OH MY! Bush scientist "distorting". We all know the Democrats NEVER use scientist to distort their views! NEVER! </sarcasm>
What is really odd is that Bush has the best science teams since Reagan was in office. they actually have the nations interests at heart and Science policy under Bush has taken every effort to cross the aisle. I wish W. would push his accomplishments in this area a bit. THE DoE's national research facilities plan, for instance is quite excellent = some is the astronomy program.
Would that be the "Close Cover Before Striking Institute For Concerned Scientists?
The media usually don't tell the truth about President Bush's policies on enviroment. Here is the truth:
Preserving the Beauty and Quality of Our Environment
President Bush believes that good stewardship of the environment is not just a personal responsibility, it is a public value. Americans are united in the belief that it is important to preserve our natural heritage and safeguard the land around us.
The President has launched initiatives that express this same commitment. His Administration has acted in a comprehensive way to achieve impressive results. By almost every indicator, environmental quality in the United States is improving with cleaner air, water, and land, and improved public health.
The President believes that the federal government has an important role to play in protecting our environment and he has introduced new and innovative policies to achieve these goals. The President favors common-sense approaches to improving the environment while protecting the quality of American life. Over the past two-and-a-half years, the Administration has introduced initiatives that have already begun to deliver significant environmental results for all Americans.
Hydrogen Fuel – A Clean and Secure Energy Future
In his State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative to reverse the nation’s growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology for hydrogen-powered fuel cells to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses with no pollution or greenhouse gases. The hydrogen fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.
Under the President's hydrogen fuel initiative, the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by fuel cells. The hydrogen fuel initiative supplements the President's existing FreedomCAR initiative, which is developing technologies needed for mass production of safe and affordable hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. Through partnerships with the private sector, the hydrogen fuel initiative and FreedomCAR will make it practical and affordable for Americans to choose to use clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020. This will dramatically improve America's energy security by significantly reducing the need for imported oil, as well as help clean our air and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Clear Skies – Clean Air for the 21st Century
Clear Skies, President Bush’s initiative to improve the nation’s air quality, is the most aggressive initiative in American history to cut power plant emissions, as well as a bold new strategy for addressing global climate change. Clear Skies would dramatically improve air quality by cutting power plant emissions of three critical pollutants – sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury – by 70 percent, more than any other presidential clean air initiative. These reductions would be mandatory and would achieve 35 million more tons of reductions from Clear Skies in the next decade than what we could get under business as usual with the current Clean Air Act.
The President’s historic proposal would bring cleaner air to Americans faster, more reliably, and more cost-effectively than under current law. It would save Americans as much as $1 billion annually in compliance costs that are passed along to American consumers, while improving air quality and protecting the reliability and affordability of electricity for consumers. Clear Skies would cut pollution further, faster, cheaper – and with more certainty – eliminating the need for expensive and uncertain litigation as a means of achieving clean air.
Healthy Forests – Safeguarding People, Wildlife and Ecosystems
Last year catastrophic wildfires burned more than 6 million acres of land, killed more than 20 firefighters, destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, and caused severe environmental damage. These catastrophic wildfires destroy everything in their path – people, their property, wildlife habitats, watersheds and entire ecosystems. It can take decades for these forests to recover. For over a century, the federal government has done nothing to eliminate dense undergrowth and ladder fuels, and it has suppressed most of the natural fires that serve to clear out brush and undergrowth. As a result, about 190 million acres of our nation's forests are in bonfire conditions.
The President's Healthy Forests Initiative is returning the nation’s forests to their natural condition by reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles that hinder active forest management. Healthy Forests will restore forests and rangelands to their natural, healthy, fire-resistant conditions and prevent these catastrophic wildfires to the benefit of communities, wildlife habitat and the landscape.
Brownfields Cleanup - Revitalizing Abandoned Sites in Our Cities and Towns
American cities have many such eyesores -- anywhere from 500,000 to a million brownfields are across our nation. These areas once supported manufacturing and commerce, and now lie empty -- adding nothing of value to the community, and sometimes only causing problems. Fulfilling an important campaign pledge, the President signed historic bipartisan brownfields reform legislation in January 2002. President Bush is committed to accelerating the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated, underutilized industrial sites. The revitalization of brownfields serves to improve the environment, protect public health, create jobs, and revitalize communities. The President’s FY04 budget proposal provides $211 million – almost 130 percent more than when President Bush took office – for EPA’s brownfields cleanup program.
