocence, if you will, which led us to misassess, not comprehend, and make a lot of wrong decisions, which one way or another helped to affect the outcome." This time out, the nation is more fortunate: the perils of hubris have become evident within days of the first attack. The Nation 2003-03-31 link


Attitude: Bush exhibits "unfathomable hypocrisy"
This is an eerie moment in American political history. George W. Bush was defeated in the popular vote by his more liberal opponent but rules from the most extreme wing of his party. He campaigned as a fiscal conservative but has pushed tax cuts that will create a deficit larger than any in US history. As a candidate, he articulated the need for a humble foreign policy but now conducts it with a degree of hubris that makes Lyndon Johnson look like the Dalai Lama. His hypocrisy, in other words, is so great as to be almost unfathomable, and yet he has somehow managed to convince the media to admire him for his moral clarity. The Nation 2003-04-17 link


Attitude: Bush fails to recognize middle ground, resorts to either-or thinking
Either you're with us or against us.--George W. Bush America--Love It or Leave It.--bumper sticker common in the 1960's. The two statements above are examples of Aristotelian or two-valued logic, also known as either-or logic: i.e., left/right, war/peace, evil/good. Either you're with US or against US. Love US or leave US. The flaw in this system should be obvious: it recognizes no middle term, no grey area. What of those citizens who are neither for nor against? Andrew Williams 2003-10-05 link


Attitude: Bush fails to see that all our lives are interrelated
President Bush did an excellent job in rallying the country against the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities but we must not forget that all our lives are interrelated, that we are all citizens of this planet, that we need a new way of thinking different from 'linear thinking,' and that humanity comes first. Mario deSantis 2001-09-25 link


Attitude: Bush ignored NASA warnings about shuttle dangers
Given this arrogant, we-know-it-all attitude, there was no reason, then, for Bush and his subordinates to listen to the technical experts who warned early last year (1), and even as recently as last August (2) about the disaster-in-the-making for the Space Shuttle and its crews unless certain procedures and processes were fixed. These NASA experts were ignored by Bush and his advisors, and removed from their positions. The Crisis Papers 2003-02-06 link


Attitude: Bush insists on getting his way, even if democracy suffers
Now we should be asking if George W Bush understands democracy, not just because of his attitude towards the Germans, but also after what happened during the election count in Florida when he showed little concern for due process. He wanted his way regardless of the democratic implications. Irish Examiner 2003-10-04 link


Attitude: Bush insists that Europeans should eat GM food
In case you thought that the Bush administration's rift with its European allies ended with the Iraqi military campaign, think again. The White House has now set its sights on something far more personal - the question of what kind of food Europeans should put on their table. President Bush has charged that the EU's ban on genetically modified food is discouraging developing countries from growing GM crops for export and resulting in increased hunger and poverty in the world's poorest nations. His remarks, made just days before the G8 meeting in Evian, have further chilled US-European relations. Organic Consumers Association 2003-06-02 link


Attitude: Bush jokes about search for WMD, but it's no laughing matter
President George Bush sparked a political firestorm yesterday after making what many judged a tasteless and ill-judged joke about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr Bush made the joke at a black-tie event for radio and television journalists in Washington on Wednesday night. He narrated a slide show, described as the White House election year album, making hay of the administration's reputation for secrecy and strained relations with European allies. But it was the joke about the war in Iraq that drew attacks. Guardian 2004-03-26 link


Attitude: Bush lacks vision, focuses on "evil"
George W. Bush, who has a problem with the vision thing that causes his father's confusion over the matter to pale in comparison, is the man of these people. They didn't mind his inability to name the leaders of foreign countries when he was put into office, and now they don't mind the way he whips up frenzies through an incessant talk of evil. Liberal Slant 2003-07-17 link


Attitude: Bush seeks global domination through nuclear arsenals
Stephen Hadley, one of Condolezzia Rice's senior deputies reports that, not unlike the elder Bush's New World Order, this Bush Administration seeks a whole new world, U.S. global domination based ultimately on its nuclear and high-tech arsenals. American Friends Service Committee 2002-04-14 link


Attitude: Bush shifts blame for bad intelligence
So does GB2 step up to the plate and take responsibility for his deceptions, hubris, and Oedipal obsessions? No, he pins it on the CIA. It was George Tenet?s fault, who is obligated to publicly apologize. Liberal Slant 2003-07-25 link


Attitude: Bush squanders 9/11 sympathy with arrogant behavior
After the 9/11 attacks, the United States enjoyed an enormous wellspring of sympathy from people around the world. Bush has squandered this support by projecting an unfortunately all-too -typically arrogant attitude toward the world. Seattle Post Intelligencer 2002-12-07 link


Attitude: Bush threatens and bullies Europe over ICC
After months of threats and bullying, the Bush administration has apparently backed down in its confrontation with Western Europe over the newly formed International Criminal Court (ICC). World Socialist Web Site 2002-07-13 link


Attitude: Bush uses "faith-based" intelligence to support preconceived notions
Greg Thielmann, who worked until last fall as a proliferation expert in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, explains, This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude: 'We know the answers, give us the intelligence to support those answers. ' Counter Punch 2003-07-26 link


Attitude: Bush's "bullying drumbeat"
Angered by what she views as the Bush administration's bullying drumbeat, Thomas referred early and often to her own hatred of war, quoting from poets and politicians to bear down on President Bush and his colleagues. Helen Thomas, speech 2002-11-06 link


Attitude: Bush's "stupid and arrogant" behavior raise questions about ability to wage war
Through a combination of sheer stupidity and contemptible arrogance, the Bush administration has been making a mess of the public relations battle, which raises the most serious questions about its competence to wage a war. Irish Examiner 2003-10-04 link


Attitude: Bush's promise of "humble" foreign policy becomes preemptive war
Dangerous days lie ahead, thanks to Mr. Bush and his new strategic doctrine of global preventive war. Things were supposed to be different. Does anyone remember that day ages ago when then-candidate Bush promised a "humble" foreign policy? I guess to Orwell's "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery" we may now add Bush's "Arrogance is Humility." The Future of Freedom Foundation 2002-12-04 link


Attitude: Bush's ugly cynicism
George W. Bush will deliver his State of the Union address this evening and, no doubt, he will talk about how he wants to unite America and Americans. But the president's comments should be viewed in the context of his recent actions. Last Thursday, while on a fund-raising trip to Atlanta, Bush inserted himself into the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In doing so, the president upset the schedule of planned local events, but he got what he wanted: an opportunity to be photographed placing a wreath on the grave of the slain civil rights leader. Capital Times 2004-01-20 link


Attitude: Hubris leads Bush to "nation building"
The faction that focuses on foreign policy has four core principles: Preserve U.S. sovereignty and freedom of action by marginalizing the United Nations. Reserve military interventions for reasons of U.S. national security, not altruism. Avoid peacekeeping operations that compromise the military's war-fighting proficiencies. Beware of the political hubris inherent in the intensely unconservative project of nation-building. Seattle Post Intelligencer 2003-07-27 link


Attitude: Hubris leads Bush to use out of date intelligence to justify war
It is an act of extreme hubris for this administration to repeatedly justify its invasion of Iraq by citing Iraq's attacks on Iran decades ago and its use of banned weapons in that war. Those old charges won't suffice for a world demanding hard and more recent evidence supporting the need for a preemptive attack. Daily Times 2003-10-05 link


Attitude: Hubris led to unrealistic expectations for Iraq war aftermath
What reasons did US policy makers and the pundits have for believing events in Iraq would follow their expectations? Was it too inconvenient for them to factor in Iraqi nationalism or resentment? Or were they unaware such sentiments might become sand in the gears? Their hubris came in projecting American assumptions (or wishes) upon the realities of Iraq. The Nation 2002-03-31 link


Attitude: Mourning in America
It is wrong, both morally and for the good of his political future, for the president to keep skipping funerals for fund-raisers. NY Times 2003-11-19 link


Attitude: One Reason Not to Like Bush
This is not a policy disagreement. Or rather, it is not only a policy disagreement. If the president is not a complete moron -- and he probably is not -- he is a hardened cynic, staging moral anguish he does not feel, pandering to people he cannot possibly agree with and sacrificing the future of many American citizens for short-term political advantage. Is that a good enough reason to dislike him personally? Washington Post 2003-10-24 link


Attitude: Oval office lacks humility, practices hubris and deceit
Perhaps the administration's parlay of hubris and deceit can be made right. These are still early days. George W. Bush said before his election that as the world's sole superpower, the United States should be willing to show some humility in international affairs. It was a good point, and this is a good time for it. And the Oval Office would be a good place to start. The Charlotte Observer 2003-08-01 link


Attitude: US's bullying attitude abroad may have "distrous consequences"
Now, having said that, we must point out that the institutions in this country -- the Constitution, the courts, the legislative bodies, civil liberties, the Bill of Rights, the press, etc. -- are in as much danger as they've ever been in. And the U.S.'s bullying attitude abroad may well lead to disastrous consequences for America down the line. Counter Punch 2002-06-01 link


Democracy: Bush angry at Turkey for exercising democratic will
U.S. reaction to the weekend news that Turkey's parliament had rejected a proposal to accept the basing of U.S. troops for an Iraq war only confirmed what has long been obvious: The Bush administration believes democracy is wonderful -- so long as it doesn't get in the way of war. Common Dreams 2003-03-03 link


Democracy: Bush concentrates executive power by establishing military tribunals
Bush issued of an Executive Order on November 13th, establishing a system of military tribunals to try accused terrorists. The degree to which the Order concentrates power in the hands of the Executive is breathtaking. Center for Constitutional Rights 2002-07-03 link


Democracy: Bush has little interest in democracy, jokingly says he prefers a dictatorship
Bush pushes for democracy abroad as part of his war on terror, but diminishes it at home. Critics believe he has no real interest in democracy, only getting rid of terrorists: George W. Bush says he wants to attack Iraq to install democracy. But as he explained on 2002-12-18: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Common Dreams 2003-02-23 link


Democracy: Bush is melding the war in Iraq with the war to win tax relief on stock dividends.
It is a shameless exploitation of a military victory with the goal of intimidating Republican holdouts on Capitol Hill. Just as Bush crushed Democrats in last year's congressional elections with appeals to patriotism, he is now turning the big guns on his own party. MSNBC 2004-04-18 link


Democracy: Bush places unrealistic demands on Palestinians
With a straight face, Bush asked the Palestinians to remove their existing leaders, create a functional democracy with separation of powers, write a constitution, and implement a market economy. No state in world history, and certainly not one under foreign occupation, has ever done this in three years. After a half-century of independence, none of the Arab states satisfy the Bush criteria. According to the cynics, Bush knows that the Palestinians can never meet these criteria, and thus a Palestinian state will never be created. Taking us to war based on lies is a clear abrogation of democracy. Counter Punch 2002-07-05 link


Democracy: Bush promises Palestinians democracy, as long as they don't elect Arafat
Bush II promised Palestinians democracy - provided, of course, they didn't re-elect Yasser Arafat. Big Eye 2003-10-04 link


Democracy: Bush's democracy based on money --Fidel Castro
For Mr. W, democracy only exists where money solves everything and where those who can afford a $25,000-a-plate dinner an insult to the billions of people living in the poor, hungry and underdeveloped world are the ones called to solve the problems of society and the world --. Fidel Castro China Daily 2002-06-06 link


Democracy: FCC appointee result of nepotism, not qualifications
Bush's appointee to head the FCC is the son of Colin Powell. A more experienced, less-partisan person would have better protected the public airwaves, which are essential to a functioning democracy. The Guardian 2001-10-29 link


Democracy: FCC Chair promotes corporate-friendly agenda
After nine months in office, Powell does appear hellbent on pursuing a corporate-friendly agenda that can only result in a further torrent of mergers in the media industries. The Guardian 2001-10-29 link


Democracy: For Bush, democracy is really imperial hegemony
In Bush-speak, democracy has been perverted to mean U.S. imperial hegemony: nations run by puppet rulers who make all the right noises, like Afghanistan's U.S.-installed figurehead, Hamid Karzai, while following Washington's orders to the letter. Common Dreams 2003-03-02 link


Democracy: Huge protests are "irrelevant" to Bush
When asked about his reaction to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who rallied on Feb. 15 to oppose a war, Bush brushed them off as irrelevant. To pay attention to the largest worldwide political event in recent history, he said, would be like governing by focus group. Common Dreams 2003-03-03 link


Democracy: In trade, commerce trumps democracy
The U.S. government employs a double standard by trading with one-party communist regimes in China and Vietnam, affirming that commerce may open the way for political freedoms, while shunning Cuba, said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a leader of a new 40-member congressional bloc seeking an easing of tensions with Cuba. Blackpool and Fylde Cuba Solidarity Campaign 2003-03-02 link


Democracy: Preemptive, undeclared war is generating resistance among some rank-in-file soldiers
military personnel who are not pacifists or conscientious objectors. Joined by military families and 12 members of the U.S. Congress, a group of U.S. service men and women recently challenged Presidential abuse of power. Common Dreams 2003-04-07 link


Democracy: The White House has assumed vast new powers for internal repression
establishing by executive order an Office of Homeland Security that is not subject to either congressional oversight or any vote on the personnel appointed to run it. WSWS 2002-03-08 link


Economy: 2003 spending shows highest federal borrowing rate since WWII
The latest budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that one out of every three dollars the federal government spends this year outside of the self-funded Social Security system will be paid for by borrowing. This will be the highest share of deficit-financed spending since World War II. Citizens for Tax Justice 2003-06-11 link


Economy: Budget deficit makes it difficult to handle baby-boom retirement
The swelling budget deficit, projected by the White House to reach a record $455 billion this fiscal year, "will make it even more difficult to cope with the aging of the baby-boom generation, and will eventually crowd out investment and erode U.S. productivity growth," the IMF said. Bloomberg 2003-08-05 link


Economy: Bush "Jobs and Growth Act" have little stimulus value, are a giveaway to the rich
On May 28th, President Bush signed into law the so-called "Jobs and Growth Act," a tax cut package. This tax cut targets its benefits toward the wealthiest Americans. For that reason alone, this tax cut is not an economic stimulus -- the only thing this tax cut "stimulates" is more economic inequality in the U.S. United for a Fair Economy 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Bush administration allows hidden funds to to remain so
With one hand the administration will release the rich from their tax obligations, with the other it will choke off enforcement, allowing hidden funds to remain so. St. Petersburg Times 2002-12-01 linkSt.


