Vichy Bush <-- is the most apt description.
His father utterly ignored the results of the [environmental] N.A.P.A.P. study initiated by President Carter, in order to have something with which to bargain with the socialists (a.k.a. "Democrats").
The Bushes will give what is not theirs, but all of ours: our Liberty, our Constitution, our individual rights, etc., because the Bushes have no sense Constitutional authority; they believe as dogmatically in the "politics of the moment," as did "President" Clinton.
You might say that the Bushes have some practice in negotiations wherein they give away what is of least value to them and belongs to somebody else and / or what they least understand and thus dismiss the value to others. (Not a "height of arrogance;" rather an ignorance thus arrogance.)
President Bush, Sr., utterly dismissed the decade-long environmental study, National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), so that he could make deals with the Democrats by swapping environmental tits for other-issue tats.
The late Detroit News columnist, Warren Brookes, wrote excellent work detailing the creeping vines of insidious, "junk science" environmentalism, which the Bushes have not had much care to tip, trim, nor cut. (A search through the newspaper's archives would be helpful, here, but I wasn't able to search at the Detroit News website, for Mr. Brookes's NAPAP writings.)
However, because of the technical details of "studies," the Bushes are aware that the public is not aware enough, of same --- and so what is not well understood is thus easily taken from conservatives, and others, by people who we would like to trust --- Republicans --- as you have stated.
By the way, writer, Michael Fumento, is working at filling the environmental gaps created by the liberals' "junk science," with contrasting information which blunts the environmentalistas. His collection of work can be found at:
Environmentalists, Activists, Doomsayers and Other Alarmists
A detailed writeup on how former President Bush and Congressional Republicans chose to ignore the results of NAPAP, can be found by looking up online, William Anderson article, published in Reason magazine in January 1992 (the first appears to be the entire article; I did not find it at i online):
Acid Test (www.sepp.org)Acid Test (www.objectivists.org)
Acid Test (www.gaiabooks.co.uk/environment)