Hippie fggt v. Bush administration's environmental actions.

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
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I posted the link in another thread but I figured I’d make it easier to read. These are some EPA changes over 8 years by the Bush administration and it’s appointees… just the tip of the iceberg. Most are shocking.

Jan 2001 - Gale Norton Appointed
President Bush appoints Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior. Norton was formerly a senior attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a group funded by several leading mining, logging, and oil companies.

Mar 2001 - Roadless Rule Rolled Back
Bush makes his first attempt to roll back the “Roadless Rule” passed by President Clinton. This rollback would open up 58 million acres of national forest to logging, roadbuilding, and coal, oil and gas leasing.

Mar 2001 - CO2 Emissions Not Covered
The president reneges on a campaign promise to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants, claiming it would hurt the economy, while simultaneously declaring that CO2 would not be covered by the Clean Air Act.

Mar 2001 - Arsenic Suspended in Water
President Bush suspends new health standards for arsenic in drinking water, leaving standards at 1942 levels.

May 2001 - Cheney’s Energy Plan
Vice President Cheney issues his National Energy Plan calling for the expediting of drilling on public lands, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the western Arctic.

Sep 2001 - EPA Downplays 9/11 Pollution
After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the White House pressures the EPA to downplay concern about air quality around ground zero, even though 2,000 tons of asbestos and 424,000 tons of concrete were used to build the Twin Towers.

Dec 2001 - EPA Reverses on Rat Poison
The EPA reverses safety measures imposed in 1998 to prevent 15,000 children from being exposed to rat poison each year. (In 2005, NRDC wins a case in federal court to overturn this decision.)

Feb 2002 - Clear Skies Plan
The Bush administration proposes its Clear Skies plan for power plants. The plan would increase coal use by 79 million tons by 2020 and weaken the Clean Air Act.

Oct 2002 - EPA Halts Toxic Waste Cleanup
The EPA halts cleanup funding for seven high-priority toxic waste sites, leaving the cost to local communities.

Nov 2002 - Bush Allows Oil Drilling
The Bush administration allows oil drilling in Padre National Park, home to 11 endangered species and host to 800,000 tourists annually.

Jan 2003 - Bush Allows More Logging
Bush administration claims logging is good for wildlife and endangered species; expedites forest “thinning” projects.

Apr 2003 - Norton Cuts Deal in Utah
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton cuts a deal with the state of Utah to allow oil and gas drilling in millions of acres of wilderness.

Apr 2003 - Healthy Forest Initiative
The Bush administration proposes the Healthy Forest Initiative, which includes exemptions to logging from federal review. Later in 2003, Congress incorporates this into the Healthy Forest Restoration Act.

May 2003 - Whiteman Resigns
EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman resigns.

Sep 2003 - Ban Lifted on PCBs
The EPA lifts a 25-year ban on the sale of land contaminated with PCBs, a chemical linked to neurological problems and cancer in humans, thereby opening more than 1,000 toxic sites to “economic redevelopment.”

Oct 2003 - Clean Air Act Weakened
The EPA weakens a key program under the Clean Air Act, allowing thousands of aging power plants and industrial facilities to emit more air pollution. In December, a federal court blocks this move.

May 2004 - Formaldehyde Less Toxic
The EPA’s Air Office declares formaldehyde to be one ten-thousandth as toxic as the previous assessments.

Dec 2004 - EPA Allows More Sewage
The EPA moves to finalize a policy that would release inadequately treated sewage into waterways as long as it is diluted with treated sewage, a process the agency calls “blending.”

Mar 2005 - Real “Fake” News
The New York Times finds more than 200 instances in which television stations aired videos by the EPA as actual news.

Aug 2005 - BLM Weakens Policy on Drilling
The Bureau of Land Management formalizes a policy that makes it voluntary for corporations to clean up oil and gas-drilling sites on public land.

Mar 2006 - Norton Resigns
Secretary of the Interior Norton resigns. Within a year she takes a job as a general counsel for Shell Oil’s U.S. exploration and production operations.

Mar 2006 - EPA Weakens Health StandardsThe EPA proposes weakening the method for calculating health standards for drinking water in small communities. The new rule would allow small water systems to exceed federal drinking water standards yet still label the water as “protective of health.”

Dec 2006 - EPA Weakens Reporting
The EPA weakens reporting requirements for chemical releases from industrial facilities, exempting more than 3,500 facilities from detailed public reporting.

Jan 2007 - Bush Issues Drilling Permits
The Bush administration issues 7,124 drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands, breaking its own record for the number of permits in one year.

Apr 2007 - Supreme Court Reverses Bush’s CO2 Rule
The Supreme Court rules that CO2 meets the legal definition of a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act, rejecting President Bush’s declaration of March 2001.

Dec 2007 - EPA Blocks Vehicle Standards
Overruling the unanimous recommendation of its own legal and technical staffs, the EPA blocks California and 17 other states from enforcing standards for vehicle emissions of CO2 and other pollutants.

Jun 2008 - White House Ignores EPA
The White House ignored EPA findings that global warming pollution from vehicles endangers public health. The Times story says that White House officials refused to open EPA e-mail messages stating that global warming pollutants must be controlled.

Jul 2008 - No Regulation of CO2
The White House pressures the EPA into announcing it will not regulate CO2 for the remainder of Bush’s term, despite legal requirements to do so.

