Conscious Choice: Bush's Anti-Environmental Agenda

January 2003 | News of the Earth

Bush's Anti-Environmental Agenda

by Dave Aftandilian

We all know what happened this past November 5th — the Republicans regained control of the U. S. Senate and added to their majority in the House of Representatives. This is the first time that conservatives have been in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House since 1952. Not an easy time to be an environmentalist!

What’s more, we already know Bush’s environmental agenda. Over the past six months or so, the Bush administration has amassed a long list of assaults on our environment. Let’s review them. For starters, the administration has scuttled international attempts to cope with global warming at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.

It’s proposed new air- pollution rules that would allow power plants to upgrade their equipment — and likely increase pollution emissions — without installing anti-pollution devices. Federal agencies have been authorized to speed reviews of major transportation projects regardless of their environmental consequences.

Further, new rules have been proposed for national forests that would allow managers to approve logging without considering its environmental impacts. Scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as public health and the environment have been reorganized, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions the administration didn’t like, and the administration is replacing members of others with hand-picked Bush appointees. (For instance, The Washington Post reported that a committee that had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health is having its members almost totally replaced. In several cases, the new appointees are people with ties to the industries that make those chemicals, such as one of the scientists who helped defend Pacific Gas & Electric Company against the real-life Erin Brockovich).

Just Gearing Up

As the 108th Congress gets to work this month, we can expect more of Bush’s anti-environmental agenda — which had so far been stalled by the Democratic-controlled Senate — to pass into law. One of his top priorities, a new domestic energy plan designed to give a major boost to the oil and gas industry (a significant source of campaign contributions for Bush and the Republican party), is almost certain to pass now.

Democratic proposals to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants — a major source of global warming — are dead in the water. Also, congress will likely approve some version of Bush’s deeply flawed "log it all regardless of whether it’s really at risk of burning" forest management plan. Further, upcoming transportation legislation will now almost certainly favor road building as a priority over mass transit.

The courts are also a concern as we can expect a flood of conservative appointments at the federal level. These judges will work to undermine pro-environment legislation for decades.

Let’s Look at the Bright Side

But there are a few glimmers of hope amidst all this bad news. For one thing, the Republicans hold a very slim majority in the Senate, just 51 to 49, and most major policy initiatives will require a 60-vote margin to pass. This means that with the help of moderate Republicans, the Democrats have the ability to prevent the most environmentally destructive proposals if they have the courage to point out the flaws in Bush’s plans and offer constructive alternatives.

Also, a New York Times/CBS News poll released in late November showed that even though most respondents expressed strong support for Bush — largely because of the supposed "wartime" status of the nation — many staunchly opposed the Administration’s environmental policies. For instance, 55 percent opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (39 percent were in favor). Nearly two-thirds of respondents thought the government should do more to regulate the environmental and safety practices of business, and, by a factor of two to one, respondents said that protecting the environment was more important than producing energy.

Also, here in Illinois, we have both a Democratic governor and a Democratic state House and Senate for the first time in more than 30 years. This provides a golden opportunity for progressives to make some real changes at the state level.

What’s a Green Thinker To Do?

First and foremost, we have to do all we can to stop Bush’s anti-environmental agenda. If we do this the right way, we can also start laying the groundwork for real progress in 2005, when the next Congress takes office. All the usual methods are well worth continuing — keeping abreast of the issues, educating others by writing letters to the editor and contacting our Congressional representatives, etc.

However, that’s not enough. Part of the reason the Democrats lost ground in Congress is that they failed to offer a compelling alternative to the Republicans. We need to offer a truly progressive and, yes, liberal alternative from the grassroots level and sell it to both the Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. One way to go is to work hard on state and local issues, setting agendas and developing programs here in Illinois that can serve as a model for the rest of the nation.

If you are a member of the Democratic party, another way to go would be to write the Democratic National Committee and the minority leaders in the House and Senate, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Tom Daschle, and demand that they offer a true liberal alternative to the Republican agenda. Their Web sites are listed below.

We Have Values Too!

We need to take back the "values" issue from the Republicans and work on developing a truly moral majority that cuts across party lines. So far just about everything Bush and his administration have done, from tax cuts to hamstringing international action to stop global warming, has benefited the wealthy at the expense of the poor and disadvantaged. Yet Bush and his allies continue to call themselves "compassionate conservatives." Who’s a truer Christian — the one who slips money to the moneychangers in the temple every chance he gets, like Bush, or the one who tries to feed the poor standing outside in the cold?

Thankfully, over the past several years, religious leaders of many different faiths and denominations have begun pointing out the links between religious values and environmental issues. For instance, this past November, the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) launched a campaign that asks Christians and others, "What Would Jesus Drive?" The EEN played a key role in heading off an attack by House Republicans on the Endangered Species Act in 1996. Now they’re taking on global warming, spreading the word that "transportation choices are moral choices." The campaign’s web site draws on both science and scriptural teachings to make this link:

"Pollution from cars hurts people and the rest of God’s creation. Driving impacts human health, contributes to global warming, and increases our reliance on oil from unstable countries and environmentally sensitive areas. Making transportation choices that threaten millions of human beings violates Jesus’ basic commandments:‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ and‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’"

So what would Jesus drive? Not an SUV. According to Rev. Jim Ball, director of the EEN, "Jesus wants his followers to drive the least-polluting, most efficient vehicle that truly meets their needs — though first he might look at other ways to get around. He’d definitely be in favor of us taking public transportation."

Here in Chicago, a number of churches and synagogues have environmental groups within their congregations working to educate members about environmental issues, conduct energy audits to make their buildings more energy efficient, and so on. (If your religious or spiritual organization does not have such a group, why not start one?) The Center for Neighborhood Technology has had great success in linking up congregations and environmental groups across the city to work toward better, more accessible, more convenient public transportation.

Reformer or Activist, Pick One

If a religious approach does not suit you, you can help transform practices of corporations through grassroots corporate responsibility and reform campaigns. Even though Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others in his cabinet have direct ties to Enron and many other scandal-ridden corporations, Democrats have largely missed this golden opportunity to highlight these links between the administration and corrupt businesses in order to reform corporate practices. So let’s show them how to do it.

In terms of individual corporations, reformers have enjoyed great success in the past couple of years through grassroots campaigns combining protests at local stores with nationwide letter-writing campaigns. Using these techniques, thousands of protesters convinced Home Depot to phase out products made from old growth trees, and did the same with Staples this past November. And once a leading chain adopts a pro-environment policy like this, others selling similar products usually follow suit (after Home Depot promised to phase out old growth wood products, for instance, Lowe’s soon did the same).

In addition to staying vigilantly aware of the Republican-controlled Congress’ actions, we also need to watch Bush very closely, expose his anti-environmental policies, and present better alternatives. But more importantly, we need to show that environmentalists, not conservatives, hold the moral high ground — a position for which we will be well placed to upset Bush and his corporate-funded cronies in 2004.

Get Active

Center for Neighborhood Technology

Democratic Leadership National Committee

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House Minority Leader

Sen. Tom Daschle, U.S. Senate Minority Leader

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

National Religious Partnership for the Environment

What Would Jesus Drive?

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: