BUSH 43 3 environ

10/20<div>see three forks
<div>see fork 3</div><div></div><div>
</div><div>4 parts</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20081225034915/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081208_EPA_s_Court_Follies_Sow_DoubtDelay.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20081225034915/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081208_EPA_s_Court_Follies_Sow_DoubtDelay.html</a></div><div>
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</div><div><div class="article_timestamp" style="float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dec. 8, 2008</div> <div class="sig" style="font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SMOKE AND MIRRORS</div><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The subversion of the EPA</h4><h1 style="">EPA's court follies sow doubt, delay</h1>By John Shiffman and John SullivanInquirer Staff Writers<div id="body-content" class="body-content" style="">WASHINGTON - The judge cocked her head sideways as the young government lawyer tried to justify what the EPA had done: Not much.U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer could barely contain her disgust. The EPA had repeatedly failed to set pollution limits for diesel ships entering U.S. ports, including Camden and Philadelphia. Following lawsuits, the EPA had promised that it would do so by 2003, then by 2007. Now, in April 2008, EPA was saying it might - might - follow the law and do it by 2009.Collyer was no liberal. A Bush appointee, she had held two political posts during the Reagan administration. But now she cast a wary eye at the lawyer for the EPA."So you're saying EPA could just keep granting itself extensions?" Collyer asked.Yes, the lawyer said.The judge shook her head and invoked Peter Pan."It's Never-Never Land," she said.The lawyer insisted that the EPA was working on the problem.Incredulous, Collyer held up a thumb and index finger an inch apart. "This -" she said, holding her fingers aloft - "this is how much EPA has done."The judge's exasperation with the EPA's manipulation of air pollution rules mirrored reactions in cases by other federal judges.In a dozen cases since 2001, federal judges in Washington have used increasingly caustic language to throw out EPA regulations, chastising the Bush administration for illegally changing U.S. environmental rules. Most decisions were rendered by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.The result: The EPA's most significant new air-pollution initiatives lie in tatters, creating uncertainty for those who worry about the environment and human health, as well as for businesses that have spent billions to meet new EPA standards that no longer exist. When the courts killed one Bush rule in July, the decision triggered immediate market losses that cost at least one Pennsylvania power company, PPL Corp. of Allentown, $33 million.Taxpayers are losers, too. According to the EPA's own figures, the agency spent at least $53 million to create these now-defunct rules.Most of the court decisions against the EPA were not close calls. Nearly every key appellate ruling on air pollution was unanimous and bipartisan. Two-thirds of the votes against the EPA were cast by judges appointed by Republican presidents, according to an Inquirer analysis."In modern environmental law, this is absolutely unprecedented," said James R. May, a Widener University law professor and chair of the American Bar Association's annual Environment and Energy Resources conference. "All across the spectrum, judges are finding that virtually every environmental initiative of the Bush administration is illegal."An Inquirer analysis also shows that when the EPA is sued, it appears to treat industry as a friendlier foe than environmental groups.Of the four dozen pollution cases filed in federal court in Washington, the EPA settled 80 percent of the lawsuits brought by industry. By contrast, the EPA settled only 15 percent of the cases brought by environmental groups.In one case - in which utility companies challenged states' authority on pollution enforcement - the EPA settled with the utilities and then went one step further. The EPA rewrote the rule to take the industry position. The courts later said that the EPA acted wrongly, and threw out the revised rule.Bush's senior environmental adviser, James Connaughton, said most of the decisions the EPA has lost have not been about the substance of the environmental rules, but about the legal process."You look at those cases and they have nothing to do with whether the air is getting cleaner," he said. "The EPA is pursuing flexible approaches that allow for even greater economic growth and development as we dramatically improve air quality."... 1 of 7
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Page:   2  of  7   <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20081212135757/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081208_EPA_s_Court_Follies_Sow_Doubt__Delay.html?viewAll=y" style="text-decoration-line: none;">View All</a></div><h1 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">EPA's court follies sow doubt, delay</h1><div id="body-content" class="body-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nearly all cases have been decided by the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears most challenges to newly minted agency rules.Those judges have repeatedly called the EPA's legal justifications thin, some so laughable they would only make sense if presented in a fairy tale:When the EPA tried to argue that the word any in existing air pollution law did not literally mean "any," the court said that would make sense "only in a Humpty Dumpty world."When the EPA tried to alter mercury emission controls on certain power plants, the court compared its legal logic to the Queen of Hearts, the Alice in Wonderland character who makes one arbitrary decision after another.When the EPA essentially lowered a water pollution limit by reinterpreting a law requiring "daily" monitoring to allow "seasonal or annual" monitoring, the court said this was absurd: "Daily means daily, nothing else."The EPA's biggest loss in the courts came last year in the case brought by Massachusetts on climate change. The agency had argued that it did not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases, and therefore could not use the law to combat global warming.The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that contention, saying the evidence of climate change was overwhelming and that the EPA did have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, regardless of doubts about causes and effects."That EPA would prefer not to regulate greenhouse gases because of some residual uncertainty . . . is irrelevant," the court wrote.James Pew, a Gladwyne native and a lawyer for Earthjustice, a firm that represents environmental groups, said the EPA was prone to issue rules that courts later would find arbitrary."I think EPA was being reckless," he said. "There were only a few outcomes, and all of them were good for industry. If they managed to get a rule passed through judicial review, they would get an industry-friendly rule on the books. If it got thrown out, industry would get a delay in having to clean up its emissions, and that would be good for industry."Either way, the consequences were severe, said Pew. "Whenever EPA loses one of these cases, the people who have to breathe toxic air take the hit because EPA has to go back and write another rule. Years go by."Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said: "This administration's pattern of issuing rules that don't stand up in court has caused multiple serious harms" - to public health, taxpayers and industry.Jeffrey Holmstead, a former EPA assistant administrator who was a chief architect of the Bush air pollution agenda, said the courts ruled incorrectly.The losses, Holmstead said, were unexpected, in part because the courts had historically deferred to EPA rulemaking, except in extreme circumstances."If the D.C. Circuit had reviewed these cases the way they had done in the previous 15 years, those rules would have been upheld," he said. "Some of the decisions were not only a surprise but don't make any sense as a matter of administrative law."But three former EPA political appointees, including former Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, said many court decisions did not come as a surprise. They said lawyers in the EPA's Office of General Counsel had warned that several administrative rules were too arbitrary to survive a court challenge."The General Counsel's Office offered very frank advice," former Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett recalled.EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, who signed many of the rules that the courts have thrown out, blames a Democratic-controlled Congress for failing to adopt a comprehensive new pollution law. If Congress does not adopt new laws to address 21st-century pollution issues, Johnson said, the EPA will continue to be caught in a cycle in which it writes administrative regulations that are inevitably challenged in court by industry or environmental groups."EPA can do it reg by reg, year by year, but as I look as to what's best for the nation, let's have Congress cut to the chase, make some important decisions," he said. Otherwise, "it will be decades before our nation fully addresses these, given the litigation issues, and I have grave concern."Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), who chairs the Senate's clean air subcommittee, said comprehensive legislation could have been passed, but the Bush administration simply refused to compromise...</div></div></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20081211215005/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081210_Scientists_criticize_EPA_chief.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20081211215005/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081210Scientists_criticize_EPA_chief.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="article_timestamp" style="float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dec. 10, 2008</div> <h1 style="">Politics choke clean-air efforts</h1><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scientists say the EPA chief bowed to pressure from the White House, hampering pollution-control efforts.</h2>By John Sullivan, Tom Avril and John ShiffmanInquirer Staff Writers<div id="body-content" class="body-content" style="">Death came to Donora, a small steel town in western Pennsylvania, in the form of a black fog.Trapped by unusual weather conditions in October 1948, a blanket of smokestack pollution killed 20 people and sickened thousands. Overwhelmed doctors scurried to fashion oxygen tents out of spare bedsheets. The mix of deadly pollutants was so thick that when the undertaker drove to pick up one of the dead, he simply got lost.It was the nation's most dramatic evidence of the dangers of air pollution, and it spawned a cleanup effort so successful that, today, many people rarely give a thought to the air they breathe.Yet in June 2005, a panel of scientists appointed by the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the air was still too dirty.The evidence was more subtle, but according to the latest studies, tiny particles - similar to those that had fallen on Donora - could shorten lifespans even at the invisible everyday levels found in much of the United States. No matter where the mix of particles came from - trucks, buses, power plants - their small size meant they could penetrate deep into the lungs.The panel recommended tougher rules to limit long-term exposure, a move that EPA's own scientists said could prevent thousands of premature deaths annually.EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson rejected their advice.His decision took the panel by surprise, but before long, it would fit into a familiar pattern.Over the next three years, leading environmental scientists would denounce Johnson for substituting politics for science on key pollution issues - from not regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming to delaying the assessment of toxic chemicals.But it was in a succession of decisions on air quality that Johnson's uneven application of science had perhaps the most severe impacts on human health.In the case of particles, a key element of Johnson's scientific justification was characterized by a top expert as "silly."When considering restrictions on ozone, the chief component of smog, Johnson flatly rejected the recommendations of the nation's top 23 experts.For a new rule on airborne lead pollution, Johnson attempted to cripple the very panel created by Congress to advise him on all three decisions.In all three cases, it took a court order to get the EPA to make a decision.And in all three cases, according to documents and interviews, Johnson chose to take a more industry-friendly course after pressure from the White House."What good is a scientific committee if you're just going to march to the White House and ask the president?" asked toxicologist Rogene Henderson, who was appointed by Johnson and chaired the panel during all three agency decisions.Johnson, a career EPA scientist before taking the top spot in 2005, noted that the law gives him the final call on matters of science policy, and he said criticisms of him were unfair. While science is one of the "foundational principles" of a regulatory decision, he said, it's not the only one."For those who like the decision," Johnson said, "it's a great decision, and those who don't, you know, there's the 'you-caved-in.' "The chorus of "you-caved-ins" has grown among scientists and other critics who say that Johnson has allowed the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to unduly influence him - and that he weighs economic concerns more heavily than public safety.Johnson himself asked Congress this year to rewrite the Clean Air Act to allow him to take into account economic impacts when setting air pollution standards....</div></div><div>=</div><div><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20081211214959/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081209_Green_Club_An_EPA_Charade.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20081211214959/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081209_Green_Club_An_EPA_Charade.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="article_timestamp" style="float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Dec. 9, 2008</div> <h1 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Green Club an EPA charade</h1><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The EPA touts the perk-filled program, but has recruited some firms with dismal environmental records.</h2>By John Sullivan and John ShiffmanInquirer Staff Writers<div id="body-content" class="body-content" style="">CHARLESTON, Tenn. - In January 2005, residents near the chlorine plant here discovered that it was the biggest mercury emitter in the state. Environmentalists warned them against eating fish from their beloved Hiwassee River.They appealed to the plant's owners, Olin Corp., to do what 100 other chlorine producers had done: abandon a 19th-century process that emits tons of the dangerous neurotoxin. Olin refused.In fall 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in - but not to take up the cause of residents.Instead, EPA called Olin with an offer. Would the Charleston plant like to be enrolled in Performance Track, an elite green club of the nation's most environmentally progressive companies?In return, Olin could expect regulatory breaks, such as fewer inspections and loosened requirements on hazardous waste disposal, not to mention positive publicity.Sherry Neidich, who has lived half her life a mile downriver from Olin's plant, was stunned."The EPA is a toothless dog," she said. "What right does someone have to ruin my river? To poison our playground?"Her children grew up fishing and swimming in the river's placid water, but her grandchildren, who live next door, aren't allowed near it. In fact, they'll be moving, to avoid further exposure."I love having them here, but I don't think it's safe," she said.The Bush administration holds up Performance Track as a bold new approach that moves the EPA beyond its traditional role as enforcer of environmental laws. The new EPA collaborates with