Economy: Bush chooses "star wars" funding over education
I strongly support America's war against terrorism. But as a teacher, I believe we also have to "do the math." When we're all being asked to sacrifice, when we've gone beyond trimming the fat to slicing the bone by laying off almost 200 teachers in just one school district alone, should the Pentagon really budget $8.3 billion, for example, on an elaborate and unproven Star Wars system that can neither stop a suicide terrorist nor educate one sixth-grader? Common Dreams 2002-02-15 link


Economy: Bush claims $1.7 trillion tax cuts will help economy; deficit caused by other factors
Bush has said that war, recession and the costs of securing the nation after theSept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 have contributed to the federal budget deficit. The $1.7 trillion in tax cuts he signed into law have reduced the impact of the recession his administration inherited, he said. Bloomberg 2003-08-06 link


Economy: Bush claims that he inherited the recession, but it didn't begin until later
Bush opened his final radio address of the year this way: In 2002, our economy was still recovering from the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, and it was pulling out of a recession that began before I took office. Bush concluded 2002 with the same dishonesty that defined his economic policy throughout the year--a mendacity that ranged from denying the tax cut had anything to do with the re-emergence of the deficit to arguing that the terrorism insurance bill would create 300,000 construction jobs. In fact, there is no evidence that the economy was in recession when President Bush took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2001. Bush Watch 2003-10-12 link


Economy: Bush cuts rich in, leaves rest out
"the poor are to exist on faith and charity, for such programs as low-income housing, heating assistance, jobs and unemployment insurance are all starved"Budgets, as the president said in his Saturday radio address, are a matter of priorities, of making hard choices. The president's madcap tax-and-borrow policies have run up a staggering $500 billion deficit -- without creating the jobs needed to keep the economy going. Profits are up, but so is poverty. The Bush administration is building schools in Iraq, but not in the United States. How do we get out of this box?The president's budget reveals his priorities, what he truly cares about. It is not a reassuring picture. The president's first priority remains tax cuts, largely for the wealthy. Millionaires are pocketing $30,000 a year in tax breaks from this president. The president wants, first and foremost, to make his tax cuts permanent -- no matter what that means for the deficit, for investments in our future, for already obscene extremes of inequality in what once was a middle-class nation. Chicago Sun Times 2004-02-03 link


Economy: Bush Economic Team Draws Fire Over Jobs
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are pouncing on a series of stumbles by President Bush's economic team, claiming it's evidence the administration doesn't have a credible strategy to deal with a flood of U.S. manufacturing job losses. The latest misstep occurred Thursday when the administration's first choice as point man on manufacturing issues withdrew from consideration after Democrats attacked his decision to set up a manufacturing plant in China. NY Times 2004-03-12 link


Economy: Bush ends "double taxation"
Bush ends "double taxation" of dividends as unfair even though most things are taxed multiple times Under our system, the same dollar is taxed multiple times as it moves through the economy, from an employer to an employee to a gas station and then on to the next employee, ad infinitum. Singling out dividends for exemption from this process is unfair to those who have little or no dividend income. United for a Fair Economy 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Bush excludes workers' rights from free-trade negotiations
And [Bush's] relentless effort to exclude worker and environmental rights from negotiations on the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the current "Doha Round" at the World Trade Organization is creating competitive advantages for companies that shirk social protections. Economic Policy Institute 2003-03-04 link


Economy: Bush falsely claims that economists say tax cuts will help economic growth
President Bush proclaimed that a report by leading economists concluded that the economy would grow by 3.3 percent in 2003 if his tax cut proposals were adopted. No such report exists. Gordan Livingston 2003-06-03 link


Economy: Bush ignores humanitarian needs, spends it on Iraq
By focusing global attention on an economic crisis that does not really exist, America has diverted public attention from serious crises that do. Consider the battles against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. About eight million people will die of these preventable and treatable diseases in 2004. In 2001, the world created a global fund to fight them. Yet for fiscal year 2004, the Bush administration is committing just $200 million to that fund. For every one of these dollars, the administration is committing $350 to Iraq. These are grotesquely distorted priorities. Miami Herald 2003-10-01 link


Economy: Bush late in extending unemployment benefits
"For the 750,000 or more unemployed workers whose benefits will be terminated onDecember 28, the President's support is welcome although it comes painfully late," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Had the President weighed in while Congress was in session, these 750,000 jobless workers almost certainly would not have to go several weeks during the holiday season with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 2002-12-14 link


Economy: Bush offers tax cuts as a solution to every problem
"They have one unchanging, unyielding solution they offer for every problem: tax cuts that go disproportionately to the most affluent." This, too, mirrors majority opinion; 54 percent last summer said the tax cut would mainly benefit the wealthy. Tom Daschle ABC News 2002-01-04 link


Economy: Bush proposes allowing 50% pension cuts
Reflecting a deep and growing concern about Americans' retirement security, more than 200 bipartisan members of the House and Senate wrote to President Bush Thursday calling on him to withdraw proposed regulations that, if allowed to go into effect, would permit companies to cut long-time employees' pensions by as much as 50 percent. Committee on Education and the Workforce 2003-01-30 link


Economy: Bush Readies Budget As Spending Balloons
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conservatives wait warily as President Bush makes final decisions about his election-year budget, three years into an administration on whose watch spending has mushroomed by 23.7 percent, the fastest pace in a decade. While Bush has emphasized repeatedly the need to rein in spending, overall federal expenditures have grown to an estimated $2.31 trillion for the budget year that started Oct. 1. That is up from $1.86 trillion in President Clinton's final year, a rate of growth not seen for any three-year period since 1989 to 1991. AP 2004-01-05 link


Economy: Bush report: Sending jobs overseas helps U.S.
WASHINGTON -- The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said yesterday. The embrace of foreign "outsourcing," an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the U.S. economy. Seattle Times 2004-02-10 link


Economy: Bush says disappearing surplus "incredibly positive news"
What does "reducing the size and scope of government" mean? Tax-cut proponents are usually vague about the details. But the Heritage Foundation, ideological headquarters for the movement, has made it pretty clear. Edwin Feulner, the foundation's president, uses "New Deal" and "Great Society" as terms of abuse, implying that he and his organization want to do away with the institutions Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson created. That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- most of what gives citizens of the United States a safety net against economic misfortune. The starve-the-beast doctrine is now firmly within the conservative mainstream. George W. Bush himself seemed to endorse the doctrine as the budget surplus evaporated: in August 2001 he called the disappearing surplus "incredibly positive news" because it would put Congress in a "fiscal straitjacket." New York Times 2003-09-14 link


Economy: Bush tax cuts include deduction for SUVs
One of Bush's proposed tax cuts would raise from $25,000 to $75,000 the amount small business owners -- including doctors, lawyers and financial advisers -- can write off when buying an SUV for business purposes. Tom Dispatch 2003-01-24 link


Economy: Bush tax cuts play a significant role in turning surplus to defecit
[The 2001] Bush tax cut combined with a weakening economy and the Sept. 11 attacks to eliminate the surplus and create a $157.8 billion deficit. Slate 2003-02-04 link


Economy: Bush Threatens to Veto $318B Highway Bill
WASHINGTON (AP) -- States would get an additional $100 billion over the next six years to build roads, repair bridges and improve public transit under a Senate-passed bill that the White House says is extravagant in an age of record deficits. The Senate voted 76-21 Thursday to approve the $318 billion surface transportation bill, a winning margin that would be enough to override a presidential veto threatened by the administration. AP 2004-02-13 link


Economy: Bush tinkers with deficit estimates
There were some reports after the midsession review was released that the administration had intentionally overestimated the 2003 deficit by considerable amounts in the midsession review so that it would be able to provide what it considered to be good news when the fiscal year was actually over. Gov Exec 2003-08-06 link


Economy: Bush trade practices favor China over US
Bush's trade practices are driving Americans out of jobs and manufacturers out of business, while giving huge advantages to China and other countries. NY Times 2003-08-18 link


Economy: Bush's "strong dollar" rhetoric hurting small business
The president's continued cheerleading for the "strong dollar" is pricing small domestic producers out of international markets while creating windfalls for companies that can move overseas to produce goods for sale in the United States. Economic Policy Institute 2003-03-04 link


Economy: Bush's 2003 budget fails to allow for Iraq war, even though it is imminent
When its budget was released earlier this year, the White House refused to project any additional spending for the war with Iraq--even though it was considered highly likely to happen. Like all presidential budgets, this one used an optimistic economic forecast. Gov Exec 2003-08-06 link


Economy: Bush's 2004 budget fails to include costs of Iraq war
This makes it hard to believe the administration's $475 billion deficit estimate for 2004--or the steady improvement it is forecasting through 2007. The fiscal 2004 estimate again excludes any additional costs for the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though there is no doubt that they will be incurred. And as usual, it is based on a decidedly optimistic economic scenario. Gov Exec 2003-08-06 link


Economy: Bush's Goal of Affordable, High-Speed Internet Access for All Americans Contradicts Administration Policies
(Washington, D.C.) -- President Bush's much-publicized goal of providing affordable high-speed Internet access to all Americans by ensuring "plenty of choice" in broadband service contradicts Administration policies that actually have strengthened cable and phone monopolies which have led to higher prices and less choice in broadband, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America said today in a letter to the president. Consumers Union 2004-03-30 link


Economy: Bush's job record worst since Herbert Hoover
The nation has lost jobs in 25 of the 31 months that President Bush has been in office, making for the worst jobs record at this point in a presidency of any administration since Herbert Hoover. Including last month's loss of 44,000 positions (when economists had predicted a 10,000-job increase), our economy has shed more than 2.5 million jobs and 3.2 million private-sector jobs since the president took office. AFL-CIO 2003-08-05 link


Economy: Bush's job-training proposal empty
"A dagger pointed at the jugular of the unskilled." That's how economist and free trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati recently described the effect of technological change and churning jobs in the world economy on America's workers. Or, as President Bush put it just last Monday to an audience in North Carolina: "We're not training enough people to fill the jobs of the 21st century." In his speech, the president announced he would seek to revamp federal job training programs to double the number of people trained every year. Trouble is, job training isn't cheap. The president's proposal doesn't offer a single dime of new funding -- it just reshuffles the already inadequate funding. Seattle PI 2004-04-08 link


Economy: CBO projects huge budget shortfalls through 2011
The CBO also predicted the annual budget shortfalls would total $2.3 trillion through 2011, a stunning reversal from the 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus the CBO forecast in 2001. But Walker, who heads the General Accounting Office, said even those daunting figures do not convey the scope of the problem because conventional government accounting leaves out the impact of promised benefits for veterans' health, Social Security, Medicare and other programs. "These additional amounts total tens of trillions of dollars," he said. "They are likely to exceed $100,000 in additional burden for every man, woman and child in America today, and these amounts are growing every day," he said. Seattle Post Intelligencer 2003-09-18 link


Economy: Critics Tackle $10B Request for Missiles
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic senators Thursday criticized the administration's budget request for the missile defense program, questioning anew whether the system will ever work. Supporters urged continued funding for the program still in development. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the request for $10.2 billion "truly staggering" -- the largest single-year funding request for any weapon system in history -- and questioned the program as "rudimentary and uncertain." NY Times 2004-03-11 link


Economy: Debt crazy/Reality check on Bush's budget
When the White House reported Monday that the federal deficit for 2003 came in below expectations -- a mere $374 billion -- President Bush's aides were quick to celebrate. "We can put the deficit on a reasonable downward path if we continue progrowth economic policies and exercise responsible spending restraint," budget director Joshua Bolten told the Wall Street Journal. This outlandish spin is an insult to the nation's taxpayers and suggests that the White House is reading its own budget documents as badly as it read the prewar intelligence on Iraq. A new report by two respected budget watchdogs -- the probusiness Committee for Economic Development and the hawkish Concord Coalition -- shows that the federal budget outlook is now the worst in the nation's history and that the Bush administration is doing absolutely nothing to fix it. Star Tribune 2003-10-23 link


Economy: Deficit projections consistently understated
Most media coverage overlooked the increasingly obvious truth that the 2004 deficit could be $100 billion or more above what the White House projected, and that its long-term estimates could be equally out of whack. Gov Exec 2003-08-06 link


Economy: During first two years of Bush administration, unemployment up, jobs disappearing
Unemployment has averaged 5.8% over the past year, and most recently hit 6.1%, two points above the 2000 rate of 4%. Since then, over 3 million more persons have been added to the ranks of the unemployed. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Editorial: Big spenders/Bush & Co. remortgage nation
Someone recently called President Bush "the mother of all big spenders." It wasn't Howard Dean or any of the other Democratic presidential candidates. It wasn't a Democratic member of Congress. It was fiscal analysts for the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute. Why the harsh rhetoric for George W. Bush from what should be a sympathetic corner? Because Bush has simultaneously shrunk the revenue flowing to the federal government through a string of tax cuts while increasing federal spending like there was no tomorrow, literally. Star Tribune 2003-11-30 link


Economy: Ending the inheritance tax leads to command based on inheritance rather than merit
According to William H. Gates, Sr., father of the richest man in the world, if we eliminate the inheritance tax, we "pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit." It appears that the Bush administration agrees. Tom Paine 2001-04-09 link


Economy: Energy Tax Breaks Go to Industries
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two-thirds of the $23 billion in tax breaks in the Republican-drafted energy bill would go to the oil, gas and coal industries. Democrats criticized the legislation as "a hodgepodge of subsidies for the politically well-connected." AP 2003-11-17 link


Economy: Factory Bush Touted Closes; 1,300 Ohioans Jobless
Last April, President Bush visited a Timken Company manufacturing plant in Ohio to press for passage of new tax cuts that he said would spur the economy. During the speech Bush said that "the future of this company is bright and therefore, the future of employment is bright for the families that work here". Less than a year after the tax cuts for the wealthy passed, that same factory is shutting down -- putting about 1,300 people out of work and inflicting a "devastating" blow to the Canton community. With the White House pushing even more tax cuts for the wealthy and supporting outsourcing of American jobs, Ohio has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. Misleader 2004-05-18 link


Economy: Federal government not delivering promised 9-11 funds to states
Despite $7 billion in federal spending promised over two fiscal years, the federal government has yet to spend a penny reimbursing hard-pressed state and local governments for costs they've absorbed since Sept. 11, 2001. Seattle Post Intelligencer 2003-02-10 link


Economy: Foreclosures set record highs during Bush recession
Foreclosures are at a record high. Information Clearing House 5 2003-06-21 link


Economy: Homeland Security Spending Under Fire
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration's proposed $6 billion increase on homeland defense spending is a shell game undermined by cuts to other law enforcement programs, four Democratic senators charged Wednesday. The four said that it's disingenuous to tout increases in homeland security spending while at the same time trying to cut programs like the Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS program, which provides grants to state and local authorities for hiring more police officers. AP 2004-02-11 link


Economy: I.M.F. Report Says U.S. Deficits Threaten World Economy
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 -- With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report made public today bythe International Monetary Fund. In nearly 60 pages of carefully worded analysis, the report sounded a loud alarm about the shaky fiscal foundation of the United States, questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration's tax cuts and warning that large budget deficits posed "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world. NY Times 2004-01-07 link


Economy: Job shrinkage greatest of any post-WWII recession
Private-sector payrolls are down 260,000 this year and are down by 3.1 million, or 2.8%, since the recession began in March of 2001, the largest percentage decline in any post-WWII recession. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Jobless recovery hurting working families
Despite the fact that the economy has been expanding for over a year, our labor market remains mired in a jobless recovery, and these conditions are now hurting the living standards of working families. The President and the Congress claim to have done so with the passage of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Actof 2003 , but as our testimony argues, this plan is unlikely to provide the boost the economy needs. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Looting the Future
One thing you have to say about George W. Bush: he's got a great sense of humor. At a recent fund-raiser, according to The Associated Press, he described eliminating weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and ensuring the solvency of Medicare as some of his administration's accomplishments. Then came the punch line: "I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." He must have had them rolling in the aisles. Paul Krugman NY Times 2003-12-05 link


Economy: Manufacturing loss of "catastrophic proportions"
The release today and Friday of rising unemployment numbers for April revealed that the 33-month erosion of U.S. manufacturing employment has reached catastrophic proportions and is now undermining the entire American economy, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) said here today. United Steelworkers of America 2003-05-05 link


Economy: Median earnings down for the last four quarters
Persistently high unemployment has caught up with wage growth; for the first time since the 1990s, real median earnings fell for the last four quarters in a row. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Misspending Military Dollars
"The strong defense everybody wants will not come from throwing ever larger sums into the wrong weapons."If the Bush administration were at all serious about fiscal responsibility, it would have sent Congress a Defense Department budget that reflected the real costs of military operations, cut out cold-war-era programs and focused on the things the military needs in the 21st century. Regrettably, none of that happened. The budget plan is inaccurate, anachronistic and laden with pork, and Congress is only likely to make things worse. Mr. Bush is proposing to increase basic Pentagon spending by more than $20 billion over last year's budget, and that does not even count operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could add a further $50 billion when the bill is presented to Congress after Election Day. Add that money and the nuclear weapons programs run by the Energy Department to the Pentagon's $402 billion request, and the total will approach half a trillion dollars. NY Times 2004-02-05 link


Economy: Mr. Bush's Revisionism
Just as he did on Iraq and national security, President Bush laid the economic foundation for his re-election campaign during a television interview broadcast Sunday. In a preview of how his campaign will respond to complaints about the huge deficit and overall job losses, Mr. Bush defended his tax cuts as ways to stimulate the economy, blamed Congress for not getting spending under control and made vague promises about avoiding catastrophic red ink in the long run by reforming Medicare and Social Security. None of what we heard made much sense. NY Times 2004-02-10 link


Economy: New Report Questions Effectiveness, Design of Bush Tax Cuts
A new study of three years of Administration tax cuts, issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, finds adverse fiscal, distributional, and long-term economic effects from the tax cuts. CBPP 2004-04-24 link


Economy: Once fully effective 52% of Bush tax cuts will go to wealthiest 1%
According to Citizens for Tax Justice, when the Bush tax cuts are fully effective, 52 percent of the cuts will go to this country's richest 1 percent. And even if by some miracle of responsible governance they are not made permanent after 10 years, the total amount of tax cuts already going to the richest 1 percent will total $477-billion -- each taxpayer in that rarified category receiving an average of $342,000 worth of cuts. St. Petersburg Times 2002-12-01 link


Economy: Out of Their Anti-Tax Minds
It's hard to overstate Norquist's importance in contemporary Washington. He is head of Americans for Tax Reform, is an intimate of Karl Rove, the president's chief political aide, and has easy access to the White House. He presides over a weekly meeting of important Republican activists and lobbyists where the agenda -- at least Norquist's -- is to ensure that taxes are reduced to a bare minimum, the government is starved and everyone, the rich and the poor, is taxed the same, which is to say almost not at all. The Bush administration has mindlessly applied this doctrine. It has three times reduced taxes -- mostly on the rich -- careening the federal budget from a surplus to a deficit without end. The rich, who can afford their schools or health care, will not suffer. But the poor and the middle class will hurt plenty -- and state and local taxes, often the most regressive, will go up. Washington Post 2004-01-06 link


