Bush to strip environmental regs...

[Galvatron]

Bush Sets Out Plan to Dismantle 30 Years of Environmental Laws

George Bush's new administration, and its supporters controlling Congress, are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection.

In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures - which, ironically, will overturn a legislative system originally established by the Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford - even though Mr Bush went out of his way to avoid emphasizing his environmental plans during his campaign.

"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, the Bush-appointed head of the EPA. He points out that over a third of the agency's staff will become eligible for retirement over the President's four-year term, enabling him to fill it with people lenient to polluters.

The administration's first priority is the controversial plan to open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. Two years ago the Senate defeated plans to exploit the refuge - home to caribou, polar bears , musk oxen and millions of migratory birds - by 52 votes to 48.

But with the election of four Republican senators in favor of the drilling, and the disappearance of one who opposed it, the administration now has the votes for victory.

It plans to follow with an energy bill - also defeated in the last Congress - which would investigate vast new tracts for exploitation for oil and gas. It will also encourage the building of nuclear power stations, halted since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

Far more radical measures are also under way. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who is to help push through the energy bill, has also announced a comprehensive review of the Clean Air Act, one of the world's most successful environmental laws.

Environmentalists predict the emasculation of the Act, which has cut air pollution across the country by more than half over the last 30 years. Not to be outdone, the Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee, Richard Pombo, has announced a review of the Endangered Species Act, for the protection of wildlife. The law has been the main obstacle to the felling of much of the US's remaining endangered rain forest. And in a third assault, Congressional leaders have also announced an attack on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires details of the environmental effects of major developments before they proceed.

Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said last week that the previous Bush administration had largely contented itself with weakening environmental legislation, but the new one intended to go much further. He added: "We will now see an assault on the law which will set the US in the direction of becoming a Third World country in terms of environmental protection."

The environmentalists point out that almost every local referendum on environmental issues carried out on election day achieved a green majority.

They recall the fate of the assault on environmental law - headed by the former Congressional Speaker, Newt Gingrich, in the mid 1990s - which caused such opposition that Congress enacted tough new green legislation.

But don't despair, the Second Coming of Christ is nigh so the environment doesn't really matter anyway. To those of you who voted for him, I hope you're happy...

[Crayz9000]

It plans to follow with an energy bill - also defeated in the last Congress - which would investigate vast new tracts for exploitation for oil and gas. It will also encourage the building of nuclear power stations, halted since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

Anyway, what I quoted, that's something I've been waiting for the bumblefucks in Washington to finally realize isn't going to destroy the world. Not that I'm happy with the rest of Bush's plans for the EPA, but the fact that they finally want to get new nuclear power stations built is a Good Thing (tm).


Tiredness fixed-Bean

[Mr Bean]

Lets see... The environmentalists predict
The environmentalists said..
The environmentalists point out....


Ok this only points out one thing Bush has done so far(Review of the Current Law which so far is more of creating another open season for Loophole righters than complete destruction)

And as for the oil drilling in the Alaska's every time I hear an attack on the idea by Enviromentalists telling us that it will damage the enviroment I ask how did our CURRENT facilites up there damage the enviorment?

[Alex Moon]

Wow, could the writers be anymore hysterical?

The left campaigned this past election on less foreign oil dependence. Well, now they're getting it. Demanding more energy efficiency isn't going to get you very far. We've got to start pumping more of our own.

The advantages to nuclear power have been done to death on this board

I don't see why the clean air act should be so sacred that it can't stand scrutiny. Times change, and the government should reconsider it's policies in the face of changing technology and a changing economy.

Ditto for the Endangered Species Act. It has become the favorite weapon of many environmentalists to block any development and to often screw with farmers in many areas.

[Alex Moon]

Oh god, I'm tired.

Anyway, what I quoted, that's something I've been waiting for the bumblefucks in Washington to finally realize isn't going to destroy the world. Not that I'm happy with the rest of Bush's plans for the EPA, but the fact that they finally want to get new nuclear power stations built is a Good Thing (tm).

It's had support from the Administration for quite a while. Back in late 2000-early 2001, Cheney was one one of the political talk shows (meet the press I think) and he said straight forward that we needed to begin building more nuke plants. Naturally, after the contention of the election, that became a no go.

[Joe]

That article is high on hysteria and low on details, but so is modern organized environmentalism.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That article is high on hysteria and low on details, but so is modern organized environmentalism.

Not only that, but it could be objectively demonstrated that replacing our coal and oil-fired powerplants with nuclear powerplants could lower our pollution levels to such a point that we barely even notice the other stuff that's being done.

[HemlockGrey]

So if we're forging ahead with the nuclear power, why do we need to open vast new areas to gas and oil drilling?

[Beowulf]

So if we're forging ahead with the nuclear power, why do we need to open vast new areas to gas and oil drilling?

Not everything can be taken care of with nuclear power. Sometime you need chemical feedstock, and mobile power sources tend to use one or the other of the above. Also, it will take a while to build a sufficient number of nuclear plants.

[Mr Bean]

So if we're forging ahead with the nuclear power, why do we need to open vast new areas to gas and oil drilling?

Cars and Tanks and Planes are not Nuclear powered

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So if we're forging ahead with the nuclear power, why do we need to open vast new areas to gas and oil drilling?