industry to encourage cutting-edge environmentally sensitive practices.It is precisely this voluntary approach that Bush's top environmental officials say is part of their plan to fight global warming - to encourage companies to reduce greenhouse gases, rather than forcing them to do so.But an Inquirer investigation shows that what was conceived as an innovative stewardship program has become little more than smoke and mirrors. Performance Track offers a stark example of how the White House's pro-business ethic weakened the agency and slowed environmental progress.Among The Inquirer's findings:The EPA has recruited companies with mixed - even dismal - environmental records to become Performance Track members.Despite offering members regulatory breaks and promoting the program as one that improves environmental performance, the EPA fails to independently verify that Performance Track companies actually reach their goals.Some Performance Track members have paid fines to settle EPA accusations that they broke environmental rules. Since 2003, they have racked up more than 100 violations and paid $15.25 million in fines - including $10.25 million paid by DuPont Co. for allegedly failing to provide information to the EPA about the health effects of a pollutant one of its plants spilled into drinking water.At least a dozen Performance Track members have actually increased the amount of toxic chemicals they pump into the air and water.The program has spent millions on publicity, but has become so desperate for new members that it has turned to gift shops and post offices with trivial environmental impact to pad its numbers.The EPA insists that the program - which now numbers 548 members ranging from Fortune 500 companies to trailer parks - is a success. The 42 newest members, inducted this fall, include a Maker's Mark distillery, a veterans center, two municipal incinerators, and a Philip Morris cigarette plant.Since 2001, the EPA said, Performance Track members report that they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 310,000 tons, saved 3.7 billion gallons of water, and cut non-hazardous waste equivalent to that generated by 553,000 households....</div></div><div>=</div><div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><div class="article_timestamp" style="float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dec. 7, 2008</div> <h1 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">An Eroding Mission at EPA</h1><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Bush administration has weakened the agency charged with safeguarding health and the environment.</h2>By John Shiffman and John SullivanInquirer Staff Writers<div id="body-content" class="body-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WASHINGTON - On Dec. 5, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson prepared to send the White House an extraordinary document. It declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare - a decision that would trigger the nation's first mandatory global-warming regulations.Johnson, a career scientist, knew that his draft would meet with resistance from antiregulatory ideologues at the White House, but he believed the science was solid.According to confidential records reviewed by The Inquirer, Johnson cited strong evidence: rises in sea level, extreme hot and cold days, ecosystem changes, melting glaciers, and more. Minor doubts about long-term effects, he wrote, were not enough to alter his conclusion.Two sentences in Johnson's draft stood out. In sum: The U.S. emits more greenhouse gases from cars than most countries do from all pollution sources. This fact is so compelling that it alone supports The Administrator's finding.At 2:10 p.m., Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett e-mailed the climate-change draft to the White House as an attachment.What happened next became Johnson's defining moment and cemented President Bush's environmental legacy, serving as the low-water mark of a tumultuous era that has left the EPA badly wounded, largely demoralized and, in many ways, emasculated.White House aides - who had long resisted mandatory regulations as a way to address climate change - knew the gist of what Johnson's finding would be, Burnett said. They also knew that once they opened the attachment, it would become a public record, making it too controversial to rescind. So they didn't open it.They called Johnson and asked him to take it back.The law clearly stated that the final decision was the EPA administrator's, not Bush's. Johnson initially resisted - something Burnett admired - but ultimately did as he was told.Outraged, Burnett resigned.In July, Johnson issued a new, censored version, a pale imitation of the original climate-change document.The old muscular language - including key sentences about U.S. car emissions and the irrelevance of any lingering doubt - was gone. Most of all, the new document no longer declared global warming a danger to public welfare. The move effectively postponed any strong action on climate change well into the next administration.This was by no means the only example of how Johnson and an antiregulatory Bush administration weakened the federal agency charged with safeguarding human health and the environment. But what happened on climate change dwarfed everything else."The country and the environment have been on hold for eight years," said William K. Reilly, who led the EPA under President George H.W. Bush. "The scorecard is very, very disappointing. For a long time, conservatives have said follow the science, and in the climate-change decision, [EPA] did not follow the science - it abdicated leadership and responsibility."Johnson, whose image over four years morphed from scientist to ideologue, will leave office as one of Bush's most loyal and controversial cabinet members. His decisions alarmed environmentalists, infuriated his own scientists, and led to calls from Democrats for his resignation.Critics include Reilly and three other Republicans who have held the top EPA post. In interviews, they said Johnson should have exercised his legal authority to stand up to Bush on climate change."Here we see a real failure of leadership," said Russell Train, EPA administrator during the Nixon and Ford eras. "EPA has become a nonentity."Johnson, a savvy Washington native who grew up discussing politics at the breakfast table, said the former administrators should know that EPA chiefs can rarely please everyone."There's always those who say you haven't gone far enough, and others who say you've gone too far," he said. "I won't accept the criticism that I didn't care about or didn't do anything to advance the environment."Bush's chief White House adviser on the environment, James L. Connaughton, said the president believes Johnson has been an excellent EPA chief. 1 of 10
paywall<a href="http:">https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/special_packages/inquirer/Inq_ST_EPA1.html</a></div></div>==<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-protection-the-deciding-moment/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-protection-the-deciding-moment/</a>
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<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/">https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/</a>
...<span style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">How Public Opinion Is Influenced by Concentrated Money<span style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">