Economy: PASSING DOWN THE DEFICIT: FEDERAL POLICIES CONTRIBUTE TO STATE FISCAL CRISIS
The state fiscal crisis has been deep and prolonged. States have struggled to close deficits that have totaled approximately $190 billion over the past three years. And, as states debate and enact budgets for fiscal year 2005 (which, in most states, begins on 2004-07-1), they are facing deficits of roughly another $40 billion for that year. Federal policies, which have reduced state revenues and imposed additional costs on states, have played a significant role in enlarging these deficits and are impeding states' fiscal recovery. These federal policies have contributed significantly to the need for states and localities to make expenditure cuts and enact tax increases to bring their budgets into balance. CBPP 2004-05-12 link


Economy: Republican Congress making bad system worse with retirement benefits
The U.S. Congress adjourned last year after failing to address the faults in a pension system that has been laid bare by catastrophic 401(k) losses for thousands of workers, the tumbling stock market, and high-profile corporate abuse of retirement plans. Congress is now setting itself up to make the system even worse. Economic Policy Institute 2003-04-09 link


Economy: Republicans switch sides, now claim deficits don't matter
In recent months, Republicans who for years decried federal imbalances have minimized their significance, arguing that they were manageable in an economy whose size exceeds $10 trillion. CBS News 2003-05-12 link


Economy: S&P 500 shows biggest 18 month drop of any presidency since Herbert Hoover
George W. Bush is shattering records for the worst first 18 months in office for a U.S. president as measured by the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500. In his first year-and-a-half in the White House, Bush presided over a 36.9 percent decline, almost twice the percentage drop of Herbert Hoover, the president who led the nation into the Depression. Consortium News 2002-07-23 link


Economy: School week shortened to offset budget cuts
As The Washington Post reported, more than 100 school districts in seven states have shortened the school week to four days in order to offset budget cuts. Tom Paine 2003-01-29 link


Economy: Senators Deride Domestic Security Cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's new budget would not devote enough money to domestic security, senators said Monday, noting big cuts in funds for firefighters, police and others who would respond to a terrorist attack. "A stunning 30 percent cut ... for first responders is the latest alarming evidence of shortchanging the homeland side of the war against terrorism," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., told Homeland Security Security Secretary Tom Ridge. "We have a long way to go yet before we fulfill the promises that we made to the American people in those dark days following the 9-11 attacks to adequately secure the homeland," Lieberman said at a budget hearing before the Senate Committee on Government Affairs. AP 2004-02-09 link


Economy: Snow: Outsourcing Can Help the Economy
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Treasury Secretary John Snow says outsourcing of American jobs, a hot issue in the presidential campaign, can help make the economy stronger. "It's part of trade," Snow said. "It's one aspect of trade, and there can't be any doubt about the fact that trade makes the economy stronger.""You can outsource a lot of activities and get them done just as well at a lower cost," Snow said after being asked about the issue during a stop here Monday. NY Times 2004-03-30 link


Economy: Soaring trade deficit threatens to destabilize U.S. financial markets
A trade deficit must be financed by net borrowing from other countries. The United States was effectively spending 5% more than it was producing last year, but cannot continue to borrow at such a high rate indefinitely. Worse yet, the trade deficit is growing each year as a share of GDP. Some government officials have suggested that such high levels of foreign borrowing do not pose a problem. Treasury Secretary John Snow recently said that "our current account deficit in large part reflects the attractive investment environment and high growth of productivity in the United States" (Senate Banking Committee on 2003-10-30). This statement ignores a serious problem resulting from the rising U.S. trade deficit: a growing dependence on lending by foreign governments bent on maintaining large trade surpluses with the United States. Economic Policy Institute 2004-01-07 link


Economy: State budget shortfalls lead to college tuition increases
Huge state budget shortfalls have already begun to eat away at funding for education, health care and higher education. University tuition has increased by more than 10 percent in over one-fifth of states. Tom Paine 2003-01-29 link


Economy: State of the Union at Home
When the president delivers his State of the Union address, we like to listen respectfully and respond politely. It is always easy to find things worth applauding. Last night, for instance, President Bush mentioned job retraining, immigration law reform and programs to help newly released prisoners re-enter society. The impulse is always to split the difference -- to decry the ideas we disagree with and then note the ones we like. This time, such evenhandedness seems impossible. The president's domestic policy comes down to one disastrous fact: his insistence on huge tax cuts for the wealthy has robbed the country of the money it needs to address its problems and has threatened its long-term economic security. Everything else is beside the point. NY Times 2004-01-21 link


Economy: States to lose $41 billion from Bush tax cuts
Thus, if these [tax cut] provisions were enacted, states would stand to lose $23 billion between 2004 and 2008. As the proposed savings accounts grow in cost over time, so would the state revenue loss. The state revenue loss would rise to more than $41 billion over the subsequent five years from 2009 to 2013. Center on Budget and Policy Prioities 2003-02-04 link


Economy: Successful programs being cut in K-12 education because of budget cuts
Innovative K-12 programs enacted during stronger economic times have been hacked, and even basic programs for school-aged kids are being downsized. Tom Paine 2003-01-29 link


Economy: Tax code gives billions to companies that send factories overseas
The current tax code gives billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies to companies that export factories, outsource production, and then hide in offshore tax shelters. Economic Policy Institute 2003-03-04 link


Economy: Tax cuts driven by Republican ideology that will force program cuts
Republican ideology is now focused on creating artificial fiscal crises that will "force" program cuts, without ever stepping up to the plate and owning up to the program cuts they want to make. Why? Because it's electoral suicide. Calpundit 2003-05-27 link


Economy: Tax cuts favor the wealthy
Third, as is well known, the personal income tax cuts are largely directed at high-income families--according to estimates by Brookings/Urban Institute Tax Center, 62% of the cuts go to households in the top 5% of the income scale. Since these families have higher saving rates -- spend a lower share of their income -- the income tax cuts will be less effective at generating spending than tax relief aimed at low-income and middle-income families. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Tax cuts go to the rich, who distort democracy through lavish political gifts
Find the Urban-Brookings charts published in the Jan. 7 New York Times showing who gets how much of this tax cut. You can barely see the lines that measure the relief until you get above the 99th percentile. . . . The problem is that the rich are screwing up our democracy. Less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all itemized campaign contributions for the 2002 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Common Dreams 2003-01-15 link


Economy: Tax cuts of this nature will not create jobs
Second, the tax cuts are directed in ways that are very ineffective at creating jobs. Nearly all economists agree that excluding taxes on dividends and capital gains will have very little effect on job growth in the near-term. Tax breaks for business expenses will also not create jobs. Businesses have the funds to invest in new equipment and credit is readily available at very low interest rates. Yet, there is very little investment now. The reason is that we have substantial overcapacity. What business needs is more customers people to sell to. As demand grows, so will jobs and investment. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Tax cuts sold as a "jobs" plan, but millions of jobs have failed to materialize
The administration argued that its tax cut would lead to the creation of 1.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004. But it is not widely recognized that according to their own projections, these new jobs are expected in addition to the 4.1 million jobs the economy would generate on its own without the tax cuts. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: Tax cuts will lead to deficits
The recently passed package of tax cuts follows a misguided approach to creating jobs in the near future. First, it contains permanent, or semi-permanent, tax cuts when the need is for temporary one-time tax relief. The consequence is that the plan is far more expensive than is needed and will lead to chronic deficits, which ultimately will end up destroying jobs ten years from now. Economic Policy Institute 2003-06-06 link


Economy: The $500 billion bender
In just the last few months, Congress, at Bush's request, has doled out $87 billion to rebuild and secure Iraq and Afghanistan; approved a $401 billion defense appropriation bill, the largest ever; completed a $1 trillion tax cut on top of the $1.35 trillion reduction the president won in 2001; and approved a Medicare prescription drug benefit that will cost at least $400 billion over the next decade. If the energy bill is revived next year, add to the list at least another $26 billion in tax cuts for energy companies. All of this, it's worth remembering, comes when the federal government has already logged its largest deficit ever -- some $374 billion last year, $84 billion more than the previous record held by Bush's father, George H.W. Bush. SF Chronicle 2003-12-06 link


Economy: The GOP is portraying moderate-tax-cut Senate Republicans as Francophiles
April 18 - More than 60 percent of Americans say large tax cuts now are not needed, yet President Bush is making support for tax cuts a test of party loyalty and patriotism. MSNBC 2004-04-18 link


Economy: The rich get richer by 10% over the past year
America's richest people have seen a 10 per cent increase in their net worth over the past year, the latest list of individual fortunes in Forbes magazine reveals. The improving fortunes of those on the list also reflected the largesse being shown to the richest Americans by the Bush administration. . . .They are the main beneficiaries of tax cuts that will pump $100bn into the economy - most of it into the pockets of the top 1 per cent - this year alone. They have also benefited from measures such as the repeal of estate taxes and the lifting of various government regulations on industry and large businesses. The Independent 2003-09-19 link


Economy: Trade deficit continues to widen
In their recent road trip, top Bush economic officials heard that China's absorption of American jobs is killing local economies. America's trade deficit with the rest of the world continues to widen. Common Dreams 2003-08-06 link


Economy: Unfunded federal mandates a burden on states
[U]nfunded federal mandates are driving up the costs of running the cities and making it impossible to balance state budgets. SOHO Daily News 2003-09-03 link


Economy: US loses $70 billion annually to offshore companies
We should also thank the Republicans in th

Posted by: omarleeds Jun 7 2004, 03:57 PM

Economy: White House Forecasts Often Miss The Mark
President Bush last week caused a stir when he declined to endorse a projection, made by his own Council of Economic Advisers, that the economy would add 2.6 million jobs this year. But that forecast, derided as wildly optimistic, was one of the more modest predictions the administration has made about the economy over the past three years. Two years ago, the administration forecast that there would be 3.4 million more jobs in 2003 than there were in 2000. And it predicted a budget deficit for fiscal 2004 of $14 billion. The economy ended up losing 1.7 million jobs over that period, and the budget deficit for this year is on course to be $521 billion. These are not isolated cases. Over three years, the administration has repeatedly and significantly overstated the government's fiscal health and the number of jobs the economy would create, but economists and politicians disagree about why. Washington Post 2004-02-24 link


Education: 'No Child Left Behind' should be more than a slogan
This week, President Bush celebrated the second anniversary of the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. I, on the other hand, see little cause for celebration. While the ideals espoused in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) are admirable, the realities of the Bush plan are not. NCLB imposes rigid and expensive mandates on public schools. It judges adequate yearly progress using a one-size-fits-all formula, a measure that gives schools an incentive to lower testing standards in order to meet federal requirements and, sadly, to push out students that may bring down a school's average score. Under these new standards, 26,000 of America's 93,000 schools "failed" to make adequate yearly progress in 2003 and many are not receiving the additional support they need to improve. This federal takeover of public education is the last thing we need. Howard Dean, Seattle Times 2004-01-08 link


Education: Accountability lacking for Bush's Texas charter schools
Accountability was not high on the lists of then-Gov. Bush and Texas legislators when they approved another of Bush's priorities, a form of educational deregulation known as charter schools. Created by a 1995 law, charter schools are mainly funded by the state but are exempt from many state regulations. The idea was to give private groups or individuals the opportunity to be innovative, to compete with more traditional classrooms for the chance to stimulate bright young minds -- or to provide options to failing public schools. In some cases the idea has worked. In others, it has given would-be, strike-it-rich "entrepreneurs" with questionable academic and management credentials the opportunity to rip off youngsters and taxpayers alike. Houston Chronicle 2001-02-01 link


Education: Bait-and-Switch on Public Education
Congressional Republicans are nervous about a G.O.P. poll that shows them losing ground over education. But how could voters not be disappointed by the Bush administration's mishandling of education policy generally, and especially its decision to withhold more than $6 billion from the landmark No Child Left Behind Act, the supposed centerpiece of the administration's domestic policy? NY Times 2003-10-21 link


Education: Bush Pushes Abstinence - Only Education
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is proposing to double spending on sexual abstinence programs that bar any discussion of birth control or condoms to prevent pregnancy or AIDS despite a lack of evidence that such programs work. A study by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on declining birth and pregnancy rates among teenagers concludes that prevention programs should emphasize abstinence and contraception. "Both are important," said Dr. John Santelli, the lead author of the study, which has not been 2004-02-13 link


Education: Bush to rebuild Iraqi schools, while our own are in disrepair
With many of our own schools in serious disrepair, the Bush administration is talking about rebuilding Iraqi schools now. Open Secrets 2003-04-28 link


Education: Bush's Education Secretary advocated soft-drink contracts for schools
Rod Paige, George W. Bush's nominee to run the Education Department, has been praised as a tough administrator who brought a reformist rigor to the job of superintendent of the Houston schools. But under his tenure, the Houston Independent School District joined one of the cheesier recent trends in public education: the boom in exclusive contracts with soft-drink manufacturers to peddle high-sugar sodas in schools. Organic Consumer 2001-01-04 link


Education: Education 'Miracle' Has a Math Problem
HOUSTON -- When the state of Texas bestowed "exemplary" status on Austin High School in August 2002, ecstatic administrators compared the honor to winning the Super Bowl. There was more cheering and pompom-waving a few weeks later when a private foundation honored Houston for having the nation's best urban school district. Just a year later, the high school has been downgraded to "low-performing," the lowest possible rating. And the Houston Independent School District -- showcase of the "Texas educational miracle" that President Bush has touted as a model for the rest of the nation -- is fending off accusations that it inflated its achievements through fuzzy math. Washington Post 2003-11-08 link


Education: Education Secretary cooked the books in Houston
Houston schools, under Rod Paige, claimed great success while Bush was governor of Texas. It now appears that their accountants could have worked for Enron. Success was not quite what it seemed. NY Times 2003-07-11 link


Education: Education Secretary demeans teacher education
"Claims that inexperienced college grads can be as successful as formally trained teachers are insulting and demeaning to qualified members of the teaching profession. Instead of helping professionalize teaching, the Secretary's [Paige's] proposals demean it by promoting teaching as volunteer work." Bob Chase, National Education Association 2002-06-11 link


Education: Education Secretary set unrealistic goals for teaching degrees in rural areas
Secretary Paige also insists on a strict interpretation of the law requiring teachers to have degrees in the subject they teach, an unrealistic requirement for many rural schools. Education Week 2002-03-13 link


Education: Fund capacity building (enhanced teaching and learning) in districts
for several years before engaging in punishing labels and reckless choice provisions. Capacity building might mean providing hundreds of hours of training in effective reading strategies, for example. But it does not mean training everybody in a single highly scripted program endorsed by the administration for pseudo-scientific reasons... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: Head Start wisom
TESTING OF students can be an excellent diagnostic tool. But the Bush administration has gone too far by testing very young children enrolled in Head Start, the country's program for low-income preschoolers. Boston Globe 2003-11-02 link


Education: Math Class vs. Sex Class
President Bush proposes some important new expenditures for education: $100 million for reading programs to help middle and high schoolers who still struggle to sound out Seuss-simple words; $40 million to help professionals in math and science make the transition to teaching; $52 million to bring Advanced Placement classes to more high schools. Yet all these added together would be eclipsed by the $270 million the president would devote to a school program promoting sexual abstinence, despite there being little evidence that such programs reduce teen sex or pregnancies. LA Times 2004-03-08 link


Education: NCLB constitutes an assault on public education
The early focus of NCLB on labeling schools as failures when combined with parental choice provisions represents an assault on public education, allowing virtual elementary schools, faith-based tutoring and other untested charter alternatives to creep into public systems with public tax money. NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB degrades curriculum
Numerous studies confirm that heavy reliance on standardized tests [mandated by NCLB] degrades the curriculum and marginalizes whatever does not contribute directly to short-term gains in test scores, including critical thinking, multicultural studies, citizenship education, the arts, physical education, and bilingual education. And high-stakes testing increases illiteracy by pushing more and more students out of school. Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation 2001-03-14 link


Education: NCLB does not build school improvement on a richly defined foundation of alternatives and strategies...
NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not capitalize on the good research conducted to discover what works best
in schools and avoid simplistic panaceas and platitudes imported from the world of business and medicine... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not devote public money to truly public schools
Be careful not to divert funds to reckless experiments or diploma mills. No Child 2003-05-03 link


Education: NCLB does not emphasize rewards and incentives rather than sanctions...
NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not enrich the options available to all children
Forswear tightly scripted, robotic programs and the fast food approaches to school improvement... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not fund enough construction of new schools
within public systems so parental choice is real... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not fund recruitment and preparation of effective teachers and aides
from all racial and economic groups to close the gap between current staffing levels and what is desirable... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not hold all publicly funded schools to standards
for performance and quality, whether actually private, charter or truly public. Be careful about simplistic notions of high stakes testing.... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB does not support informed school choice within public systems...
NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB includes mandated access for military recruiters
A little-known provision of President Bush's education reform act turns every high school into a military recruiting station. Under the act, high schools are required to provide military recruiters with students' names, addresses and telephone numbers. You have to wonder what that could possibly have to do with improving the education of students. Can you kids spell "cannon fodder"? Common Dreams 2002-12-07 link