To add on to Beowulf's comments, if we want to reduce dependence on foreign oil, wouldn't we do both? By eliminating oil-fired plants (and thereby reducing the total amount of oil we use), and simultaneously opening up new oil drilling inside the country, the reduction of foreign oil dependency will be that much greater. Beyond that, if we are eliminating coal-fired power plants, the sheer quantity of our electricity produced by them means it will take a long time to build enough nukes to eliminate them all. The solution to that is to build gas-fired plants as well as nuke plants, which means we can more quickly eliminate the coal-fired plants. Since gas is the most efficient by far of the non-renewable electrical sources (counting nuclear as a renewable) this, again, does in fact make sense.

[Gil Hamilton]

Well, I can't really argue with what the Bush Administration is doing. If they replace Coal and Oil Powerplants with Nuclear ones, that by itself will go a hell of a long way toward clean air and less pollution, even with a loosy goosy environment policy.

I want to punch every anti-nuclear environmentalist in the jaw. I'm an environmentalist too, I very much care about not fouling the ground, air and water with pollution and perserving some nature in our country. That's why I'm pro-nuclear, because I know that nuclear power has produced less than 100,000 tons of solid waste in the entire time nuclear power has existed with no air pollution and little water pollution, while coal plants alone produce 100 million tons of solid annually by itself, not counting all the toxic shit it puts in the air and water. For someone who actually cares about a green planet, nuclear power is the only practical option that can provide all the power the planet needs AND severely reduce pollution. And it's not even all that radioactive *wiggles fingers in a scary fashion*... there is more radioactive material in the annual solid waste production of coal plants than the entire reign of nuclear waste. GAH!

[Admiral Valdemar]

Cars and Tanks and Planes are not Nuclear powered

But they can be! C'mon, where's your atomic age thinking gone, man? I can't wait to have a fission turbine powered Audi.

[aerius]

Building new nuke plants ought to give damn near everyone a stroke.

OMG it's the evil nukular plants and they'll go boom and we all get cancer and die!!!

Now if he really wants to make things fun, he should also get nuclear waste reprocessing started and build some breeder reactors.

[Lancer]

So if we're forging ahead with the nuclear power, why do we need to open vast new areas to gas and oil drilling?

Cars and Tanks and Planes are not Nuclear powered

tell that to HAB

[Darth Wong]

I like the way the conservatives leap to attack environmentalists on the nuclear issue while ignoring the many other issues raised in that article, such as their plans to gut the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Policy Act.

[Lord MJ]

I'm much more concerned with this line of thinking:

They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures

"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda,"

[Col. Crackpot]

I like the way the conservatives leap to attack environmentalists on the nuclear issue while ignoring the many other issues raised in that article, such as their plans to gut the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Policy Act.

nowhere does it say the administration has plans to gut the clean air act.

Environmentalists predict the emasculation of the Act, which has cut air pollution across the country by more than half over the last 30 years.

who are these 'environmentalists' and why doesn't the article present the facts that the mysterious phantom environmentalists who lack names used to come to such a prediction.

Also, since when are the words 'Comprehensive review' synonomous with gutting.

[Rogue 9]

I like the way the conservatives leap to attack environmentalists on the nuclear issue while ignoring the many other issues raised in that article, such as their plans to gut the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Policy Act.

The popular environmentalist stance on the nuclear issue is something that needs to be attacked. As for the rest, I'm not inclined to overly trust an article who's sources for most of it's more radical claims lie with unnamed "environmentalists."

[Ma Deuce]

But they can be! C'mon, where's your atomic age thinking gone, man? I can't wait to have a fission turbine powered Audi.

Atomic age? Ah yes, the '50s, the glorious lost age when nuclear power and weapons was free from the stigma of public hysteria: I want my Ford Nucleon!



Those were the days, yessir those were the days (if you ignore the small fact that religious fundyism in America was far worse in the '50s than it is today).

[tharkûn]

I like the way the conservatives leap to attack environmentalists on the nuclear issue while ignoring the many other issues raised in that article, such as their plans to gut the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Policy Act.

I am unaware of any actual plans to gut any of the above acts. Some parts of them ARE ludicriously stupid. The endangered species act has been used to require developers to prove that they are not building over endangered habitat; at least some development has been canned because an endangered species might live there.

Clean Air could use some revision. It was last updated in 1997 and it has been used to back some rank stupidity like "cleaner fuels". Science hasn't stood still and we know loads more about both the dangers (or lack thereof) of pollutants and how they spread.

When I see some actual proposed legislation then I will make a rational judgement on wether or not Bush is "gutting" the clean air act. If it ends up like the Arsenic hysteria, I'm not going to give a bloody damn.

[Eleas]

This makes perfect sense. We don't need the environment anyway. The Rapture's coming soon; haven't you guys heard?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Lets see... The environmentalists predict
The environmentalists said..
The environmentalists point out....


Ok this only points out one thing Bush has done so far(Review of the Current Law which so far is more of creating another open season for Loophole righters than complete destruction)

And as for the oil drilling in the Alaska's every time I hear an attack on the idea by Enviromentalists telling us that it will damage the enviroment I ask how did our CURRENT facilites up there damage the enviorment?

Actually, while I support the drilling in ANWR (actually we'd only be drilling in Prudhoe bay, which is 5% of ANWR) I have to point out the construction of the Pipeline was the most ecologically damaging thing to happen to Alaska since the Yukon gold rush. We wiped out a few species, and screwed up alot of land with the pipeline, but Prudhoe Bay would actually be less damaging than that, with a smaller affected area.