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  • Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives

  • Bush announced America would not implement the Kyoto Global Climate Change Treaty

  • Bush called his promise to regulate carbon monoxide from coal plants a "mistake"

  • White House announced that America would not implement the Kyoto global climate change treaty

  • Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants

  • ExxonMobil told Bush to get rid of the scientist who chaired the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  • National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director of the oil firm Chevron

  • Commerce Secretary Donald Evans once headed an oil and gas exploration company

Stripping Away Environmental Protections:

Within the first 100 days, Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, the biggest contributors to global warming. He called the promise a "mistake".

 

Days later, the White House announced that America would not implement the Kyoto global climate change treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

At the behest of ExxonMobil, Bush engineered the departure of the scientist who chaired the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"He has undone decades if not a century of progress on the environment. The Bush administration has introduced this pervasive rot into the federal government which has undermined the rule of law, undermined science, undermined basic competence and rendered government agencies unable to do their most basic function even if they wanted to. We're excited just to push the reset button." said Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, one of America's largest environmental groups.

 

2003: Within the first two years of the Bush admin, fines assessed for environmental violations dropped by nearly two-thirds

2003: Bush crippled the Superfund program, which is charged with cleaning up millions of pounds of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and vinyl chloride in more than 1,000 neighborhoods in 48 states

Bush cut the EPA’s enforcement division by nearly one-fifth, to its lowest level on record

2009: Bush opened endless national treasures for development including the million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in Arizona, the 2,000-foot red-rock spires at Fisher Towers, Utah, California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument, and dozens of others

2009: Bush became the first administration in decades not to voluntarily add a single species to the endangered species list

Undermining Science On Climate Change:

"Certainly the most destructive part of the Bush environmental legacy is not only his failure to act on global climate change, but his administration's covert attempt to silence the science alerting us to the urgency of the problem," said Jonathan Dorn of the Earth Policy Institute

Emails and internal government documents showed Bush officials sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produce work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue

  • 2004: NASA Scientist, James Hansen, accused the Bush administration of trying to block data showing an acceleration in global warming 

  • 2006: Deputy secretary of the interior, Julie MacDonald, intervened repeatedly to prevent new additions to the endangered species list, which was revealed in the inspector general's report, released in 2008

  • 2007: The White House tried to circumvent a Supreme Court decision compelling the EPA to regulate car emissions by doctoring scientific findings on the costs of fuel-efficiency standards

  • 2008: Jason Burnett, a former official at the EPA, wrote a letter to the Senate describing efforts by the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to censor discussion of the consequences of climate change 

  • 2008: Officials from Cheney's office sought to doctor testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on California's efforts to impose stricter fuel efficiency requirements than the national standard

  • 2008: In the last days of his term, Bush made a flurry of last minute changes. Under the new rules, oil companies will be able to drill within sight of the Arches National Park in Utah

  • 2008: Federal agencies were no longer compelled to consult with government wildlife experts when they open up new areas for logging or road construction

  • 2008: Bush also barred the EPA from looking at the effects of global warming on protected species

Stripping Environmental Protections - Links

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jan/16/greenpolitics-georgebush

 

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/09/ungreening-america-dirty-secrets/

 

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/george-w-bush-and-the-environment-187626/amp/

 

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.commondreams.org/news/2009/01/16/worst-times-bushs-environmental-legacy-examined%3famp

 

https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/rollbacks.pdf

 

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1119&context=delpf

Undermining Science On Climate Change - Links

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/sep/21/usnews.georgewbush

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