Dirty rotten scoundrels
Tomorrow's NYT Magazine has a piece by Bruce Barcott, a regular contributor to Outside magazine, in which he documents, in painful detail, the Bush administration's effective efforts to dismantle 30 years of gains from the Clean Air act.
I had a fairly clear idea of the Bushies dirty work on this, but the article fills in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. It's dispiriting.
After Bush eventually emerged as the winner of the 2000 election [aided by massive support by the energy industry, who bundled their contributions unnder a tracking number to "ensure that our industry is credited" for its generosity, accoring to a confidential memo from the president of the Edison Electric Institute, made public due to a lawsuit], industry leaders were upbeat about the prospect of the coming four years. The president and the vice president, Dick Cheney, were, after all, oilmen. The coal-industry trade magazine Coal Age exulted in the industry's ''high-level access to policymakers in the new administration.'' Soon after Bush's inauguration, the electric utilities sought relief from the E.P.A. and its new-source review program. The problem was that most voters -- including Republican voters -- opposed rollbacks. A Gallup poll in 2001 found that 81 percent of Americans supported stronger environmental standards for industry. According to another 2001 poll, only 11 percent thought the government was doing ''too much'' to protect the environment.
Both Reagan and, later, Gingrich had failed to put a meaningful dent in the Clean Air act and, in Gingrich's case, helped derail his "Contract on...er...for America."
The Bush administration seemed determined not to repeat those political mistakes. Taking a lesson from Reagan's experience with Gorsuch and Watt, Bush officials realized that it would be self-defeating to appoint to public positions people with outspoken views on the environment, so they found noncombative figures instead. They named as head of the E.P.A. Christie Whitman, who was seen as a moderate when she was appointed, in part because she had participated in a clean-air lawsuit against a power company as governor of New Jersey. Learning from the Gingrich defeat, administration officials recognized that bills that overtly attacked environmental protections stood little chance of surviving in Congress. So they adopted a two-track strategy. Publicly, the president asked Congress to pass major environmental legislation like the Clear Skies Initiative and a sweeping energy bill, which he knew would face considerable opposition. Privately, the president's political appointees at the Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Office of Management and Budget would carry out those same policies less visibly, through closed-door legal settlements and obscure rule changes.
And, as noted before, the Bushies have been smart -- unfortunately -- in putting the "right people" in under-the-radar positions where they can quietly determine which rules to enforce and which to undermine. People like Jeffrey Holmstead, a lobbyist for the "Alliance for Constructive Air Policy, " a trade group opposed to the very Clean Air act provisions Holmstead was now supposed to enforce.
The energy industry got a friend in Bush. More, in fact than they could have dreamed.
An official with the National Association of Manufacturers called the new rules ''a refreshingly flexible approach to regulation.'' The usually staid American Lung Association, in a report issued with a coalition of environmental groups, called the rule changes ''the most harmful and unlawful air-pollution initiative ever undertaken by the federal government.''
It will take years to undo the damage caused by this administration. They must not get another four years.
I had a fairly clear idea of the Bushies dirty work on this, but the article fills in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. It's dispiriting.
After Bush eventually emerged as the winner of the 2000 election [aided by massive support by the energy industry, who bundled their contributions unnder a tracking number to "ensure that our industry is credited" for its generosity, accoring to a confidential memo from the president of the Edison Electric Institute, made public due to a lawsuit], industry leaders were upbeat about the prospect of the coming four years. The president and the vice president, Dick Cheney, were, after all, oilmen. The coal-industry trade magazine Coal Age exulted in the industry's ''high-level access to policymakers in the new administration.'' Soon after Bush's inauguration, the electric utilities sought relief from the E.P.A. and its new-source review program. The problem was that most voters -- including Republican voters -- opposed rollbacks. A Gallup poll in 2001 found that 81 percent of Americans supported stronger environmental standards for industry. According to another 2001 poll, only 11 percent thought the government was doing ''too much'' to protect the environment.
Both Reagan and, later, Gingrich had failed to put a meaningful dent in the Clean Air act and, in Gingrich's case, helped derail his "Contract on...er...for America."
The Bush administration seemed determined not to repeat those political mistakes. Taking a lesson from Reagan's experience with Gorsuch and Watt, Bush officials realized that it would be self-defeating to appoint to public positions people with outspoken views on the environment, so they found noncombative figures instead. They named as head of the E.P.A. Christie Whitman, who was seen as a moderate when she was appointed, in part because she had participated in a clean-air lawsuit against a power company as governor of New Jersey. Learning from the Gingrich defeat, administration officials recognized that bills that overtly attacked environmental protections stood little chance of surviving in Congress. So they adopted a two-track strategy. Publicly, the president asked Congress to pass major environmental legislation like the Clear Skies Initiative and a sweeping energy bill, which he knew would face considerable opposition. Privately, the president's political appointees at the Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Office of Management and Budget would carry out those same policies less visibly, through closed-door legal settlements and obscure rule changes.
And, as noted before, the Bushies have been smart -- unfortunately -- in putting the "right people" in under-the-radar positions where they can quietly determine which rules to enforce and which to undermine. People like Jeffrey Holmstead, a lobbyist for the "Alliance for Constructive Air Policy, " a trade group opposed to the very Clean Air act provisions Holmstead was now supposed to enforce.
The energy industry got a friend in Bush. More, in fact than they could have dreamed.
An official with the National Association of Manufacturers called the new rules ''a refreshingly flexible approach to regulation.'' The usually staid American Lung Association, in a report issued with a coalition of environmental groups, called the rule changes ''the most harmful and unlawful air-pollution initiative ever undertaken by the federal government.''
It will take years to undo the damage caused by this administration. They must not get another four years.
posted by John at 6:45 PM
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