Education: NCLB includes questionable reading instruction
There is insufficient evidence to support the National Reading Panel's [the heart of Bush's education plan] claims that phonemic awareness training significantly improves children's reading, that systematic phonics instruction is superior to less intensive instruction, and that skills-based approaches are superior to whole language. Also, contrary to the conclusions of the National Reading Panel, there is abundant evidence that encouraging children to read more in school is beneficial. The Department of Education's data appears to show that spending money on education hasn't improved student learning, but a closer look indicates the deception. David Rosnick, CEPR 2003-08-29 link


Education: NCLB is an insulting, broad brush assault on teachers and administrators
struggling against difficult challenges. .. NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB punishes rather than helps failing schools
The heart of Bush's [No Child Left Behind] plan calls for federally mandated annual testing of all schoolchildren in grades three to eight in reading and math. If schools fail to improve, the Bush plan threatens to reduce government aid -- sort of like threatening to withhold antibiotics from children who can't bring down their own fevers. Common Dreams 2001-12-23 link


Education: NCLB shifts control to the federal government
How ironic that we have an Education Czar in Washington violating decades of state and local control of education just as we profess to introduce democracy to Iraq. The imposition of specific Washington approved phonics programs and reading programs under the guise of pseudo science is an ominous erosion of basic freedoms. Next they will be telling us what science and history to teach! Big Brother/Sister evidently knows best. NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: NCLB uses questionalbe standards
It is also important to recall what standardized reading tests actually measure: the ability to scan quickly the texts of a set of unconnected paragraphs and, for each passage, to pick the correct answers to questions from a set of four or five alternatives. As useful as this skill may sometimes be, it has little to do with reading as you or I know it, whether we do it for a practical purpose, for pleasure, or for inspiration. The questions surrounding the validity of these tests are no secret. The Office of Civil Rights in 2000 issued guidelines asserting that the use of test scores as the single factor to determine retention, graduation, and college admission is improper, and possibly a Civil Rights violation. Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation 2001-03-14 link


Education: New Pell Grant formula leaves out 84,000 students
The new formula for Pell grants (2003) means that 84,000 students will be ineligible. Oregon Daily Emerald 2003-07-09 link


Education: Rhetoric for kids, money for war
IT WAS EASY to get the mistaken impression that the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court to outlaw segregated schools was a really big deal on Capitol Hill, even to Republicans. The presumptive Democratic candidate for president, John Kerry, flew to Topeka, Kan., the site of the case, to say: "We honor the legacy of Brown by reaffirming the value of inclusion, of equality, and diversity in our schools and in our life all across this nation, by opening the doors of opportunity so that more of our young people can stay in school and out of prison." Boston Globe 2004-05-21 link


Education: Rod Paige Calls Teachers Union a "terrorist organization"
WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting with governors on Monday. Democratic and Republican governors confirmed Paige's remarks about the National Education Association. "These were the words, 'The NEA is a terrorist organization,'" said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin. "He was making a joke, probably not a very good one," said Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Of course he immediately divorced the NEA from ordinary teachers, who he said he supports." Yahoo News 2004-02-23 link


Education: Significant Omissions of NCLB: Fund social programs that impact school readiness
so that all children actually enter school ready to learn as the first President Bush promised long ago... NoChildLeft. com 2003-10-12 link


Education: Significant unfunded mandates of NCLB
The Unfunded Mandate of NCLB. [A] recent study by the New Hampshire School Administrators Association estimated that even with the funding increases, the federal government will give New Hampshire schools only about $80 for every student, while costing the state $575 a student to implement NCLB. National Association of Elementary School Principals 2003-03-05 link


Education: Some School Districts Challenge Bush's Signature Education Law
READING, Pa. -- A small but growing number of school systems around the country are beginning to resist the demands of President Bush's signature education law, saying its efforts to raise student achievement are too costly and too cumbersome. The school district here in Reading recently filed suit contending that Pennsylvania, in enforcing the federal law, had unfairly judged Reading's efforts to educate thousands of recent immigrants and unreasonably required the impoverished city to offer tutoring and other services for which there is no money. NY Times 2004-01-01 link


Education: US education suffers in waste of Iraq war
IN 2002, President Bush said the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregated schools was "the right decision." He said we "can't have two systems, one for African-Americans and one for whites." Last month, Bush's education secretary, Rod Paige, said in a speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government: "Such division was wrong in 1954, and it is wrong today. It is immoral. It is unjust." The proclamations made by Bush and Paige are eerie in the dwindling of their meaning -- assuming that there was much meaning to start with. Boston Globe Boston Globe 2004-05-05 link


Education: Vouchers will not ensure that no child is left behind
Vouchers help a few students leave public schools and attend private schools. Left behind are many students in failing schools with even less funding. Federal funds should instead address inequities in resources so that some public schools are not spending twice as much per student as others. Progressive Media Project 2001-01-29 link


Energy: "Science Falls Victim in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Debate
The Washington Post on 7 April 2002 reported that "one week after a U.S. Geological Survey study warned that caribou "may be particularly sensitive to oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the agency has completed a quick follow-up report suggesting that the most likely drilling scenarios under consideration should have no impact on caribou." American Institute of Biological Sciences 2002-04-12 link


Energy: BLM budget includes money to make the agency "more responsive" to industry needs
The 2003 BLM budget includes $10.2 million to expand energy and related activities to make the agency "more responsive" to energy development. Chief among these activities would be promoting oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. NRDC 2002-02-05 link


Energy: Bush energy plan fails to assess potential of alternates
It doesn't assess the potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: Bush energy plan fails to block air-conditioner rollback
It fails to block the rollback of air-conditioner efficiency improvements. The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: Bush energy plan lacks scientific analysis
Bush's energy plan provides no scientific analysis of why fossil and nuclear fuel supplies must be expanded. The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: Bush energy plan lacks tax incentives for energy efficiency
It doesn't include tax incentives for energy-efficient technologies. The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: Bush energy policy endangers public lands
His policy endangers public lands including Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain in Alaska, Weatherman Draw (Valley of the Chiefs) in Montana, Weatherman Draw listed as an Endangered Sacred Site by Sacred Land Film Project, Wilderness-quality lands in Utah's Book Cliffs, Jack Morrow Hills of Wyoming's Red Desert (a pristine area proposed as a national park since the 1930s), Little Missouri National Grasslands in North Dakota, Otero Mesa in New Mexico , Vermillion Basin in Colorado, Green River Basin in Wyoming, and Valle Vidal/Carson National Forest in New Mexico. Sierra Club 2003-09-02 link


Energy: Bush to Back Delay Of Power Grid Plan
The Bush administration intends to side with a Senate Republican attempt to freeze a disputed regulatory proposal meant to strengthen the nation's aging power transmission system, which was blamed in last week's massive blackout, a senior administration official said yesterday. Washington Post 2003-08-16 link


Energy: Bush wants to drill in Arctic refuge
Republicans are again trying to stick the country with one of their favorite bad ideas: drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This time, they included drilling within a larger piece of bad policy, the energy bill approved by the House of Representatives on Friday. The energy bill curries favor with energy corporations and indulges the Republican prescription that a free market cures all ills. The House calls for risky steps deregulating electricity markets, gives new incentives to oil and gas drillers and creates $18.7 billion in tax breaks, mostly for oil, gas and nuclear energy. Seattle Post Intelligencer 2003-04-15 link


Energy: Bush's energy plan endangers National monuments
Bush's energy plan endangers National monuments including Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah, Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana, Carrizo Plain National Monument in California, California Coastal National Monument, Hanford Reach National Monument in Washington, and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado. Sierra Club 2003-09-02 link


Energy: DOE budget cut for energy efficiency programs
However, the budget for the Department of Energy shows a sharp and somewhat surprising return to the defense and nuclear orientation that has characterized it for much of its existence. The administration proposes boosting the department's budget $582 million, from $21.3 billion to $21.9 billion. However, the jump can be explained almost completely by increases in the nuclear weapons programs (+$433 million) and the nuclear waste disposal program at Yucca Mountain (+$150 million). Many energy efficiency programs would be cut. NRDC 2002-02-05 link


Energy: Emphasizes clean coal over zero-emission technologies
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: Energy plan a compendium of tax breaks and subsidies for industry
What [Bush] and Congress exuberantly describe as their comprehensive energy plan is in fact a dreary compendium of subsidies and tax breaks for the coal, oil and gas industries that do nothing to address the problems of global warming or the country's dependence on foreign oil. New York Times 2003-09-02 link


Energy: Energy plan heavily influenced by oil and gas industry
Even though the government heavily censored the documents before supplying them to NRDC, they reveal that Bush administration officials sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy industries, and incorporated their recommendations, often word for word, into the energy plan. NRDC 2002-08-13 link


Energy: Federal regulation of power transmission is being held hostage to the Republican agenda
"This issue has been held hostage to the Republican agenda of trying to drill in the most pristine wilderness, environmentally sensitive areas of the country." -Rep. Ed Markey, member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, referring to the Republicans' refusal to allow the energy bill to go forward without several controversial measures, including the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. CNN LIVE SUNDAY 2003-08-17 link


Energy: FERC lets energy companies off easy for California ripoff
Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, announced settlements with energy companies accused of manipulating markets during the California energy crisis. Why on Friday? Because the settlements were a joke: the companies got away with only token payments. It was yet another demonstration of how electricity deregulation has gone wrong. Paul Krugman, New York Times 2003-09-02 link


Energy: It allows seizing private property for power generation lines
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It calls for vastly increased oil and gas exploration
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It contains no proposals that would spur utility energy efficiency programs nationally
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It creates new subsidies for coal and nuclear power
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It does not contain significant programs for renewable energy resources
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It does not propose raising auto fuel efficiency standards (CAFE)
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It does not raise funding for DOE energy efficiency programs
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It does not realistically assess the economics of nuclear power generation
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It eases regulation of oil refineries and power plants
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It fails to close the SUV loophole that exempts them from more stringent CAFE standards
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It fails to set standards for building and appliance efficiency
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It is designed to ensure the dominance of fossil fuels
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: It rolls back environmental standards
The Energy Foundation 2001-05-16 link


Energy: New "freedom car" program abandons central goal
One of the most visible changes to the administration's budget for energy efficiencies the replacement of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) program with a new "Freedom Car" program. Both programs lack any requirement for automakers to put advanced technology vehicles on the road. However, in addition to the change in name, the administration has abandoned the one specific goal of the PNGV: producing production prototypes for 80 mile per gallon passenger sedans. NRDC 2002-02-05 link


Energy: Renewable energy funds held hostage to ANWR drilling
Like last year, the Bush budget proposes again to spend the federal share of bonus bids received for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on renewable energy, holding this badly needed funding hostage to reckless energy development. NRDC 2002-02-05 link


Energy: Secretive energy meetings with industry shaped US energy policy
President Bush convened a meeting in the White House and established the Energy Policy Development Group chaired by Cheney, to come up with a short-term plan for the energy crisis, and produce a report recommending a national energy policy. Over the next two years, the "Cheney Group" held secret meetings with Enron and other "energy" executives, which would become the subject of a lawsuit. The New York Times reported on 2001-05-16, that on the day the National Energy Plan was released, questions were being raised about the group's "mysterious ways," amid accusations that it had met in secret mainly with energy industry moguls who would benefit from its recommendations. Executive Intelligence Review 2003-08-29 link


Environment: A sacrifice of species
SCIENTISTS have long warned that global warming is causing such changes in habitats that many plant and animal species might not be able to survive the heat. Now, 19 researchers have predicted just how severe the impact will be if current climate trends continue: By 2050, 15 to 37 percent of the 1,103 species they studied will be extinct or beyond the point of no return. The study in a recent issue of Nature should spur President Bush and Congress to end their irresponsible neglect of climate change and its consequences. Boston Globe 2004-01-19 link


Environment: Administration's plan allows overfishing in New England
Despite data indicating that 12 of 18 New England fish stocks are severely depleted, the Bush administration will allow overfishing to continue indefinitely. New England fish populations are down 70 percent from historic levels, while fishing has increased 300 percent. But an agreement put forth by the National Marine Fisheries Service threatens the fishery's sustainability by failing to impose limits on when, where and how fisherman can fish, as required by the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act. NRDC 2002-04-16 link


Environment: Again, an Assault on Alaska
If at first you don't succeed in despoiling an environmental treasure, try, try again. That's apparently the White House motto for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Senate should stop President Bush again, as it has for two years now. The Bush administration has been no friend to the Alaskan environment in recent months. in December, the Forest Service announced it would strip protections from the Tongass National Forest, allowing loggers to build roads to choice stands of old-growth trees. In January, the president's budget brought back his twice-defeated proposal to sell oil leases in the wildlife refuge, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a plan to open millions of acres of the North Slope to drilling and loosen requirements for environmental safeguards. LA Times 2004-02-25 link


Environment: Agency pushes oil exploration near Utah park
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management wants to allow oil exploration on the Dome Plateau, a scenic 36-square-mile area near Arches National Park in southern Utah's Redrock Canyon Country. The project involves crisscrossing the landscape with nearly 50 miles of cable and heavy-duty trucks to conduct seismic testing. NRDC 2002-01-24 link


Environment: Alaska oil drilling would harm environment, despite Bush claims
Despite the Bush administration's assurances that oil drilling would have little impact on the environment, a new government study confirms that opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development could significantly harm wildlife. NRDC 2002-04-07 link


Environment: Another EPA official resigns in protest over Bush policies
In yet another sign of apparent discontent over the Bush administration's handling of environmental issues, the Environmental Protection Agency's top enforcement deputy resigned her post. After more than two decades at EPA, most recently as assistant administrator in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, Sylvia Lowrance decided to retire rather than accept a new job assignment. Media reports indicate that she quit in frustration over the administration's efforts to undermine ongoing litigation against the utility sector for violating federal air pollution standards. NRDC 2002-07-25 link


Environment: Army Corps of Engineers dawdling on Missouri River plan
The Army Corps of Engineers is unlikely to meet its 2003 deadline to issue a new "master manual" for managing the Missouri River, leaving endangered wildlife unprotected while dam operations continue unchanged. As a result, environmentalists may file lawsuits to force the agency to change the river's flow regime in order to prevent species from going extinct. NRDC 2002-09-10 link


Environment: Army Corps of Engineers' flip-flops on project reviews further damage its credibility
Less than a week after announcing that it had completed an unprecedented, in-depth review of 171 projects, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers changed course yet again by reopening reviews on more than 50 projects while dropping some projects from its list altogether and adding others. "The Corps appears to be floundering in a sea of mismanagement," said NRDC attorney Daniel Rosenberg. NRDC 2002-05-23 link


Environment: BLM approves oil and gas drilling in Utah
The Bureau of Land Management ignored concerns raised by the Environmental Protection Agency and a record-breaking amount of public input -- more than 25,000 opposing comments --when it approved a Houston company's request to embark on the largest oil and gas exploration project ever in Utah. NRDC 2002-10-04 link


Environment: BLM backs gas drilling in national monument
The Bureau of Land Management gave preliminary approval to a company to drill eight natural gas wells on already leased federal land on the eastern end of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana. President Clinton designated 47,000 acres along the 149-mile stretch of the Missouri River as a national monument. The remote and largely undeveloped Missouri Breaks contains a unique and spectacular landscape marked by sandstone cliffs shaped by wind and water into twisting spires and towers. NRDC 2002-01-21 link


Environment: BLM grants quickie approval of another energy project in Utah
For the fifth time under the Bush administration, the Bureau of Land Management has given the green light to an oil and gas company's request to conduct seismic exploration in Utah. With the latest project, BLM avoided public scrutiny by granting fast-track approval over Veteran's Day weekend of WesternGeco's Horse Point 3-D project, which encompasses about 31 square miles -- one-third of which is federal land -- in eastern Utah. NRDC 2002-11-11 link


Environment: BLM Idaho director forced to resign
The director of the Bureau of Land Management's office in Idaho resigned, rather than accept an involuntary transfer to a new assignment in New York. In January, Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles, a former industry lobbyist, officially notified Martha Hahn of her removal. The notice directed her to assume a previously non-existent post as executive director of New York Harbor operations for the National Park Service. Contrary to federal requirements, Hahn was never consulted about the transfer or accommodated on her choice of a new assignment. She therefore tendered her resignation from federal service. NRDC 2002-03-06 link