Dec 2008 - BLM Leases Public Land in Utah
In a last-minute giveaway to Big Oil allies, the Bush administration begins leasing public land to oil and gas companies near some of America’s most precious natural treasuring in Utah. More than 100,000 acres are made available, including near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Nine Mile Canyon.

Dec 2008 - EPA Administrator Declares No Regulation for CarbonDioxideStephen Johnson, administrator of the EPA, issues a memorandum declaring that it would not regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution from power plants or any other industrial facility. This decision disregards a previous landmark decision that rejected the same arguments.

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You do realize global warming was proven to be bs right?

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Do you just make stuff up?

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im just being a sarcastic prick. I sowwy :frowning:

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Sick. I hate the environment. I want to own a cfc factory someday

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Mar 2005 - Real “Fake” News
The New York Times finds more than 200 instances in which television stations aired videos by the EPA as actual news.

huh?

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News stations across America were caught airing prerecorded videos sent from the EPA and other agencies that put doubt in certain environmental issues and objected criticism.

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One of the biggest things that I didn’t like about Bush was his stance on environmental issues. While I do not agree with the global warming bullshit, it is still very important to try to reduce pollution.

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Me too. :highfive:

Holy crap. I… Agree with you! I don’t believe that global warming is real, or at least that politics can affect the climate. But environmental issues are still important.

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ah, I took that one completely the wrong way. I’m so used to the EPA being the hippie fggts I forgot this article is making them out to be the pro-smog nazis.

Out of context you can easily read that the opposite way its intended.

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Indeed. The earth is a living thing. Being that, it is self correcting, and will eventualy fix itself. But pollution is bad juju. I’m not a hippy environmentalist, but I am an outdoorsman, and would like to preserve as much of the wonderful natural beauties of the ourdoors as much as possible for future generations to enjoy. I mean…c’mon…lake erie caugh on fire once. srsly…wtf.

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Instead of puttin my garbage out on garbage day I put it all in my car and go for a nice long drive to the Alabama wetlands and heave it all out the window. In fact the preserve there is the perfect place to dump all my old motor oil. It came from the earth originally, so I’ll just put it back.

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I just burn mine lol.

Funny story, one time me and choda were having a fire in my back yard and ran out of firewood. So we heaved some old tires on it and…kinda killed a few trees and the grass didnt grow back in a 10’ radious for 3 years lol.

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Here’s another attempt at catering to creationists regarding the age and formation Grand Canyon by Bush administration appointees.

Nov 2004 - Faith Based Parks?

Some four million people annually visit Grand Canyon National Park, marveling at the awesome view. In National Park Service (NPS) affiliated bookstores, they can find literature informing them that the great chasm runs for 277 miles along the bed of the Colorado River. It descends more than a mile into the earth, and along one stretch, is some 18 miles wide, its walls displaying impressive layers of limestone, sandstone, shale, schist and granite.

And, oh yes, it was formed about 4,500 years ago, a direct consequence of Noah’s Flood. How’s that? Yes, this is the ill-informed premise of “Grand Canyon, a Different View,” a handsomely-illustrated volume also on sale at the bookstores. It includes the writings of creationists and creation scientists and was compiled by Tom Vail, who with his wife operates Canyon Ministries, conducting creationist-view tours of the canyon. “For years,” Vail explains, “as a Colorado River guide, I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time span of millions of years. (Most geologists place the canyon’s age at some six million years). Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.”

Vail’s book attracted little notice when it first appeared in the NPS stores in 2003, until a critical review by Wilfred Elders, a respected University of California geologist, brought it to light and took apart its pseudoscientific claims. That led David Shaver, who heads the Geologic Resources Division of the Park Service, to send a memo to headquarters urging that the book be removed from the NPS stores. “It is not based on science,” he wrote, “ but on a specific religious doctrine…and should not have been approved for in NPS affiliated book stores.”

The presidents of The American Geological Institute and six of its member societies also weighed in, expressing their dismay to the Park Service. Noting that the Grand Canyon “provides a remarkable and unique opportunity to educate the public about Earth science,” the scientists urged that, “in fairness to the millions of park visitors, we must clearly distinguish religious from scientific knowledge.”

But when Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale of Vail’s book at canyon bookstores, he was overruled by NPS headquarters, which announced that a high-level policy review of the matter would be launched and a decision made by February, 2004. So far, no official decision has been announced.

Even worse, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an organization that includes many Park employees, papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that no review has ever taken place. Indeed, PEER claims that the Bush Administration has already decided it will stand by its approval for the book and that hundreds more have been ordered. “Now that the book has become quite popular,” explained an NPS flack to a Baptist news agency, “we don’t want to remove it.”

Even more troubling, PEER charges that Grand Canyon National Park no longer offers an official estimate of the age of the canyon, and that the NPS has blocked publication of guidance intended for park rangers that reminds them there is no scientific basis for creationism. The group has been increasingly concerned about what it calls the Park Service’s “Faith-Based Parks” and the agency’s seeming indifference to the separation of church and state Among other moves, for example, NPS has allowed the placing of bronze plaques bearing Psalm verses at Grand Canyon overlooks. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch is indignant, “If the Bush Administration is using public resources for pandering to Christian fundamentalists, it should at least have the decency to tell the truth about it.”

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,783829,00.html

They fucked up a lot of shit in 8 years.

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I am not sure which is worse, that or Clinton signing our parks over to the UN.

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Really? I’ll have to look into that. :snky: