For Teddy Roosevelt it was the creation of our system of National Parks. For Richard Nixon it was the passage of landmark environmental reforms found in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. For Bill Clinton it was an eleventh-hour preservation of millions of acres of public lands. For George W. Bush it will be tackling the issues of global warming and climate change.
huh?
In light of my recent post about the demoralizing effect this administration has had upon EPA scientists and other agency ‘lifers’, I was more than just a little surprised to hear about the story leaked in Monday’s Washington Times that reports President Bush is “poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include.”
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino declined on Monday to confirm rumors that action was imminent, though she would not rule it out. She said the administration’s discussions are building toward an expected debate on climate change in the Senate in June [watch video of White House press conference here].
If President George W. Bush throws his support behind mandatory carbon dioxide regulations, it would indeed be a major shift away from his insistence that placing binding caps on emissions would harm the U.S. economy.
Over the last 7 years, the current administration has meddled with the affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency to such a degree, that the badgering and tampering is having a detrimental effect on the morale of agency staffers. And the latest news that EPA officials have ceased their efforts to follow a Supreme Court order to propose regulations for carbon dioxide emissions from automobile tailpipes is, yet another, in a long list of examples where the Bush administration has overstepped its legal boundaries and asserted its political will in matters where it shouldn’t.
Even though EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson agreed with the court’s findings and proposed motor vehicle regulation to the Department of Transportation back in December, the agency has not evaluated dangers nor proposed any regulations - and is not expected to.
It looks like Hillary Clinton has another “3 a.m.” political ad out. This time it’s about the economy.
I’m not sure what it is about these ads that have captured the nation’s imagination; John McCain has his own version of it, and, of course, it inspired scores of parodies on YouTube and among late-night talk show comedians.
Still, I wonder if the candidates will get around to making one of these ads about the environment.
It’d be really easy to do, actually. All you need is a ringing phone…and no one to answer it.
That’s because the environment has somehow become a non-issue during this campaign season. All three candidates have fairly progressive views when it comes to addressing climate change, and they all tout the benefits of weening ourselves off foreign oil, so we’ve basically been told by the media that there’s nothing more to discuss on the topic.
The only problem is that voters WANT to discuss it.
Very funny video clip from Saturday Night Live showing Al Gore giving a Presidential address. One of the best lines is when he says that there is no need to worry about hurricanes and tornadoes because of the “anti-hurricane and tornado machine I was instrumental in helping to develop.”
It looks like Hillary Clinton has another “3 a.m.” political ad out. This time it’s about the economy.