Environment: BLM officials address conflict-of-interest charges
As the battle over coal-bed methane (CBM) development in Wyoming's Powder River Basin heats up, two top officials within the Bureau of Land Management have come under fire for their close ties to industry. NRDC 2002-06-10 link


Environment: BLM opening sensitive Wyoming lands to drilling
Under a draft plan released by the Bureau of Land Management, some 200 oil and gas wells would be allowed in Wyoming's Jack Morrow Hills. Located in a corner of the Red Desert region -- encompassing 662,000 acres of wildlands -- the Jack Morrow Hills feature sand dunes, volcanic formations, colorful rocky buttes and an array of endangered wildlife. With 94 percent of Wyoming's public lands already open to leasing, including much of the Red Desert, conservations and others had hoped BLM would safeguard the hills' fragile landscape. NRDC 2003-02-18 link


Environment: BLM plans to open more lands to drilling
The Bush administration put oil and gas companies on notice: they can expect speedier drilling approvals, easier access to petroleum deposits, reduced royalty payments, and fewer environmental restrictions. NRDC 2002-03-18 link


Environment: BLM proposal could doom California dunes
The Bureau of Land Management may lift restrictions on off-road vehicle usage on 49,000 acres of currently protected dunes in California. The Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, about 150 miles east of San Diego, is home to rare desert plants and threatened and endangered species. NRDC 2002-03-29 link


Environment: BLM putting grazing restrictions out to pasture
The Bush administration intends to roll back Clinton-era restrictions on cattle grazing on public lands. Speaking at a National Cattlemen's Beef Association meeting in Nashville, Bureau of Land Management director Kathleen Clarke unveiled the administration's proposed changes, which include: requiring the agency to factor "local culture and economy" into grazing studies on the public's land; "streamlining" the appeals process for grazing decisions; and allowing ranchers to hold property rights in fences, stock ponds and other projects constructed on public land. NRDC 2003-01-30 link


Environment: BLM rule could block federal land protection
The Bureau of Land Management proposed a rule that could aid states in claiming ownership of rights-of-way on federal lands. Under the rule, states would be allowed to apply to BLM for a "recordable disclaimer of interest" -- essentially a determination that cedes federal jurisdiction over specified public lands to the states. NRDC 2002-02-22 link


Environment: BLM's plans for California desert favor commerce over conservation
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently released a long-awaited draft management proposal for a 5.5 million acre portion of the California's Sonoran Desert that favors vehicle recreation at the expense of wildlife, according to environmentalists. NRDC 2002-09-13 link


Environment: Bureau of Reclamation balks at Klamath water plans
Environmentalists criticized the decision by FWS and NMFS to eventually increase water supplies for fish, insisting that more needs to be done immediately to help endangered sucker fish and threatened coho salmon. NRDC 2002-06-03 link


Environment: Bush "healthy forest" plan creates unhealthy forests
The best way to avoid catastrophic fires is by trimming undergrowth and clearing debris, combined with natural burns of the kind that have sustained healthy forests in past millennia. The worst way to create healthy forests, on the other hand, is to thin trees via increased logging, as proposed by the Bush administration. Washington Post 2003-08-27 link


Environment: Bush administration abandons California water plan
Interior Secretary Norton quietly dropped her agency's appeal of a court ruling involving a critical component of California's widely supported water plan. The state-federal "CalFed" plan is designed to restore the San Francisco Bay-Delta and improve water supply reliability for California. NRDC 2002-08-23 link


Environment: Bush administration agency secretly fights mine reforms
The federal Office of Surface Mining wants to halt proposed reforms that would have ensured that coal companies plan post-mining development before they obtain mountaintop removal permits, according to government records released by the Charleston Gazette. The records show that OSM also is pushing for a federal study to propose lifting restrictions on the size of valley fill waste piles. NRDC 2002-05-10 link


Environment: Bush administration allows energy development in national monument
For the first time ever, energy development activities will be permitted outside already-leased areas at a national monument, courtesy of the Bush administration. The Bureau of Land Management has decided that companies can expand oil and gas exploration beyond the boundaries of their existing leases at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado. NRDC 2002-08-12 link


Environment: Bush administration backing away from California coastal protection
A proposal to designate one of the last undeveloped stretches of Southern California's coast as a national seashore is in danger of being scuttled by the Bush administration. NRDC 2002-08-19 link


Environment: Bush administration backtracks on land preservation
Two years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that a 3,800-acre pristine peninsula in Virginia called the Crow's Nest be designated as a national wildlife refuge, the Bush administration has determined that it lacks the number of rare and endangered species necessary for federal protection. NRDC 2002-06-19 link


Environment: Bush administration begins diverting water from Klamath River -- where salmon kill occurred -- to farmers
The controversy in the Klamath River Basin continues, as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation this week started sending farmers water despite the prospect of another dry summer that could once again leave little for the region's protected fish species. At least 34,000 fish died in the lower Klamath River last fall, in what was the largest salmon die-off ever recorded in the West. California wildlife officials, scientists at the American Fisheries Society and at least one biologist with the National Fisheries Marine Service blamed the tragedy on low water levels caused by the administration's water policies. NRDC 2003-04-03 link


Environment: Bush administration bends rules for favored coal company
Bush administration officials granted a Kentucky coal company a regulatory reprieve to continue mining without a federally required reclamation bond. Bonds are used to make sure that mining companies fix environmental damage caused by coal removal. Addington Enterprises, one of the nation's largest coal companies, lacks adequate insurance to cover the cost of reclaiming disturbed areas -- a violation of federal law. In an unusual move, the Interior Department gave the company a 90-day grace period to find reclamation insurance or risk being ordered to cease all mining in Kentucky and Tennessee. The grace period has expired, so the Bush administration is extending the deadline for three additional months. NRDC 2002-01-03 link


Environment: Bush administration blamed for Klamath River fish kill
An investigation by the California Department of Fish and Game concluded that the Bush administration's controversial decision to divert water from the Klamath River for irrigation resulted in last fall's massive die-off of salmon. State biologists also noted a "substantial risk" of more kills if the government continues to divert water from the river, which straddles the California-Oregon border. NRDC 2003-01-05 link


Environment: Bush administration blames wildfires on environmentalists
In a new low, the Bush administration is suggesting a link between forest protection efforts and the scourge of wildfires currently raging across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced plans to study whether legal actions and petitions by environmentalists contributed to Forest Service delays in wildfire prevention projects, thereby contributing to the catastrophic wildfire season in the West this year. The agency wants the study to list specific projects rejected due to legal concerns and any extra time and money spent to immunize projects against legal action. NRDC 2002-06-25 link


Environment: Bush administration blocks testimony of key energy official Government attorneys filed a motion in federal district court to sto
May 15 deposition of the administration energy task force's executive director, Andrew Lundquist. NRDC issued a subpoena to Lundquist on April 30 to depose him and force the Energy Department to finally release records of who consulted with him to formulate the Bush energy policy. NRDC 2002-05-09 link


Environment: Bush administration calls for more gas drilling on public lands
According to an Interior Department study released last winter, 88 percent of the natural gas resources found in the five major energy producing basins in the Rocky Mountains is open for oil and gas development. But the recent spike in natural gas prices has Bush administration officials warning of an impending natural gas supply crisis that can only be alleviated by increasing drilling on federal lands. In order to make that happen the administration supports "streamlining" environmental protections for energy companies. NRDC 2003-06-24 link


Environment: Bush administration changes science on polar bear impacts to suit Arctic drilling
"Out with the old 'good' science, in with the new 'bad' science," said Chuck Clusen, NRDC's program director for national parks and Alaska. "The Bush administration seems intent on doing whatever it takes to let the oil industry get its sticky fingers on one of America's greatest national treasures." NRDC 2002-01-17 link


Environment: Bush administration doles out political treats on Halloween
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a list of infrastructure construction projects -- one airport and six highways -- around the country that will receive expedited environmental review under President Bush's executive order last month "streamlining" rules under the National Environmental Policy Act review process. The projects are located in California, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Vermont. The agency approved these projects despite a pledge by senior DOT officials to involve environmental organizations in the decision-making process. Environmentalists are convinced that DOT selected these federally funded construction projects to boost the prospects of Republican candidates facing tough elections. NRDC 2002-10-31 link


Environment: Bush administration employs stonewall strategy at World Summit
The good news is the White House announced its goals and strategies for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The bad news is that the U.S. delegation, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, will use the summit as a platform to rebut international criticism of Bush's environmental policies and his failure to be a team player in global issues. NRDC 2002-08-21 link


Environment: Bush administration flunking on salmon recovery
The Bush administration has failed to ensure the survival of endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest, according to Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. The national group, which is comprised of regional environmental organizations, issued a report criticizing the administration for not implementing three-quarters of the Federal Salmon Recovery Plan adopted in 2000. NRDC 2003-02-26 link


Environment: Bush administration forced to protect endangered whipsnake
A federal judge has thwarted another attempt by the Bush administration to remove critical-habitat protection for species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. In the latest in a series of legal challenges by the construction and timber industries against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over federal habit protections, the judge ruled against California developers by upholding the federal designation of 400,000 acres as critical for the survival of the Alemeda whipsnake. NRDC 2002-07-10 link


Environment: Bush administration fosters policy of delay on global warming
Ignoring a decade of peer-reviewed global warming science, the Bush administration has called for at least five more years of study before taking any substantial action to stem the problem -- delay that will make it harder and more expensive to solve the problem. NRDC 2002-12-04 link


Environment: Bush administration giving away federal water rights in national park
The American public may own the national parks, but what about the water in the parks? In what amounts to a major policy shift and an unprecedented federal giveaway, the Bush administration has negotiated a secret deal to cede federal control over the waters in Colorado's Gunnison National Park to the state. The water will be sold to Colorado cities facing a drinking water shortage, leaving little for wildlife in the park. NRDC 2003-04-03 link


Environment: Bush administration intends to shift Superfund cleanup from polluters to taxpayers
The federal trust fund used to clean up 30 percent of the nation's worst waste sites is facing a cash crunch. But President Bush plans to shift cleanup costs to citizens rather than make polluters foot the bill. NRDC 2002-02-23 link


Environment: Bush administration intervened in Nevada mining dispute at request of industry
Last fall the Bush administration became the cat's meow for industry when, at the request of the Interior Department, the Justice Department intervened in a legal dispute on the side of a company that wants to develop a controversial clay mine and cat litter processing plant on federal land near downtown Reno, Nevada. NRDC 2003-03-03 link


Environment: Bush administration lets construction companies off the hook for protecting environment
The Bush administration backed off a plan that would have required the construction industry to spend $4.1 billion a year on environmental protection. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had planned to require construction companies to take permanent steps, such as building ponds in office parks, to reduce pollution from dirt and other runoff after storms. The White House Office of Management and Budget rejected the plan as too costly, and instead proposed temporary measures, such as water basins, that may be removed as the bulldozers leave. Environmentalists criticized the administration for, once again, favoring big business at the expense of the environment. NRDC 2002-05-24 link


Environment: Bush administration lifts ban on mining in Oregon national forest
The Bush administration canceled a two-year ban on new mining claims in roughly 1.2-million acres in and around southwestern Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest. The decision to lift the moratorium, which was set to expire in January 2003, opens the area to prospectors. NRDC 2002-05-21 link


Environment: Bush administration limiting scope of federal coal mining study
Bush administration limiting scope of federal coal mining study. In the wake of massive flooding in West Virginia this summer, the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) proposed a detailed investigation of a possible link to coal mining practices. But the Bush administration is backing away from the study in response to complaints from state officials. The OSM had planned to fly federal inspectors over more than 100 valley fills -- streams buried under waste from mountain-top removal mining -- in an effort to examine their stability and progress on reclamation. NRDC 2002-10-28 link


Environment: Bush administration looking for legal loopholes on manatee protection
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed changes to regulations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act that would protect the government from liability when endangered Florida manatees are accidentally killed or injured in collisions with federal watercraft or in other mishaps. The proposal, which would take effect after hearings over the next month, would immunize the government from lawsuits for the next five years in all areas of the state other than the southwestern counties along the Gulf of Mexico. NRDC 2002-11-06 link


Environment: Bush administration loses appeal in California offshore drilling case
A federal appeals court dealt a blow to the Bush administration's plan to allow new oil drilling off California's coast. A panel of judges upheld a lower court ruling that the government illegally extended 36 undeveloped oil leases off the central California coast. The panel agreed with the state of California and environmental groups who had sued the federal government because of the environmental risks posed by oil drilling. NRDC 2002-12-02 link


Environment: Bush administration moves to roll back the Roadless Rule
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey has announced his plans to reverse the Roadless Area Conservation Rule -- issued by President Clinton -- that bars virtually all roadbuilding and logging on 58.5 million acres of remote and pristine national forests. The Bush administration first tried to weaken the rule by not defending it in court, but in December 2002 a federal appeals court cleared the way for the implementation of the rule in response to an appeal filed by NRDC and other environmental groups. NRDC 2003-06-09 link


Environment: Bush administration nuclear weapon cuts, less than advertised
As part of its recently completed Nuclear Posture Review, the Pentagon plans to reduce the number of "operationally deployed" U.S. nuclear warheads from 6,000 today to 3,800 after five years and to 1,700-2,200 by 2012. These reductions are similar to those agreed to by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin at the Helsinki summit of March 1997. NRDC 2002-01-10 link


Environment: Bush administration opens national park to drilling
The National Park Service gave the go-ahead to open up the world's longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island to energy development. With no public announcement, the government issued a permit to allow BNP Petroleum Corp. to drill tow new natural gas wells on Padre Island National Seashore, a 69-mile-long island located off the southern coast of Texas. The government acquired and set aside the land as a park 40 years ago, but Congress opted not to buy the mineral rights from the two families who had owned the island. Although limited drilling has been going on since the early 1950's, Padre Island becomes the first national park to be drilled during the Bush administration. NRDC 2002-11-22 link


Environment: Bush administration opposes renewable energy requirement
The Bush administration has joined several utilities in opposing a provision of the Senate energy bill that would require power companies to produce 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. The Senate bill includes a renewable electricity standard that requires major electric companies to increase sales of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources from 2 percent today to about 10 percent two decades from now -- quadrupling the amount of clean energy produced in the United States. NRDC 2002-07-19 link


Environment: Bush administration ousts top global warming scientist
Carrying baggage for ExxonMobil and other fossil-fuel industries, Bush administration representatives to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) succeeded in ousting Dr. Robert Watson from the science panel's chairmanship. With industry and U.S. government backing, officials meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, elected Dr. Rajendra Pachuari of India as IPCC chair for the next five years. NRDC 2002-04-19 link


Environment: Bush administration paves way for new roads in parks, wilderness
In a move that could spur development on millions of acres in America's national parks and wilderness areas, the Bureau of Land Management issued a new rule to make it easier for state and local governments to claim ownership of rights-of-ways along roads, trails, paths and rivers on federal lands. NRDC 2003-01-06 link


Environment: Bush administration plans to get ready to resume nuclear weapons testing
The Bush administration indicated that the United States needs to be ready to resume nuclear weapons testing. The just completed but still classified Nuclear Posture Review calls for speeding up preparations at the government's Nevada test site just in case. President Bush has said since taking office that he would maintain a moratorium on underground nuclear testing imposed by his father in 1992, and upheld by President Clinton. However, George W. Bush maintained his opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an agreement aimed at instituting a global ban on nuclear tests. NRDC 2002-01-08 link


Environment: Bush administration plans to give away oil and coal holdings in Utah
Interior Department officials agreed to exchange 135,000 acres of federal land -- containing valuable petroleum and coal holdings -- for 108,000 acres of scenic land owned by the state of Utah. The deal, which BLM land appraisers say would amount to a $100 million giveaway by U.S. taxpayers, is embodied in a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah). The House Resources Committee tabled the bill (H.R. 4968) until after the August recess. NRDC 2002-07-25 link


Environment: Bush administration promotes coal-bed methane development
Citing rising energy demands and the need to increase energy production, the Bush administration is touting natural gas development on public lands. Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson spoke at a conference in Colorado about the Bureau of Land Management's plans to increase gas supplies through coal-bed methane development in the Rocky Mountain region. "Conserving energy through efficient technology and developing clean, alternative energy sources are far better solutions than turning our public lands over to industry," said Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's land program. NRDC 2002-04-04 link


Environment: Bush administration proposes stripping protections for endangered wolves
Just when gray wolves are beginning to recover out West, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed stripping federal protection to make it easier to kill them. The agency's proposal would downgrade the animals' protected status from "endangered" to "threatened," a shift that would let ranchers kill wolves that attack their livestock. NRDC 2003-03-18 link