<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Poll after poll has shown that Americans overwhelmingly support reform of our health-care system. People are concerned about costs and quality of care. Yet in 1993, when President Bill Clinton proposed that the government offer some form of health-care protection to the nation’s 40-plus-million uninsured, the insurance industry spent an estimated $100 million on lobbying and $60 million on advertising and provided members of Congress with about 350 free trips.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">What actually happened as a result of all this spending is extraordinarily ironic. Industry polls showed that people cared more about being able to choose their own doctor than most other medical issues. Taking advantage of this, an infamous series of ads featuring “Harry and Louise” warned Americans that under a government-run health insurance program they would lose their ability to select the doctor of their choice.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The advertising worked. People panicked, and American public opinion swung from strong support for Clinton’s proposals to overwhelming fear of them. The Internet became flooded with insulting e-mails about the evils of “Hillary’s” insurance proposal.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Even more ironically, those fears have been realized today—without the Clinton proposal. Back in 1993 you could pretty much go to any doctor you wanted (assuming you were insured), and your insurance would almost always pay for it. Overtly restricting that ability was never part of the Clinton proposal, but because of the power of the Harry and Louise ads people came to believe that it was.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">And within a few years, insurance companies and HMOs (health maintenance organizations) began to crack down on consumers who wanted to select their own doctors. Today fewer Americans have that privilege than in 1993, even though it’s fully available to citizens of virtually every country that has a national health-care program…which is every developed country in the world except the United States.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif">It turns out there is a strong reason why the insurance industry was eager to invest so much cash in advertising and lobbying to keep the government from competing with it in the realm of health care: profits. For every $100 that passes through the hands of the government-administered Medicare programs, between $2 and $3 is spent by Medicare on administration, leaving $97 to $98 to pay for medical services and drugs. But of every $100 that flows through corporate insurance programs and HMOs, $10 to $45 sticks to corporate fingers along the way. As Yale University Professor of Public Policy Theodore R. Marmor, author of The Politics of Medicare, said, “The costs of administering private insurance are somewhere between 5 and 10 times the costs of administering Medicare.”<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/#5" style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">5</a><p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">After all, Medicare doesn’t have lavish corporate headquarters and corporate jets, nor does it pay expensive lobbying firms in Washington to work on its behalf. It doesn’t pay out profits in the form of dividends to its shareholders. And it doesn’t compensate its top executives with more than $1 million a year, as does each of the largest of the American insurance companies. The result, as Professor Marmor points out, is that Canadians—who receive health care at one-half the cost of comparable services in the United States because no insurance companies are in the middle—“are somewhat healthier than citizens of the United States, use more hospital days per thousand, and visit their physicians more often” because services are freely available.<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/#6" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">6</a><p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Yet most citizens of the United States have no idea what it’s like to live in a country with national health care. When our family lived in Germany for a year in the late 1980s, we were amazed at how smoothly its health-care system worked: we could make any appointment with any physician, and they were excellent at what they did. But even describing the reality of that experience draws uncomprehending stares from Americans, who have been fed a steady corporate diet of very one-sided information.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">This is why when President Obama decided he wanted one of the main legacies of his presidency to be a solution to America’s health-care mess, he first met privately and secretly with the pharmaceutical, hospital, and health insurance industries. He cut a deal with them, if news reports are to be believed (and they were not denied by the Obama administration), that he would protect their interests and give them tens of millions of new customers if they would hold back and not spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy his attempts the way they had with Clinton.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Something really rotten has taken hold of the American political system when the president of the United States must go to big corporations on bended knee and get their approval before suggesting legislation.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Polluters Pass “Go”<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif">In 1995 the new governor of Texas responded to the needs of the “polluting industries” that had contributed more than $4 million (about 20 percent of his total) to his election campaign the year before. Thus, as soon as he was in office, George W. Bush signed into law the Texas Environmental Health and Safety Audit Privilege Act, also known as the “polluter immunity law.” This new law, which has since been emulated in twenty-five other states and was tried at the federal level during the Bush presidency, allows polluting industries to avoid prosecution for pollution violations if they themselves report their own crimes to themselves in an internal audit. It also gives them the ability to prevent the public from knowing about their violations.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif">As Arizona’s assistant attorney general, David Ronald, said, “Only the business with something to hide would benefit from a law that turns data gathered from environmental audits into secret information.”<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/#7" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">7 </a>Some of these laws even provide for a year in jail and a $10,000 fine for any human who reveals to the public or to government agencies any corporate pollution discovered in an audit, thus discouraging investigative reporting or whistle-blowing employees.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Like with health-care policy, these laws that increase the power and the profitability of the nation’s largest corporations at the expense of smaller companies who play by the rules—and to the detriment of average citizens—from the beginning are influenced by enormous amounts of “corporate free speech” in the form of cash for politicians and political parties.<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">In a Democracy…<p style="Style" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The point for a democracy is, “What is the will of the people?” That will may change over time, but it is undemocratic when it is shaped by the single voice that shouts the loudest because there are profits to be made. Democracy is more important than any single debate, and this is a classic example of how democratic republican processes have been twisted because of the concept of corporate personhood.----<p class="p1" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""><a name="7" style="box-sizing: border-box; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">7. </a><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm</a>.<p class="p1" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="">
<p class="p1" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="">Published on Sunday, May 23, 2004 by the Denver Post<div style="">
</div><p class="p1" palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060822161532/https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm">https://web.archive.org/web/20060822161532/https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm</a><table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center" dwcopytype="CopyTableCell" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr align="left"><td><div align="left">When Advocates Become Regulators
President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.
</div></td></tr><tr align="left"><td><div align="left">by Anne C. Mulkern</div></td></tr><tr><td height="10"> </td></tr><tr align="left" valign="top"><td>WASHINGTON -- In a New York City ballroom days before Christmas, a powerful Bush administration lawyer made an unprecedented offer to drug companies, one likely to protect their profits and potentially hurt consumers.Daniel E. Troy, lead counsel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, extended the government's help in torpedoing certain lawsuits. Among Troy's targets: claims that medications caused devastating and unexpected side effects.Pitch us lawsuits that we might get involved in, Troy told several hundred pharmaceutical attorneys, some of them old friends and acquaintances from his previous role representing major U.S. pharmaceutical firms.The offer by the FDA's top attorney, made Dec. 15 at the Plaza Hotel, took the agency responsible for food and drug safety into new territory."The FDA is now in the business of helping lawsuit defendants, specifically the pharmaceutical companies," said James O'Reilly, University of Cincinnati law professor and author of a book on the history of the FDA. "It's a dramatic change in what the FDA has done in the past."Troy's switch from industry advocate to industry regulator overseeing his former clients is a hallmark of President Bush's administration.Troy is one of more than 100 high-level officials under Bush who helped govern industries they once represented as lobbyists, lawyers or company advocates, a Denver Post analysis shows.In at least 20 cases, those former industry advocates have helped their agencies write, shape or push for policy shifts that benefit their former industries. They knew which changes to make because they had pushed for them as industry advocates.The president's political appointees are making or overseeing profound changes affecting drug laws, food policies, land use, clean-air regulations and other key issues.Government watchdogs call it a disturbing trend, not adequately restrained by existing ethics laws.Among the advocates-turned-regulators are a former meat-industry lobbyist who helps decide how meat is labeled; a former drug-company lobbyist who influences prescription-drug policies; a former energy lobbyist who, while still accepting payments for bringing clients into his old lobbying firm, helps determine how much of the West those former clients can use for oil and gas drilling."When you go to work in lobbying, it is clearly understood and accepted that your job is to advocate for the interests of those who hired you," said Terry L. Cooper, a University of Southern California ethics and government professor. "When you go to work in government, you are supposed to be responsible for upholding and maintaining whatever you can identify as the public interest."The Bush administration says the regulators were chosen for their abilities."The president appoints highly qualified individuals who make their decisions based on the best interests of the American people," said White House spokesman Jim Morrell. "Any individual serving in the administration must abide by strict legal and ethical guidelines, including full disclosure of past lobbying activities."Six of the former industry advocates have faced ethics investigations or resigned amid conflict-of-interest charges. Those and at least 14 others have been lambasted by public-interest groups.Government ethics standards are part of the problem because they don't fully address the kind of issues that now permeate Washington, Cooper and some inside government say. The rules focus mainly on direct financial conflicts. Other, more nuanced conflicts aren't addressed"There are so many ways around, over and under these (ethics) bans ... they almost never work," said Paul Light, who for decades has studied the appointment process for the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. "There're more screen doors than steel doors."A March 16 report from the Interior Department's inspector general, for example, concluded that department's "byzantine" conflict-of-interest rules were "wholly incapable" of addressing ethical questions involving a former energy lobbyist, J. Steven Griles, as the department's No. 2 official.The report called the department's ethics system "a train wreck waiting to happen."Bringing bias to a federal job isn't new. Presidents of all political persuasions have appointed people who shared their party's values.As president, Bill Clinton peppered the federal bureaucracy with Democratic state officials, lawyers and advocates from various environmental or public-interest groups.Only a handful of registered lobbyists worked for Clinton, however.Bush's embrace of lobbyists marks a key difference because it allows "those who are affected by the regulations to determine what the ground rules should be," said David Cohen, co-director of the Advocacy Institute, which helps teach nonprofits how to lobby in Washington.While previous Republican presidents hired lobbyists, "the Bush administration has made it rise in geometric proportions," Cohen said, meaning Bush is "capturing the instruments of government and using them for the ends" that favor Bush's political supporters."In the Bush administration," said U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., "the foxes are guarding the foxes, and the middle-class hens are getting plucked."Republicans and their lobbying allies reject the idea that industry is embedded in the administration."Foxes? No," Vice President Dick Cheney told The Denver Post. "I think we have a good track record."The clout of industry is balanced by the power of labor unions, trial lawyers and public-interest groups, said Jerry Jasinowski, chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers."The notion that somehow business gets everything and we've gotten a free ride is absurd," he said.Still, the lobbyists-turned-policymakers control or influence health care, food safety, land use, the environment and other issues touched by government.HEALTH CAREAnn-Marie LynchThe drug-industry lobbyist who fought price controls joined the Health and Human Services Department and has helped drug companies avoid the limits.Top aides in the Department of Health and Human Services provide analysis and advice to the president on key consumer issues, including prescription-drug policies. In doing so, they consider the needs of pharmaceutical companies seeking revenue for future research, and consumers struggling to afford increasingly costly medications.In June 2001 Bush installed Ann- Marie Lynch, a lobbyist for the drug- company trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, to help set those policies.As a lobbyist, Lynch fought congressional attempts to cap prices for drugs. Price controls, she argued, would hamper medical innovation.Thirteen months after Lynch became deputy assistant secretary in the office of policy, her division issued a report that praised brand- name drugs. It warned that "government-controlled restrictions on the coverage of new drugs could put the future of medical innovation at risk and may retard advances in treatment."Consumer advocates say that's nonsense. Other countries innovate despite price controls, said Gail Shearer, director of health policy analysis for Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports."They haven't taken as seriously their job of making medicines affordable to all Americans," Shearer said. "When you talk about the need for (drug) innovation, you have to put it in the context of, will people get the wonder drugs?"Critics say the report influenced congressional debate over a Medicare drug policy that, among other things, banned government from using Medicare's buying power to cut drug prices. The legislation will mean an extra $139 billion in profit over eight years to drug companies, Boston University researchers said.Republicans in Congress used arguments that came "directly out of Ann-Marie Lynch's mouth" and from the trade group she previously worked for, said Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, lead Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee's health subcommittee.Lynch declined to talk to a reporter. HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said the report was not intended to sway Congress. Provisions banning Medicare from negotiating drug prices date to 2000, he said.Lynch also blocked the release of about a dozen completed research reports that challenge drug-company claims, three former employees said. Pierce said Lynch decides research topics and which reports are released.One 2001 report, for example, criticizes Medicare plus Choice (now known as Medicare Advantage). Its findings suggested that running the Medicare prescription-drug benefit through private health companies - the method the administration ultimately chose - would be more expensive and would not serve rural areas well."Very few of (the private companies) manage to bring in the benefit cost effectively," said Mark Merlis, the private health policy consultant who wrote the report.Thomas A. ScullyThe former hospital lobbyist presided over an agency that helped a chain he once represented win a favorable settlement in a Medicare fraud case.Thomas A. Scully represented the nation's for-profit hospitals as a lobbyist before being hired by the Bush administration in June 2001 to head the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.Eight months after Scully arrived at the Medicare and Medicaid agency, it moved to settle final claims involving HCA Inc., a hospital chain that was the biggest member of Scully's former employer, the Federation of American Hospitals. HCA Inc. faced allegations it fraudulently overbilled the government for Medicare cases.Under the terms agreed to in June 2002 by Scully's agency, HCA would have settled for $250 million. Medicare fraud cases typically are ironed out with Justice Department participation, but Scully agreed to those terms on his own, said John R. Phillips, an attorney who represented whistle-blowers in the case."The $250 million was a total sellout by Scully, who totally negotiated it behind Justice's back," Phillips said.It also was handled in a way that protected the company from a full review of its cost reports and the triple- damage civil fines that can be imposed in fraud cases, he said.Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Justice in October 2002 if that deal was "too lenient."Justice delayed the settlement until June 2003.HCA, the nation's biggest for-profit hospital company, eventually paid that $250 million, plus $631 million in civil penalties and damages and $17.5 million to states.Scully's ethics agreement did not require him to officially avoid cases involving HCA. But Scully said he steered clear."I recused myself from everything involving HCA-specific issues or policy and was not involved in any way, shape or form," Scully said. "Every time anything came up (regarding) HCA, I left it to my deputies."But Grassley in a June 25, 2002, letter to a Justice Department lawyer said comments by Scully "have given me great concern that there is an active, ongoing effort underway to change or modify enforcement (on Medicare fraud) policy that in my view could significantly undermine the (law)."Scully has since left the administration for consulting jobs with a lobbying firm and an investment company that represent Medicare providers.Daniel E. TroyThe lawyer who represented major drug companies still fights for causes that benefit them as chief counsel at the Food and Drug Administration.Daniel E. Troy was well-known at the FDA before he arrived in summer 2001 to work as chief counsel, the top legal position in the department.As a lawyer in private practice, Troy repeatedly sued the FDA, arguing that it had only limited ability to regulate drug companies. He filed those suits through the Washington Legal Foundation, a group funded by businesses, including drug companies. Donors include charitable foundations run by Pfizer Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and Eli Lilly & Co.Troy also represented Pfizer through his firm, Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Troy said in an e-mail to a reporter that his Pfizer work was mainly communications and insurance law, and averaged only 80 hours a year.At the FDA, Troy still is fighting for causes that benefit drug companies.It's unclear whether any of pharmaceutical firms responded to his December request for lawsuits the FDA might get involved in.By the time Troy made that offer, he had already intervened in three drug-company cases as FDA chief counsel. One involved Pfizer.In court briefs, the FDA argued that it determines which warnings a drug company must give consumers. Lawsuits filed in state courts arguing that drug-company warnings are inadequate therefore were invalid, the FDA says. One of the cases Troy challenged involves thousands of consumers who say they were harmed by painful withdrawal from an antidepressant.Lawsuits accusing drug companies of telling consumers too little about side effects constitute the largest category of cases against drug companies, law professor O'Reilly said.If Troy's legal position prevails, O'Reilly said, it would be catastrophic for consumers hurt by drugs. He said it would bar cases like the one filed against the makers of fen-phen, the combination of diet medications tied to heart problems. The makers of those drugs are settling with consumers for $14 billion. That case predates Troy's policy.Troy, who declined to be interviewed, said in a written statement that the FDA is intervening in the lawsuits to protect "the safety, effectiveness and availability of important medical products."He said that would be "adversely affected if judges and juries acting under state law had the power to substitute their judgment for