The President’s Farm Bill – Helping America’s Farmers Conserve Their Land
The Administration believes that there are no better stewards of the land than people who rely on the productivity of the land. The President continues to implement a farm bill that enhances conservation and environmental stewardship. The legislation will greatly enhance the ability of America’s farmers and ranchers to protect wetlands, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
To help them live up to the newer and higher environmental standards, the President’s farm bill expands the ECP program, which provides financial assistance to our farmers and ranchers to encourage sound conservation. The farm bill will provide over $40 billion over the next decade in funds for conservation programs that will restore millions of acres of wetlands, conserve water, and improve streams and rivers.
Diesel Regulations – Tackling Emissions for Cleaner Air
The Administration has aggressively tackled diesel emissions with modern regulations – a new mandate on oil producers to reduce the sulfur in diesel fuel, an innovative program requiring cleaner diesel engines on new trucks, an initiative to cut diesel pollution from aging school bus fleets, and new rules to reduce emissions from non-road vehicles.
The President’s non-road diesel regulation has been widely praised by environmental groups, with some hailing it as providing potentially the greatest health benefits since lead was removed from gasoline some 20 years ago.
Global Environment – Meeting the Challenge of Global Climate Change
President Bush has committed America to an aggressive strategy to meet the challenge of long-term global climate change by reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy by 18 percent over the next 10 years. The Administration’s climate change policy is science-based; it encourages research breakthroughs that lead to technological innovation; and it takes advantage of the power of markets. It will encourage global participation and will pursue actions that will help ensure continued economic growth and prosperity for our citizens and for citizens throughout the world.
This goal is supported by a broad range of domestic and international climate change initiatives, including $4.4 billion in FY04 for climate change. This includes a significant investment of $1.75 billion in climate change science research to address critical gaps of understanding our global climate system and over $500 million in tax incentives to improve energy efficiency and promote renewable energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Our Oceans – Improving Ocean Conservation in the National Park System
The National Park Service has begun restoring marine ecosystems in close cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state and local governments. New management tools, including networks of marine reserves and natural area research have been established to restore coral reefs, kelp forests and their diverse communities of marine life.
The President’s Budget – Funding Conservation for Today and Tomorrow
At $44.9 billion, the President’s FY04 environment and natural resources budget request is the highest ever. The Budget funds the nation’s priorities of protecting our drinking water, reducing pollution, cleaning up industrial waste sites, protecting our national parks and refuges, and helping farmers conserve on private lands as well.
The President’s budget proposal includes a $10 million increase for EPA from FY03 to strengthen EPA’s core operating programs for air, water, land and enforcement activities. The budget also includes $3.9 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for farm conservation funding, over $500 million more than last year, and $4.4 billion for federal climate-related programs, a commitment unmatched by any other nation.
A Commitment to Protect our Environment
President Bush and his Administration are building on 30 years of successful environmental improvements. Our air is cleaner, our drinking water is purer, and our land is better protected.
There is a growing consensus in America in favor of common-sense approaches to improving the environment while protecting the quality of American life. The Bush Administration will continue to pursue the President’s comprehensive environmental agenda and provide the public and private resources needed to make new investments in environmental technologies and conservation.
Americans understand their obligation to the environment more so than in the years past. Americans understand that good stewardship is a personal responsibility, and a public value. The President believes that it is important for Americans to understand that each of us have a responsibility, and that it's a part of our value system in our country to assume that responsibility.
Link:
http://www.georgewbush.com/Environment/Brief.aspx
I've always said that the Republicans are the real stewards of our environment; we actually do things to clean up our world as opposed to trashing SUV dealerships, protesting for KYOTO, and starting fires, AND we do it based on facts, not junk science.
One of my all-time favorite books is "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Lomborg. Not every book has the endorsement of a co-founder of Greenpeace who admits that the left uses junk science for political purposes, LOL!
Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
he White House issued a detailed rebuttal yesterday to accusations by an advocacy group and 60 prominent scientists that the Bush administration had distorted or suppressed scientific information to suit its politics. 