Environment: Bush administration pushes oil drilling in Alaska reserve
Defeated in its attempt to allow oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the Bush administration has set its sights on an even larger tract of pristine wilderness in Alaska -- the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve. The reserve, a large federally owned area on Alaska's North Slope immediately west of the sprawling Prudhoe Bay oil field, is an ecologically rich wild area that provides essential habitat for polar bears, brown bears, wolves, millions of migratory birds. The area is also home to one of the world's largest caribou herds. The Interior Department on June 3 leased more than 60 tracts covering 579,269 acres of the reserve for $63.8 million; another 10 million acres of the western portion of the reserve are slated for leasing by 2004. NRDC 2002-06-10 link


Environment: Bush administration pushing for pesticide exemptions from international environmental treaty
Farmers cheered and environmentalists jeered as the Bush administration announced plans to allow continued use of a pesticide that is supposed to be banned by 2005 under an international treaty to protect the ozone layer. The pesticide, methyl bromide, is a clear, odorless gas used mostly by tomato and strawberry growers in California and Florida to kill worms, insects, rodents and diseases. NRDC 2003-02-07 link


Environment: Bush administration pushing to lift grizzly bear protection
In a bid to open up more Western lands to development, the Bush administration may seek to remove grizzly bears from the endangered species list later this year. As part of this effort, grizzly experts contend that federal agencies are using incomplete data to show that bear population are recovering -- a charge that Bush officials deny. NRDC 2003-01-05 link

Posted by: omarleeds Jun 7 2004, 03:58 PM

Environment: Bush administration refuses to crack down on diesel pollution
The Bush administration intends to regulate pollution from diesel-powered off-road equipment for the first time, but only through industry-favored actions rather than a federal crackdown. In an unusual collaboration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Office of Management and Budget will draft a final rule to be released next year that emphasizes voluntary incentives for manufacturers, including a system that would allow manufacturers to trade emission credits. NRDC 2002-06-07 link


Environment: Bush administration refusing to release energy task force records
For the first time, President Bush stated support for Vice President Cheney's refusal to release information about industry representatives who met with Cheney's secretive energy task force. After months of discussion between administration officials on the task force and energy lobbyists, the administration released its national energy plan last May. The plan read like a "wish list" for big energy companies, heavily promoting initiatives that would benefit the coal, nuclear, and oil and gas industries. NRDC 2002-01-28 link


Environment: Bush administration rejects wilderness protection in Alaska's Tongass The Bush administration affirmed a recommendation made las
May by the U.S. Forest Service, deciding not to provide wilderness protection to millions of acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The decision by the administration is just the latest in a string of moves in the last six months that make forest policy more friendly to the timber industry and less friendly to wildlife and ecosystems. NRDC 2003-02-28 link


Environment: Bush administration relinquishing federal water rights
Signaling a major shift in federal policy, the Bush administration appears ready to give Western states more control over scarce water resources traditionally reserved for federal lands, at the expense of natural resources. NRDC 2002-09-30 link


Environment: Bush administration reverses snowmobile ban for national parks
The Bush administration has reversed a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks that was to take effect next year. Instead, the administration proposed a new policy that, beginning next March, would allow 1,100 snowmobiles in Yellowstone per day, a 35 percent more than the average of 815 snowmobiles that visit the park daily in winter. NRDC 2002-11-12 link


Environment: Bush administration revokes habitat protection for California frog
Mark Twain's once celebrated frog has little to cheer about these days, thanks to the Bush administration. Less than a month after a federal judge ruled that federal officials could not revoke protection for more than a half-million acres of habitat critical to the survival of two endangered species in southern California, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rescinded its designations of more than 4 million acres for the protection of the state's red-legged frog. The agency eliminated the habitat protections after a legal challenge by home builders who said it would impede development. NRDC 2002-07-04 link


Environment: Bush administration rewriting rules to boost logging in Northwest
As part of legal settlement, the Bush administration has agreed to ease environmental restrictions in order to clear the way for more logging on federal land in the Northwest. Last January, the timber industry filed the lawsuit against the government alleging that the landmark Northwest Forest Plan -- a 1994 compromise plan between environmentalists and loggers that set safeguards for remaining old-growth forests in the region -- contained onerous and unnecessary wildlife protections. NRDC 2002-09-30 link


Environment: Bush administration rolls back air conditioner energy efficiency standards
Just days after celebrating the first anniversary of the release of its national energy policy, the Bush administration weakened a major efficiency standard for air conditioners. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced a new that effectively overturns the so-called SEER 13 standard, which required a 30 percent increase in efficiency, in favor of a lower standard of SEER 12. Under the new standard, manufacturers will have to make central home air conditioners 20 percent more efficient beginning in 2006 -- which means one-third of the savings from the higher standard will be lost. NRDC 2002-05-23 link


Environment: Bush administration says logging good for wildlife
The Interior and Commerce Departments issued "guidance" on evaluating the "net benefit" of projects that reduce hazardous fuels on public lands. The underlying goal is for agencies to expedite forest "thinning," or logging projects, supposedly for the long-term benefit of endangered species. The Bush administration believes that short-term adverse effects of logging should rarely, if ever, preempt such activities because of the supposed long-term benefits provided by reduced fire danger. The truth is that the kind of intense logging proposed by the administration does a questionable job of reducing fire risks and can have a devastating effect of wildlife and their habitat. NRDC 2003-01-14 link


Environment: Bush administration scales back habitat protection for endangered butterfly
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reduced nearly 130,000 acres of critical habitat for the endangered Quino checkerspot butterfly. Instead, the agency set aside 172,000 acres in southern California -- 40 percent less protected land than the agency proposed in February 2001. NRDC 2002-04-05 link


Environment: Bush administration scraps plans for new wildlife refuge
The Bush administration is rolling back a four-year planning effort to establish a wildlife refuge near Columbus, Ohio. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew its proposal to create Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge. Instead the agency will work with residents to develop a conservation plan to protect endangered species and prevent pollution and suburban sprawl from spoiling Little Darby Creek. Local farmers opposed the plan to buy about 50,000 acres in two counties for a refuge because it would eliminate 20,000 acres of prime cropland. "Four years of studies, congressional hearings, and overwhelming citizen support for the refuge couldn't prevent a last minute rollback by the Bush administration," said Greg Wetstone, NRDC's director of advocacy NRDC 2002-03-12 link


Environment: Bush administration seeks to weaken endangered species protection in California
Despite the fact that habitat loss is the main reason why species go extinct, the Bush administration wants to invalidate protection of several hundred acres of land deemed essential for the survival of endangered species. The administration has asked a federal judge to allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lift protections on more than a half a million acres in Southern California while it conducts a two-year reevaluation of economic analysis of up to 10 "critical habitat" designations. NRDC 2002-02-16 link


Environment: Bush administration seeks waiver on ozone-destroying pesticide
The Bush administration is planning to seek scores of exemptions for industries that want to keep using a highly toxic and ozone-depleting week killer -- methyl bromide -- that is to be phased out by 2005 under an international treaty to protect the ozone layer. Methyl bromide is used to sterilize soils used for tomato, strawberry, pepper, cucumber and other vegetable crops. Methyl bromide is the most powerful ozone-depleting chemical still in widespread use. NRDC 2003-01-30 link


Environment: Bush administration sides with auto industry against lower emissions
The federal government's long history of support for California's efforts to fight air pollution has come to an end, as the Bush administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Daimler-Chrysler and General Motors in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state's zero-emission vehicle rule. NRDC 2002-10-09 link


Environment: Bush administration slightly raises SUV gas mileage requirements
The good news is that fuel economy standards are about to go up for the first time since the mid- 1990s. The bad news is that sport utility vehicles (SUVs), light pick-up trucks, and vans will only have to meet slightly more stringent fuel-economy standards under a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation. NRDC 2003-04-01 link


Environment: Bush administration speeding up drilling in Rockies
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may be safe from oil drilling for now, but federal agencies are looking at ways to encourage and facilitate new energy exploration in the lower 48 states. In testimony before Congress, Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke said that a study on possible oil and gas reserves on federal lands should be completed this year. Although more than 50 new sites around the country are being considered for development, Clarke said the BLM is focusing on five basins in the Rocky Mountain region where industry has expressed the most interest. NRDC 2002-04-18 link


Environment: Bush administration supports renewed elephant ivory trade
At an international conference on endangered species in Chile, the U.S. representative shocked other delegates by offering a plan that would allow for a renewed commercial trade in elephant ivory within the next three years. NRDC 2002-11-11 link


Environment: Bush administration taps new group to speed up energy development in Rockies
The Bush administration, eager to tap the Rocky Mountains for natural gas, has charged a group of top government officials to develop ways to "streamline" or speed up drilling projects in the region. The new group is part of a pilot project of the White House Task Force on Energy Streamlining, created by Bush's National Energy Plan. At its first meeting in Denver -- which was closed to the public -- the Rocky Mountain Energy Council began discussions with federal and state officials on how to ease the permitting process for industry in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. NRDC 2003-07-08 link


Environment: Bush administration undermines critical habitat designations
When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for 99 endangered and threatened plants on the island of Oahu, it added -- for the first time -- a disclaimer that undermines all such designations under the Endangered Species Act. The disclaimer, which the Interior Department intends to add to all future designations, asserts that the protections offered by the ESA's critical habitat provisions have no value in species protection. It also cites the agency's budget woes and heavy workload as reasons why the Fish and Wildlife Service is unable to fulfill scientific requirements for critical habitat protection. NRDC 2003-06-18 link


Environment: Bush administration using guise of security to expand corporate secrecy
The Bush administration has drafted a new, sweeping antiterrorism bill, the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003,"which has been roundly criticized by civil liberties advocates. The measure also features provisions that worry environmentalists. In particular, two sections would grant secrecy and immunity protection to corporations while doing nothing to require improved security or safety. One provision would drastically limit citizens' access to information about possible risks they face from accidents at chemical facilities in their communities. Another would shield companies from civil liability for safety risks by granting broad immunity if corporations voluntarily provide specific information to the government. At best, this legislation offers Americans a false sense of security. NRDC 2003-02-25 link


Environment: Bush administration wants to expedite logging at expense of fish in Northwest forests
In its latest push to rewrite the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to boost Northwest timber harvests, the Bush administration proposed stripping away a requirement that forest officials take into account certain impacts on threatened fish habitat when they consider timber sales. NRDC 2002-11-25 link


Environment: Bush administration weakens federal program for cleaning up dirty waters
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally withdrew a Clinton administration rule that imposed federal oversight on states' efforts to clean up some 20,000 of the nation's "impaired" or polluted waterways -- a designation that applies to about 300,000 miles of rivers and shorelines and 5 million acres of lakes. NRDC 2002-12-21 link


Environment: Bush administration weakens whale protections that hindered oil and gas industry
Concern about the environmental dangers of seismic testing -- which relies on intense blasts of sound to map potential mineral reserves -- prompted government officials in the Gulf of Mexico to develop new regulations to protect Marine mammals. But an industry lobbyist persuaded the Mineral Management Service (MMS) to weaken some of the protections. NRDC 2002-08-22 link


Environment: Bush administration wins court victory on mountaintop removal mining
A federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that the Bush administration's practice of granting permits to mining operations for mountaintop removal violated the Clean Water Act. Mountaintop removal is an increasingly common practice in West Virginia, Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia, whereby mining companies use dynamite to blow off huge slabs of mountains and then dump the debris -- tons of rock and dirt -- into valleys and streams. Mining companies, which prefer the environmentally destructive practice because it is a cheap way to access coal seams, had enjoyed easy permit approval from the Army Corps of Engineers until local environmental and citizens groups won a ruling that stopped the practice last May. NRDC 2003-01-29 link


Environment: Bush administration wins sweetheart water settlement for wealthy California farmers
In a win for the Bush administration, a federal judge approved $107 million in federal funds to pay farmers whose land was damaged by salt following decades of intensive irrigation and poor drainage. Attorneys for the Natural Resources Defense Council had tried to block the settlement offered by the Bush administration because it would funnel millions of dollars to a few wealthy farmers at the expense of the environment and American taxpayers. NRDC 2003-02-06 link


Environment: Bush air pollution plan weakens current law, threatens public health
The Bush administration's air pollution plan, misleadingly dubbed the "Clear Skies Initiative," was reintroduced in Congress. If enacted, the plan would weaken public health protections of the current Clean Air Act. It would delay and dilute cuts in power plants' sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollution compared to timely enforcement of current law. By allowing industry to make fewer reductions in toxic pollution over a much longer period of time than current law, critics say the plan would cost thousands of lives, intensify global warming and reward polluting industries that have been flouting the law for years. NRDC 2003-02-27 link


Environment: Bush and Whitman distance themselves from EPA global warming report
Shortly after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a new report on global warming that represented a stunning policy shift for the Bush administration, President Bush and EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman began backtracking from the agency's findings. The report, sent quietly last week to the United Nations, concluded that greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities were the primary cause of climate change. NRDC 2002-06-12 link


Environment: Bush announces rollback of power plant pollution rules
President Bush announced new targets for three pollutants from U.S. power plants that would delay by up to 10 years life-saving emission cuts now required under the Clean Air Act. The Bush plan allows three times more toxic mercury emissions than current law would allow, and postpones forthcoming mercury limits by a decade. It would allow 50 percent more sulfur emissions -- which cause acid rain and premature death from respiratory disease -- than current law and push back clean-up standards from 2012 to 2018. It would also allow hundreds of thousands tons of additional smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution, and delay their clean-up for a decade beyond current requirements. NRDC 2002-02-14 link


Environment: Bush asks judge to suspend mountaintop mining decision As expected, the Bush administration asked a federal judge to suspend his
May 8 ruling limiting the disposal of mountaintop mining waste pending an appeal. Federal District Court Judge Charles H. Haden II ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' practice of allowing the dumping of coal mining waste as fill into waterways is inconsistent with the federal Clean Water Act and therefore illegal. He also criticized the Corps and the Environmental Protection Agency for attempting to "rewrite" the law. NRDC 2003-09-13 link


Environment: Bush budget cuts billions from natural resources spending
According to a report issued by NRDC and other groups -- This Land is Our Land: Saving America's Natural Heritage -- the Bush administration's budget for Fiscal Year 2003 cuts overall discretionary funding for the environment by about $1 billion and plays shell games with some of the most important public lands and wildlife programs, compromising protection of America's natural resources. NRDC 2002-05-08 link


Environment: Bush budget cuts student research
President Bush's fiscal year 2003 federal budget proposes eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency's funding for graduate student research in the environmental sciences. The EPA Star grant program, as it's formally called, provides doctoral students with three years of funding to research topics ranging from biodiversity and global warming to effective biological control agents for agricultural pests. NRDC 2002-02-03 link


Environment: Bush calls for increased logging in the name of fire prevention
President Bush has a simple solution for preventing forest fires: Cut down the trees. His new forest management plan essentially would do just that by rewriting environmental rules to allow timber companies to increase commercial logging in national forests. NRDC 2002-08-22 link


Environment: Bush clean air plan would boost coal use
Under the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" multi-pollutant reduction plan, the amount of coal burned by electric power companies will increase by 7.3 percent, according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency. The president's initiative, proposed in February, would cause a 79-million-ton increase in coal use between now and 2020. NRDC 2002-04-17 link


Environment: Bush cleanup plan could leave behind more nuclear waste
The Bush administration's strategy to speed up cleanup at old nuclear weapons sites may result in waste being left behind. The Energy Department plans to spend $1.1 billion on the accelerated cleanup program next year. But in an effort to meet its goals, the agency is considering relaxed requirements on transporting some of its waste off-site, according to a General Accounting Office report. NRDC 2002-07-19 link


Environment: Bush delays action on climate with "study"
Citing what it calls the "uncertainty" of the science behind global warming, the Bush administration plans to spend several more years and millions of dollars studying climate change instead of trying to fix it. As part of its 10-year plan to study climate change and determine whether human activity or natural occurrences are causing Earth's atmosphere to heat up, the Climate Change Science Program will compile expertise from 13 federal agencies that collectively spend $4.5 billion on climate-change related programs; it will also redirect $103 million for satellite technologies to gather global climate data. NRDC 2003-07-24 link


Environment: Bush delays Clinton's snowmobile rules for national parks
Last year, the Clinton administration announced that the NPS would gradually phase out snowmobiles from the parks over three winters. The Bush administration delayed the rule. NRDC 2001-12-10 link


Environment: Bush encourages sale of PCB-contaminated sites
The Bush administration is encouraging the sale of PCB-contaminated sites, reversing a 25-year-old policy barring any such sales before the land is cleaned. Eagle Tribune 2003-09-04 link


Environment: Bush Mining Regulatory Change Is Denounced
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tales of floods and flattened peaks and of homes swept away or devalued in central Appalachia were laid out Tuesday by opponents to the Bush administration's plan to ease a buffer-zone regulation protecting streams from coal mining operations. NY Times 2004-03-30 link