the expert determinations made by FDA scientists."Clinton's Justice Department, he added, took the same legal position, arguing that federal law pre-empts state law.But prior to Troy, professor O'Reilly and one FDA official said, the government got involved only when a judge asked. Troy, in contrast, is seeking cases in which to intervene.And the FDA now is staking a new legal claim, experts say: that its authority to determine drug labeling always trumps any claims made in state court.The FDA is "taking sides in private litigation," said Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas Law School professor and president of the Center for Progressive Regulation, which supports government regulation on health and safety issues.The FDA asks drug-company attorneys to alert the agency to cases because otherwise "our rules might be undermined by contrary state findings" the agency is unaware of, said Peter Pitts, an FDA spokesman.He added: "For people to infer that (FDA) decisions are made with anything but the public health as our focus is untrue, unfair and very ill-considered."FDA officials also say they want to discourage frivolous lawsuits, which drive up costs.A former FDA chief counsel in the Nixon administration, Peter Barton Hutt, said he supported the FDA's legal position but added, "I probably wouldn't be out there encouraging" lawsuits.Troy oversees other FDA changes that provoked accusations that he is siding with drug companies.In October 2001, the Health and Human Services Department gave Troy's office final approval over warnings telling companies they could be in violation of FDA rules. Those had previously been sent out by the FDA's drug-marketing division and district offices.After that change, the number of warnings of questionable claims by pharmaceutical companies quickly dropped from an average of seven a month to two.FDA spokesman Pitts said fewer letters were sent because the process was centralized."If you torture statistics long enough," Pitts said, "they confess to anything."Others see this as dangerous to the public."This ... may be a welcome development for the drug industry, but it poses serious dangers to public health," Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, said in an Oct. 1, 2002, letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.Waxman said the bad policy decision was "exacerbated by the appointment of Daniel Troy."The investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, in October 2002 also found that, under the new system, warning notices "have taken so long that misleading advertisements may have completed their broadcast life cycle before FDA issued the letters."Waxman described the delays as "a development that benefits the powerful pharmaceutical industry at the expense of consumers."FOOD SAFETYCharles LambertAs a USDA official, the former lobbyist for the meat industry who opposed labeling told a hearing that mad cow disease was not a threat.Mad cow disease had yet to surface in the United States last June when a U.S. Department of Agriculture official - a meat-industry lobbyist only eight months earlier - bet his job on the promise that the ailment couldn't sneak into the country through imports.Congress had just passed a law requiring meat labels to state which country a cow lived in before slaughter. Food safety groups say those labels could, among other things, help consumers avoid buying beef from countries with mad cow disease.The USDA opposed such labeling. The person making the agency's case, Deputy Undersecretary Charles Lambert, knew the arguments against such labels. He'd made them as a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.Lambert spent 15 years at the Cattlemen's Association working in Denver before coming to Washington, D.C., where he worked as lobbyist and chief economist. He left in December 2002 to join the USDA as undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.When asked about mad cow and the labels, Lambert said mad cow disease wasn't a threat."Is there a possibility that it could get through?" Rep. Joe Baca, a California Democrat, asked Lambert at a hearing last June.Lambert answered, "No, sir.""None at all?" Baca asked."No," Lambert replied."You would bet your life on it - your job on it, right?"Lambert answered, "Yes, sir."The disease was discovered in the U.S. six months later - apparently brought here by a cow from Canada.Lambert now says, "I overstated my case."More than a dozen other high-ranking USDA officials appointed under Bush also have ties to the meat industry."Whether it's intentional or not, USDA gives the impression of being a wholly owned subsidiary of America's cattlemen," said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute. She served as a USDA assistant secretary in the Carter White House. "Their interests rather than the public interests predominate in USDA policy."When he came to the USDA, Lambert signed an agreement stating that in his first year he would "not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which (Cattlemen's) is a party or represents a party, unless I am authorized to participate."During that period he met at least 12 times with current or former members of Cattlemen's and its affiliates, an office calendar obtained by The Denver Post shows.Lambert said that at any meeting where policy was discussed, he acted only as a facilitator and that another USDA person was present. The calendar shows meetings where other USDA people were present, although it is not always clear what was discussed.The rest of those meetings were at social settings, he said."You're not required to sever all personal and past relationships ... when you come to federal employment," Lambert said in an interview.ENVIRONMENTJeffrey HolmsteadThe EPA official, a lawyer, formerly worked for a firm that represents utility companies, which are among the biggest air polluters.When the Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed changes to air pollution rules Jan. 30, the wording troubled Martha Keating, a scientist with environmental advocacy group Clear the Air."It struck me that I had seen this before," Keating said.At least 12 paragraphs were identical to or closely resembled a Sept. 4, 2003, proposal given to the Bush administration by Latham & Watkins, a law firm that represents utility companies.The EPA official overseeing the proposed changes is Jeffrey Holmstead, who until he joined the EPA in October 2001 had worked as a lawyer at Latham & Watkins. His clients included a chemical company and a trade group for utility companies. Power plants are among the biggest air polluters.Holmstead oversees the EPA division that governs air pollution.Environmental groups say the rewrite poses a health threat because it slows the reduction of mercury emissions by as much as 11 years. Those emissions can end up in water where they contaminate fish. Forty-three states have issued advisories about fish consumption