Scorched Earth Policy - environmental policy of the George W. Bush administration

E: The Environmental Magazine, May, 2001 by Jim Motavalli

Whitman's shaky knowledge of environmental science was underscored when, in a New York Times interview, she confused the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (global warming) with the holes in the Earth's ozone layer caused by the release of chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). Whitman, USA Today editorialized, needs to "fill in that troubling knowledge gap quickly."

If there's any reason for optimism about Whitman's term at EPA, it's in the area of preserving open space. Keith Schneider of the Michigan Land Use Institute says that Whitman "set the standard in the GOP for responding to voter concerns about sprawl." Some New Jerseyans complain, however, that Whitman's anti sprawl spending--$100 million a year for 10 years to preserve a million acres--has come at the expense of new park facilities for the state's disadvantaged. Insensitivity to New Jersey's minority residents is a charge that has dogged Whitman since she was photographed personally patting down a black crime suspect.

THE BIG ROLLBACK

How will the environment fare under President George W. Bush? John Bianchi, a spokesman for the National Audubon Society, offers wishful thinking when he says, "We would hope that the Bush Administration would embrace the traditional Republican conservationist approach, which is part of a long tradition that started with Teddy Roosevelt." Bianchi also noted that the EPA was created under President Richard Nixon, who also signed the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act into law.

By bringing in James Watt to head the Interior Department, Ronald Reagan brought that tradition to an abrupt end. George Bush Sr., says Bianchi, "was pretty neutral on the environment. He didn't introduce any sweeping legislation, but he didn't spearhead an assault on environmental protection either. And that's in step with the feelings of the American people, 98 percent of whom favor protection for unique areas and preservation of existing laws."

George W. Bush's environmental role model, apparently, is Ronald Reagan, not his own father. From its first day in office, the Bush Administration made it clear that it would seek to undo Clinton-era environmental regulations. In its sights is the blizzard of executive orders and proclamations issued in the final days of Clinton's term that, among many other things, created new national monuments, imposed bans and restrictions on snowmobiles and Jet Skis in national parks and established 60 million acres of roadless areas on national forest land.

When the Bush Administration was only hours old, Chief of Staff Card sent a memo to every agency head seeking to stop or delay publication of Clinton's last-minute rules in the Federal Register. Bush appointees including Norton and Whitman, as well as Bush himself, announced their intention to "review" many of Clinton's directives. They'll undoubtedly have help from Attorney General John Ashcroft, a far-right conservative with a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters who proclaimed himself a "private environmentalist." His environmentalism "has been very private indeed," says Joan Mulhern of Earthjustice, "so private it's impossible to find evidence of it in his voting record [in the Senate]."