Environment: Bush official touts Western coal, weaker mining regulations
The Bush administration remains committed to coal as the country seeks "energy independence," Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles reassured industry executives at the National Western Mining Conference in Denver. The future of coal, said Griles, is dependent on passage of the president's so-called Clear Skies plan, which would reduce three pollutants from coal-fired power plants -- nitrogen oxide (which causes smog), sulfur dioxide (which causes acid rain), and mercury. However, Griles neglected to mention that carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant, would not be regulated at all under the president's air pollution plan. Nor did he explain that, overall, Clear Skies would reduce pollution less l (and take longer to do so) than simply enforcing current Clean Air Act laws. NRDC 2003-02-10 link


Environment: Bush officials intervened to silence objections to coal plant near Mammoth Cave National Park
Critics cried foul when the Interior Department reversed its prior finding that air pollution from a proposed coal-fired power plant in western Kentucky would significantly hamper visibility at nearby Mammoth Cave National Park. Documents recently obtained by NRDC confirm that Interior's reversal came after high-level Bush administration officials intervened on the coal company's behalf. NRDC 2002-11-09 link


Environment: Bush officials suppress science on Klamath River policy
An economist with the U.S. Geological Survey accused the administration of withholding government reports that concluded buying out farms in the Klamath Basin and leaving their irrigation water in the river would benefit the fishery and boost recreation that already provides more economic value than agriculture. Bush officials acknowledged the three reports, completed last year, were blocked due to political and scientific controversy surrounding the Klamath Basin. NRDC 2002-11-01 link


Environment: Bush opposes mining law reforms, in spite of EPA pollution data
The Bush administration maintains its strong opposition to mining law reforms that would improve environmental safeguards against widespread resource degradation. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 40 percent of Western watersheds have been polluted by mining. A half-million abandoned or closed mines dot the landscape nationally, with cleanup costs estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. NRDC 2001-12-10 link


Environment: Bush orders agencies to streamline environmental review of transportation projects
In a major victory for the nation's road lobby, President Bush signed an executive order directing the Department of Transportation and other federal agencies to speed up the approvals process for federally-backed projects, such as highway construction or airport projects. The president's order calls for "streamlining" environmental review and limiting public participation in planning and permitting processes. NRDC 2002-09-18 link


Environment: Bush Plans On Global Warming Alter Little
Two years after President Bush declared he could combat global warming without mandatory controls, the administration has launched a broad array of initiatives and research, yet it has had little success in recruiting companies to voluntarily curb their greenhouse gas emissions, according to official documents, reports and interviews. Many of the companies with the worst pollution records have shunned the voluntary programs because even a voluntary commitment would necessitate costly cleanups or possibly could set the stage for future government regulation, according to industry insiders. Washington Post 2004-01-01 link


Environment: Bush Pushing Plan for Logging Flexibility
The Bush administration, brushing aside concerns from environmentalists, is pushing forward with plans to give national forest managers more flexibility to approve logging and commercial activities, with less environmental review. AP 2002-09-09 link


Environment: Bush refuses to take action against global warming
Today the Bush Administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to admit its continued failure to take action to reduce the impacts of global warming. Responding to a lawsuit filed by three environmental organizations, the Bush Administration is expected today to officially announce it will do nothing to protect Americans from global warming pollution caused largely by greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. Common Dreams 2003-08-28 link


Environment: Bush replacing health scientists who don't favor industry views
The Bush administration, unhappy with the findings of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy, has begun a broad restructuring at the Department of Health and Services. In the past few weeks, some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views have been eliminated and membership in others has been reshuffled. NRDC 2002-09-17 link


Environment: Bush Signs Bill to Curb Wildfire Threat
The Healthy Forests Restoration Act is the first major forest management legislation in a quarter-century. It seeks to speed up the harvesting of trees in overgrown woodlands and insect-infested trees on 20 million acres of federal forest land most at risk to wildfires. It does that by scaling back required environmental studies. Also, it limits appeals and directs judges to act quickly on legal challenges to logging plans. Critics said the bill would let companies cut down large, old-growth trees in the name of fire prevention. AP 2003-12-03 link


Environment: Bush signs disastrous farm bill
Despite President Bush's supposed devotion to free markets and his pledge to wean farmers off of government funding, he signed a farm bill that is expected to cost $190 billion over 10 years -- or $83 billion more than the cost of continuing current programs. The bill boosts conservation spending, but that increase remains low in the context of overall spending -- $9 billion of the bill's $45 billion in new spending. The conservation funding is dwarfed by commodities subsidies and environmentally damaging provisions in the bill. NRDC 2002-05-14 link


Environment: Bush skipping U.N. Earth Summit
A decade ago the first President Bush attended a world summit on the environment in Rio de Janeiro, where he agreed to tackle problems in forestry, biodiversity and climate change. Unlike his father, President George W. Bush will not attend the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held later this month in Johannesburg, South Africa. Instead, Secretary of State Colin Powell will lead the U.S. delegation. NRDC 2002-08-15 link


Environment: Bush slashes environmental education spending
The 2003 White House budget labels environmental education "ineffective" and re-allocates this funding to math and science programs. This shift comes at a time when environmental education is enjoying popular support nationwide. A 12-state consortium recently prepared a study called "Closing the Gap," which gave rave reviews to environmental education. And a 2001 Roper/Starch poll confirmed that 95 percent of parents support environmental education. NRDC 2002-02-04 link


Environment: Bush slashing EPA funding for toxic cleanups
The inspector general of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported to Congress that the Bush administration has authorized deep funding cuts for the federal Superfund program, which will slow or halt the cleanup process at 33 toxic waste sites in 18 states. These sites are among the most contaminated grounds in the country and pose some level of health and environmental hazards to the communities in which they are located. NRDC 2002-06-30 link


Environment: Bush snowmobile decision defies logic, not to mention scientific findings
The Bush administration's decision to overturn a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, which was supposed to take effect this year, flies in the face of scientific evidence that the vehicles cause environmental and health damage. NRDC 2003-01-30 link


Environment: Bush stacks panel on lead poisoning with industry experts
Democratic members of Congress decried the Bush administration for revamping a government health panel to favor industry. According to the lawmakers, the administration rejected renowned scientists with expertise on the health effects of childhood lead poisoning for service on a Centers for Disease Control federal advisory committee. In their place, the administration appointed scientists with deep ties to the lead industry. NRDC 2002-10-08 link


Environment: Bush tells bureau to open land
The Bush administration has directed federal land managers to remove obstacles to oil and gas development in parts of five Rocky Mountain states. Policy directives issued to Bureau of Land Management state directors give the officials tools to implement the administration's long-standing goal of opening the Rocky Mountain West to increased exploitation of oil and gas resources. Washington Times 2003-08-09 link


Environment: Bush to boost logging in national forests
If President Bush gets his way, subsidies for logging will increase in national forests next year. The administration's fiscal year 2003 budget proposal for the Forest Service included $404 million to support timber sales, offering 2 billion board feet (depending on sales volume for salvage timber). This year the Forest Service is expected to sell about 1.4 billion board feet. "Job one for the Forest Service should not be underwriting more logging in roadless areas," said Nathaniel Lawrence, director of NRDC's forest programs. "With domestic programs targeted for cuts to fund national security, what are we doing wasting tax dollars to help timber companies clearcut our remaining wildlands?" NRDC 2002-02-04 link


Environment: Bush uses national security to gain corporate secrecy and immunity
At the behest of industry, the Bush administration is using the guise of homeland security to squelch the public's right to know about corporate practices that threaten its health and safety. Both houses of Congress are working furiously to pass massive homeland security legislation before the one-year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. But buried deep within the House version of the bill is a provision -- supported by the Bush administration and its congressional allies -- that would shield private companies who voluntarily give the government information related to "critical infrastructure," including chemical plants, dams and computer networks, from public disclosure and civil liability laws. While this may sound innocuous, the effect would be to broaden corporate secrecy and immunity at the expense of the environment and public health and safety. NRDC 2002-07-26 link


Environment: Bush wetlands proposal will lead to loss and degradation
The new Bush plan to ensure the goal of "no net loss" of the nation's wetlands -- set by the first President Bush in 1989 -- emphasizes the ecological quality of the wetlands replaced over quantity. In other words, the administration's approach will focus on how and where developers must create new wetlands to compensate for those destroyed by highways, subdivisions or other construction projects rather instead of achieving acre-for-acre replacement. Bush officials said this approach to wetlands replacement could result in a numerical loss, but an ecological gain. Environmentalists warned that the administration's new strategy would do little to stem the loss of valuable wetlands, particularly since 80 percent of wetlands restoration or mitigation projects are failures. NRDC 2002-12-26 link


Environment: Bush's new wildfire expert no friend of forests
This just in: The man chosen to direct the Bush administration's efforts to reduce wildfire danger on public lands doubts the existence of ecosystems and thinks the extinction of the nation's threatened and endangered species might not be a bad idea. NRDC 2002-08-30 link


Environment: Bush's revised Everglades plan falls short of restoration goals
Seven months after environmentalists harshly criticized the Bush administration's draft plan for restoring the Florida Everglades -- calling it a thinly veiled effort to spur more development -- the Army Corps of Engineers issued new programmatic regulations designed to ease those concerns and further flesh out a conceptual, $8.4 billion restoration blueprint Congress enacted in December 2000. Their publication in the Federal Register starts a 60-day public comment period on the project, but already environmentalists say the administration's revised rules remain fundamentally flawed. NRDC 2002-07-23 link


Environment: Bush-Putin Summit Produces Deeply Flawed Nuclear Arms Treaty
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have signed a nuclear arms treaty that will reduce the number of warheads deployed on ballistic missiles and bombers. Under the terms of the agreement, each side will reduce its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 2,200 by 2012. But while the White House has been busy hailing the agreement as a definitive step away from the threat of nuclear destruction, the fact is that the treaty would impose a binding limit on operational U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces for only one day -- 2012-12-31. Before and after that date, the number of nuclear warheads mounted on strategic nuclear missiles and bombers may exceed the treaty's maximum "limit" of 2,200 warheads in operation. NRDC 2002-05-24 link


Environment: California's giant trees threatened by Bush forest plans
The largest trees on the planet, giant sequoias live more than 3,000 years and grow in just 75 groves on the western slopes of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. Wildlife that frequent the groves and nearby forestlands include some of the rarest and most imperiled creatures in California, among them the elusive Pacific fisher, the California spotted owl, and the California condor. To save these last unprotected giant sequoias and the wildlife that inhabit the surrounding forest ecosystem from logging and other development, former President Clinton created Giant Sequoia National Monument in April 2000. Now, under the guise of wildfire risk reduction, the U.S. Forest Service has issued a draft plan to resume commercial logging in the Giant Sequoia National Monument east of Bakersfield and two other national forests in Northern California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. NRDC 2003-01-27 link


Environment: Cheney refuses to release documents about energy task force
Congressional investigators say they can't determine the oil industry's influence on the White House's energy policy because Vice President Dick Cheney refused to provide documents about his energy task force. Salt Lake Tribune 2003-08-26 link


Environment: Coming Soon: More logging in the Pacific Northwest
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife concluded that logging "has not appreciably affected" spotted owls, opening the floodgates for the return of timber sales in Pacific Northwest national forests. NRDC 2002-01-18 link


Environment: Corps approves Everglades mining
The Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency in charge of the government's plan to restore the Florida Everglades, will actually allow miners to destroy 5,409 acres of this national treasure in the next decade -- more than doubling the number of open-pit limestone mines in the protected wetlands. NRDC 2002-04-11 link


Environment: Corps doesn't give a dam for Snake River salmon
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued its final recommendation on the fate of four dams located on the lower Snake River in Washington and, as expected, the news was not good for endangered salmon. The Corps opposed breaching the dams, even though leaving the dams intact could lead to the extinction of the Snake River's salmon and steelhead runs. NRDC 2002-02-21 link


Environment: Corps of Engineers' plan threatens to pollute Florida Everglades
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun building large storage facilities to hold hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted stormwater on the borders of Everglades National Park. Although construction is already underway, hydrologic modeling and other necessary environmental analyses have yet to be completed. The project, which threatens to flood and pollute the park, is an improper use of the money Congress authorized for restoration of the Everglades. NRDC 2002-05-03 link


Environment: Corps relaxes wetlands protections, White House approves
The Bush administration pulled a "bait and switch" on wetlands policy. After insisting on Earth Day 2000 that the administration "will continue to take responsible steps to ensure that we can preserve these vital natural resources [wetlands] for future generations of Americans," the White House signed off on a controversial plan by the Army Corps of Engineers to relax nationwide permit rules that prevent the destruction of thousands of streams, swamps and other wetlands. NRDC 2002-01-14 link


Environment: Crimes Against Nature by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Common Dreams 2003-11-20 link


Environment: Defense Department seeking exemptions from environmental laws
The Bush administration is exploiting the impending war with Iraq to open a new front in its ongoing campaign to weaken or roll back the nation's environmental and public health protections. The Pentagon has once again asked Congress to exempt the Department of Defense (DoD) from a wide range of laws, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund law); Clean Air Act; Endangered Species Act; and Marine Mammal Protection Act. NRDC 2003-03-06 link


Environment: Department of Interior official under ethics investigation
A former mining lobbyist now embedded in the Bush administration has a knack for digging up controversy. Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, who has come under scrutiny for maintaining cozy relationships with his former industry clients, is now under investigation by his agency's Inspector General. Among the questions the IG is trying to answer is whether Griles violated the agency's conflict of interest rules when he took part in regulatory decisions that benefited his former clients in the energy industry. NRDC 2003-05-13 link


Environment: Department of Transportation to expedite more environmentally harmful road projects
The U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary decided to speed up six new major transportation projects that could cause significant environmental damage. That brings the total so far to 13 highway and airport capacity expansion projects that will benefit from a "streamlined" review process. Environmentalists expect reviewing agencies to face pressure from the White House to quickly approve the projects by shortchanging environmental requirements. NRDC 2003-02-27 link


Environment: Despite scientific concerns, Interior Department approves power plant near Yellowstone
President Bush has said that environmental decisions should be based on "sound science," but that criteria remains vague and, apparently, only selectively used. How else to explain the administration's decision to approve a 780-megawatt coal-fired power plant on federal land outside of Billings, Montana? In greenlighting the proposal, Craig Manson, assistant secretary of the Interior Department for fish, wildlife and parks, reversed the determination of National Park Service experts that the plant would adversely impact air quality and visibility of Yellowstone Park, which is 112 miles downwind. NRDC 2003-01-10 link


Environment: Dirty Trick on Waterways
Relying on nonsensical thinking and a narrow court ruling with dubious application, the Bush administration wants to gut crucial segments of the Clean Water Act. It isn't just the tree-hugging crowd raising alarms over this action, which, if it prevails, would strip protections from waterways that don't flow at least half the year -- in other words, most of the streams and ponds of Southern California. LA Times 2003-12-08 link


Environment: DOD reneges on plan to test for perchlorate pollution at U.S. bases
A top Pentagon official who last month circulated draft guidelines for perchlorate testing at all active, inactive and closed military sites is now backing off after being pressured by senior military officials. After those officials complained that the plan is too costly and the science on perchlorate risks too uncertain, John Paul Woodley, assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for the environment, halted the study. NRDC 2003-06-20 link


Environment: DOE attempting legislative end-run around court ruling on nuke waste
Two weeks ago a federal judge ruled that the Energy Department acted illegally when they attempted to abandon millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste in underground storage tanks at three nuclear weapons facilities by reclassifying it as incidental waste. Now, the agency is asking Congress to overturn the court decision. NRDC 2003-07-17 link


Environment: DOE changes rules for nuclear waste storage, weakening protection
After dismissing as "fatally flawed" a General Accounting Office (GAO) report critical of his agency's handling of a proposed permanent nuclear waste storage site in the Nevada desert, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham changed the rules of the game -- i.e., the game being whether the proposed site complies with the law. With its recent issuance of the site suitability guidelines for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the Department of Energy (DOE) now says the government no longer must prove that Yucca Mountain's underground rock formations would prevent radioactive contamination of the environment. Rather, DOE plans to rely on "engineered waste packages" that they hope will adequately contain the highly radioactive waste to be stored in Yucca Mountain. NRDC 2003-12-14 link


Environment: DOE moving ahead with new nukes
A month after Congress approved a controversial study of "low yield" nuclear weapons, the Energy Department cited national security concerns in announcing a plan to spend $2 billion to $4 billion for a new factory to build "mini-nukes" or "bunker busters." The facility is expected to be operational in 2020. Critics warn that developing a new generation of nuclear weapons, especially those that could be more easily used, is contrary to the nation's non-proliferation policy. NRDC 2003-06-02 link


Environment: DOE pulling a fast one at Hanford
For the Bush administration's Department of Energy, power makes for arrogance in the handling of nuclear waste issues. If the administration can push around workers, communities and the states, it most certainly will. Rather than accept a federal court ruling, the administration is trying to force a change in the law by withholding nuclear cleanup funds. If Congress, Washington and other states fail to stand firm, the administration will get away with its Alice in Wonderland plan to have Hanford considered clean because the Energy Department says it is. Seattle PI 2004-04-12 link


Environment: DOE refuses to comply with Freedom of Information request from NRDC about Energy Group
After waiting nearly eight months for a response, NRDC filed a lawsuit today to force the U.S. Department of Energy to produce records regarding the agency's role in the operations of the National Energy Policy Development Group chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. DOE's refusal to provide basic information about its involvement with the so-called energy task force violates the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to NRDC. NRDC 2003-12-11 link


Environment: DOT to allow construction at historic sites
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has made changes that will eviscerate the 1966 Department of Transportation Act law, and Congress will vote on them shortly. The proposed revisions would undo the most vital protection: forbidding highway construction at historic sites unless there is no feasible and prudent alternative. NY Times 2003-08-09 link


Environment: Drill first, ask questions later energy policy threatens wild lands
With very little public debate or scrutiny, the Bush administration has turned over huge amounts of America's public lands -- particularly in the West -- to the energy industry. Data from the Bureau of Land Management shows that the administration has increased the number of leases for oil, gas and coal mining on public lands by 51 percent -- from 2.6 million acres in 2000 to 4 million acres last year. BLM has emerged as the lead agency in opening up pristine public lands to development. NRDC 2002-03-07 link


Environment: Drop in Budget Slows Superfund Program
WASHINGTON, March 8 -- Citing budgetary concerns, the Bush administration has proposed new toxic waste sites for the Superfund program at a much slower rate than previous administrations, a practice criticized by state environmental officials who say it masks the true demand for cleanup in the country. On Monday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed 11 sites to be cleaned up under the Superfund program, which lists more than 1,200 sites. NY Times 2004-03-09 link


Environment: Editorial: Mercury rules/Another retreat on public health
The competition is tough, but of all the Bush administration's retreats on controlling air pollution, its proposed new rules on mercury may prove to be the most cynical. History will have to judge. Star Tribune 2003-12-31 link


Environment: Endangered species habitat under attack The Bush administration, facing other lawsuits by real estate developers, is urging fede
Marine Fisheries Service, two agencies responsible for enforcing the ESA, want the courts to rescind millions of acres of protected habitat for nearly two dozen endangered species throughout the country. NRDC 2002-03-19 link


Environment: Energy Department illegally approved Mexican power plants, says judge
A federal judge in San Diego ruled that the U.S. Department of Energy acted illegally when it found that two Mexican power plants would not have a significant impact on the air and water quality in the border region between northwestern Mexico and southwestern California. That decision calls into question the U.S. permits granted to the power companies to build cross-border transmission lines, and could prevent the plants from exporting electricity to California this summer as planned. NRDC 2003-05-05 link


Environment: Energy Department papers show industry is the real author of administration's energy policy
Despite being heavily censored, the thousands of Department of Energy documents released under court order this week confirm the intimate, secretive relationship between huge, politically connected corporations and the White House energy task force. NRDC 2002-03-27 link


Environment: Energy Dept. Threatens No Nuclear Cleanup
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department is threatening to withhold $350 million that was to pay for disposal of some of the most dangerous radioactive waste from Cold War bomb-making. First, it says, Congress and state officials must accept a cleanup plan already rejected in court. The issue has pitted a half dozen states against the Bush administration -- raising concern that some of the millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste that are supposed to be solidified and buried by the government may, in fact, remain in place. NY Times 2004-04-07 link


Environment: Environmental enforcement suffers under Bush Environmental enforcement has declined steeply during the first year of the Bush ad
October 1). The fall-off in EPA referrals was more significant in several of the agency's principal anti-pollution priority areas: Toxic Substance Control Act (down 80%); Clean Air Act (down 54%); and Clean Water Act (down 53%). NRDC 2002-01-10 link


Environment: Environmental experts nixed from international development agency
In what can best be described as a purge, the U.S. Agency for International Development eliminated all environmental personnel from its policy bureau, weakened the authority of the Agency Environmental Coordinator, and left in limbo several bureau environmental coordinators. NRDC 2003-01-16 link


Environment: Environmentalists Rap Bush on Development
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- At the same time President Bush is declaring his commitment to conservation, environmentalists say his administration is approving development proposals that endanger sensitive areas such as southwest Florida's Rookery Bay, where the president traveled last week to defend his record. Environmental groups oppose the proposed Winding Cypress development, saying its 2,300 homes and golf course would destroy wetlands because the project is at the headwaters of the bay. The developer is one of the area's most prominent business families, the Colliers. The county that encompasses Naples bears the family name NY Tim 2004-04-26 link


Environment: Environmentalists Rap Bush on Development
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- At the same time President Bush is declaring his commitment to conservation, environmentalists say his administration is approving development proposals that endanger sensitive areas such as southwest Florida's Rookery Bay, where the president traveled last week to defend his record. NY Times 2004-04-26 link


Environment: EPA admits clean water takes back seat to war on terrorism
Don't you know there's a war on? That is why the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer making it a priority to clean up the nation's rivers, streams and lakes, according to the agency's chief enforcer of the Clean Water Act. Testifying before a Senate environmental committee, G. Tracy Mehan III, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said efforts to combat terrorism and help the economy leave little resources to fight water pollution. NRDC 2002-10-08 link


Environment: EPA allows sludge dumping in Potomac River to continue for seven more years
Under a new permit issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers will face tough restrictions on dumping sludge in the Potomac River -- but not for another seven years. For years, the Corps has routinely dumped tons of sludge at various points along the river, including one spot over a spawning ground for an endangered fish. NRDC 2003-03-18 link


Environment: EPA approves Louisiana's controversial pollution-trading program
In an effort to bypass federal air pollution laws, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a plan that allows Louisiana oil and chemical companies to emit increased levels of carcinogenic and other hazardous chemicals in return for reducing emissions of the less dangerous pollutant, nitrogen oxide, according to internal documents released by an environmental group. NRDC 2002-10-29 link


Environment: EPA backs off issuing strong antipollution standards for off-road vehicles.
Bad luck prevailed on Friday the 13th as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued new standards for off-road vehicle emissions and engine regulations. Bowing to White House and industry pressure, the EPA not only failed to issue stronger standards to control pollution from these vehicles but actually weakened the rule it proposed more than a year ago. NRDC 2002-09-13 link


Environment: EPA backs off mandatory plan to clean up stormwater pollution
At the behest of the White House, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned its plan to force construction companies to reduce stormwater runoff caused by development, the leading source of coastal water pollution in the United States. NRDC 2002-06-24 link


Environment: EPA backtracks on pledge to close loophole for California air polluters
Less than a month after the Environmental Protection Agency publicly urged state officials in California to crack down on air pollution from farms, the agency is changing its tune. Instead of repealing a law exempting farms from air pollution monitoring permits, EPA now supports the industry's position that the tougher standards should apply only to "major" farm-based pollution sources. NRDC 2003-03-25 link


Environment: EPA cedes Idaho cleanup authority to state
In a strange and unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency ceded control of the cleanup plan for Idaho's highly polluted Coeur d'Alene Basin to state, local and tribal officials. NRDC 2002-08-13 link


Environment: EPA charged with understating impact of Yucca Mountain nuclear dump on Nevada drinking water supplies
Environmental groups and the state of Nevada are charging that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency illegally manipulated standards for protecting groundwater from radioactive contamination around the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository site. The groups demonstrated the illegality of the EPA's actions in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today, and asked the court to require the EPA to rewrite the groundwater standards it established specifically for Yucca Mountain. NRDC 2002-05-03 link


Environment: EPA Chief: Superfund Short on Funds
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Cleanup work at 11 of the worst toxic dumps in the country hasn't started because the Superfund program doesn't have enough money, the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general said Thursday. The $3 billion program has a shortfall of nearly $175 million, according to the report. "When funding is not sufficient, construction cannot begin; cleanups are performed in less than an optimal manner; and/or activities are stretched over longer periods of time," the report said. In addition to the 11 sites, there are four places where "emergency removal" of contaminants such as asbestos and lead is on hold for lack of $9.4 million. NY Times 2004-01-08 link


Environment: EPA conflicted over Pentagon proposal to exempt the military from environmental laws
Somebody must have missed a memo at the Environmental Protection Agency. Less than two weeks after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman told a Senate committee that she knows of no incident in which environmental protections have ever hampered the military's ability to train, her agency's enforcement chief, J.P. Suarez, testified in support of legislation that would exempt the military from federal environmental and public health laws. NRDC 2003-03-13 link


Environment: EPA cooks fish data to allow more pollution
One fish, two fish, three fish, no fish: that's how many fish it took to persuade the Bush administration to lift health protection requirements in Georgia. Apparently, state officials -- under pressure from industry --persuaded the Environmental Protection Agency last year to accept faulty data showing that fish in the Savannah River had an average level of methylmercury contamination that precisely met the federal government's maximum allowable level. Essentially, overnight the river was transformed from an "impaired" river to one that no longer violated mercury pollution standards under the federal Clean Water Act. NRDC 2003-03-21 link


Environment: EPA cuts funding for one of its most successful and popular energy efficiency programs
The agency's operating budget slashed by one-third its highly touted Energy Star program, which provides a federal seal of approval for energy efficient consumer products. Energy conservation groups, which work with the government to promote the program, now face a significant reduction in federal grants. That could result in less advertising to spread consumer awareness about the Energy Star program. NRDC 2003-08-09 link


Environment: EPA data on Clear Skies clearly wrong
The EPA claimed that the Clear Skies plan would reduce sulfur dioxide pollution in Washington State by 87 percent, and nitrogen oxide and mercury pollution would remain stable. But the EPA's regional office questioned the data for months. "I am also concerned that Region 10 (Seattle) data is still wrong," read a 2002-07-1, email from a senior EPA regional official to agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. It turns out that sulfur dioxide emissions were already achieved last year when the state's largest power plant installed state-of-the-art pollution control equipment under a preexisting agreement with state and federal air officials. EPA corrected its analysis, but continued its defense of Clear Skies. NRDC 2003-03-10 link


Environment: EPA delays report on mercury risk for children
The bad news is that emissions of mercury by coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources pose an increasing danger to children, according to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency. The worse news is that the Bush administration has held up public release of the report for nine months. Completed in May 2002, the administration has promised to release the report soon -- and an EPA official recently insisted that the document is "at the printer." NRDC 2003-02-20 link


Environment: EPA exempts oil and gas industry from water pollution rules
In a rather slick deal for oil and gas drillers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exempted that industry from a new water regulation aimed at reducing polluted runoff. NRDC 2003-03-10 link


Environment: EPA factory-farm rule favors polluters
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a final rule on controlling factory farm pollution that will allow agribusinesses to continue to foul the nation's waterways with animal waste. NRDC 2002-12-15 link


Environment: EPA failing to protect Louisiana's environment and public health
The Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general (IG) issued a report blasting the EPA's Dallas regional office for insufficient oversight and enforcement of federal air, water and hazardous waste protections in Louisiana. Specifically, the IG cited federal regulators for not holding state environmental officials accountable for meeting the goals and commitments set by the regional office, and for relying on faulty data provided by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. NRDC 2003-02-04 link


Environment: EPA fails to meet pesticides review deadline
The Environmental Protection Agency falsely claimed that it has met a legal deadline for reassessing the safety of pesticides as mandated by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. The FQPA requires the EPA to complete safety reviews of two-thirds of all pesticide tolerances (individual uses of pesticides) -- about 6,000 tolerances -- by this date. NRDC 2002-08-03 link


Environment: EPA Faulted on Clean-Water Violations
The Environmental Protection Agency is failing to act against widespread violations of the Clean Water Act by plants and factories across the country, the U.S. Public Research Interest Group said yesterday based on a study it conducted. More than 60 percent of all major facilities in the United States, or 3,700 out of 6,184, exceeded their Clean Water Act permit limits on discharges into waterways at least once between 2002-01-1, and 2003-06-30, according to the report. Washington Post 2004-03-31 link


Environment: EPA halts funding at several Superfund sites
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not complete clean ups at seven high-priority toxic waste sites because of funding shortfalls in the Superfund program, according to a report by the EPA's inspector general. The agency so far has spent $48 million at these sites, but will not allocate the remaining $92 million to finish the cleanups even though regional EPA officials warn that the sites continue to pose serious environmental and health risks. NRDC 2002-10-31 link


Environment: EPA initially criticized Bush-Cheney energy plan
According to news reports, a memo from the Environmental Protection Agency blasted the Bush administration's draft energy plan as "problematic," "overly simplistic" and "not supported by the facts" -- less than a month before President Bush presented the plan to the nation. Commenting on what was then Chapter 8 of the draft plan, the three-page memo -- signed by Tom Gibson, EPA's associate administrator for policy, economics and innovation -- harshly criticized several policies outlined by the task force, which was headed by Vice President Cheney. NRDC 2002-02-02 link


Environment: EPA may allow the use of Carbofuran, a formerly banned toxic pesticide
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is allowing Louisiana rice growers to spread one of the mos

Posted by: omarleeds Jun 7 2004, 04:00 PM

700+ More Reasons At The Below Url:

http://www.thousandreasons.org/listB.html#Environment

Posted by: PakiPatriot Jun 7 2004, 07:01 PM

who the FUKK read all of 'em?
If one can sit and make that many damn things, then they should probably sit some more and write as many reasons why they should be put to death!

Posted by: delta Jun 7 2004, 08:10 PM

It comes down to this.


Who ever is tough on this Terrorists scum will get my and the rest of America's vote.

We need a President who stands firm agaisnt these parasites and doesn't bow to pressure from thesel iberal peace nicks who Osama and company are just misunderstood people.

Christifer Hichtens the man who help break the Abu Ghraib story and writes many anti-Bush stories himself stated on C-SPAN that he would vote for Bush simply because he will take a tougher stance agaisnt terrorism.

Demecrats are good people but htye are not cut out to fight this nasty war.

Posted by: paki_ryder Jun 7 2004, 08:33 PM

what makes you think that the democrats wont be as "tough" on terrorism as bush?

Posted by: platinum786 Jun 8 2004, 02:10 AM

u see what this coconut is saying is "i want a red neck in power......make me look all American....."

In truth, they're all the same, i'd much prefer Bush, he is better for us, and a laugh!!

He's had more accidents in 1 term than the last 10 US presidents i bet (!) (!)

Posted by: visioninthedark Jun 23 2004, 02:43 PM

one reason for Pakistani-Americans to VOTE FOR BUSH ..... he's a better alternative for Pakistan than that democrat Kerry ....

THIS IS ALL THAT MATTERS .... IF U CARE ABOUT PAKISTAN ....

Posted by: macau boy Jun 23 2004, 03:04 PM

A win/win situation? :unsure: :ermm :unsure:

Posted by: hiiii Jun 23 2004, 09:25 PM

I think after Kerry gets a taste of what terrorism does to a President, then we'll see something close to what Bush is doing, although he probably won't attack another country without having strong intelligence and proof.

Posted by: nolies Jun 24 2004, 02:25 AM

u kids r just dreaming. americans elect presidents mainly for domestic issues. gw bush WILL get re-elected if the economy is improving rapidly. indications r it is. plus, most americans' attention spans r short and most of them r not that bright. :lol: :lol: as long as there's no dramatic deteriaration of iraqi and afrigan wars, americans r getting numb on small numbers of casualties daily. i predict that bush will likely win by small margin (provided mentioned pre-conditions above.) O:)

Posted by: Doosra Jun 24 2004, 11:12 AM

So you are basically saying that Republican are nasty people, I will agree with that.

Posted by: garnett21 Jun 25 2004, 05:00 PM

And may we present u all this great extra brighter than sunshine ignorant sun of gun NOLLIES

Posted by: nolies Jun 25 2004, 08:57 PM

:lol: it seems somebody's raw nerve got hit.

picking the part u think is not true, while ignoring the totality of what i mean only proves that ur attention span might not be that long and u probably r one of those "extra bright" americans. (w00t) :lol: :lol:

Posted by: mayhemfrommars Jun 26 2004, 11:12 PM

bush will get re elect, not coz the economy is improving or anything, its just coz of one reason . . . .

























coz their brain washing really works :)

(
bush: we wanna liberate iraq
people: :)Clp :)Clp :)Clp
)

Posted by: Regulat0r123 Jul 2 2004, 10:51 PM

The polls are split pretty evenly between Kerry and Bushy. One thing is for sure, Kerry doesn't plan on scrutinizing non-democratic countries so kiss Bush's ME plan goodbye.