because of mercury pollution, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said.One effect of the proposal would be that 168 of 236 Western-based plants, including those in Colorado, would not be required to reduce those emissions at all, Keating said.Lobbyists commonly suggest wording for legislation. But even EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt objects to how this language was lifted."To take something from a source without noting it doesn't seem to be the normal course of business, and it shouldn't have been done," EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said, speaking for Leavitt.Holmstead declined to comment.Six Democratic senators are asking for an investigation. Ten attorneys general and 45 senators - including three Republicans - have asked Leavitt to void the proposed rule because of undue industry influence.The inspector general hasn't decided whether to investigate. Bergman said the final pollution rule is still under development.LAND USEJ. Steven GrilesThe tenure of the veteran energy lobbyist at the Interior Department was labeled an "ethical quagmire" by the agency's inspector general.At the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees some 507 million acres of national parks, refuges and rangeland, top officials weigh the competing merits of resource conservation and development.Bush named J. Steven Griles, a veteran energy industry lobbyist, as the department's second-highest official in June 2001.Griles earned $585,000 a year as a lobbyist, representing an array of oil, gas and other energy interests. As Interior's deputy secretary, he continues to receive $284,000 a year for four years to pay him for the value he had created for the firm by bringing in clients.Upon entering the government, Griles had pledged to remove himself from deliberations that affected his former clients.This year, the department's inspector general called Griles' tenure an "ethical quagmire.""Mr. Griles' lax understanding of his ethics agreement and attendant recusals, combined with the lax dispensation of ethics advice given to him, resulted in lax constraint over matters in which the deputy secretary involved himself," the inspector general concluded.That report or a subsequent review by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics found other issues:A former business partner of Griles' hosted a party for Griles and top Interior officials for land and mining.Also, a former Griles client, Advanced Power Technologies Inc., won some $2 million in no-bid contracts from his department after two people Griles supervised pressed APTI's case.And Griles urged the EPA not to press concerns over a plan to open 8 million acres in Wyoming and Montana to gas drilling by companies including six of his former clients. The project is proceeding while a task force studies the matter.The investigations of Griles found no illegalities. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced that her right-hand man had been "cleared."Review of ethics guidelinesNeither the Bush administration nor Congress has called for a systematic review of government's ethics guidelines.They should, says Stuart Gilman, president of the Ethics Resource Center, a nonprofit group in Washington that works with companies and government groups."The question is, are we dealing with the problems we're currently confronting in government?" Gilman said.Complaints about ethical breaches within government in some cases can be politically motivated, said Gilman, who also worked in the Office of Government Ethics under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton.At the same time, Gilman said, governmental leaders have a responsibility to eliminate both real and perceived conflicts of interest."For government to function, government must have the confidence of people," Gilman said. "If people don't believe the government is acting fairly, it encourages everyone to cheat."Denver Post staff writers John Aloysius Farrell and Mike Soraghan and researchers Tamania Davis, Barbara Hudson and Regina Avila contributed to this report.</td></tr></tbody></table>==</div><div>=</div><div>Our DeSmog UK epic history series continues with a look at how Big Oil helped push President Bush to pull out of the <a href="http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Kyoto Protocol</a>.Despite the promising <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2015/04/21/george-w-bush-elected-president-2001-floating-oil-money" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oil-rich foundation</a> upon which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">George W. Bush</a> was elected president in 2001, insiders were unsure that he would fight for them.During his candidacy, Bush had suggested, although Kyoto was not economically favourable for America, that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant and, therefore, subject to regulation under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act%28United_States%29" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Clean Air Act</a>.Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate <a href="http://www.algore.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Al Gore</a> the advantage.But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.A Rumoured SpeechShortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.Word of the speech reached the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), a Koch- and Exxon-funded think tank that helped donate to Bush’s presidential campaign. CEI set to work. As their founder and president, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Fred Smith later </a><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told Newsweek</a>: “We alerted anyone we thought could have influence and get the line, if it was in the speech, out.”Despite the think tank’s best efforts, Environmental Protection Agency administrator <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/christine-todd-whitman" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Christine Todd Whitman</a> testified, on 27 February 2001 at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee, that she was in favour of regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.A week later, she signed a joint statement at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting which said: “We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol.”The President’s PositionAt this, the denial machine set in motion.<a href="https://twitter.com/haleybarbour" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Haley Barbour</a>, a lobbyist for a utility firm that stood to lose if greenhouse gases were regulated, urged Vice President <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/dick-cheney-9246063" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dick Cheney </a>in a March 1 memo to persuade Bush not to align with the “eco-extremism” of those who saw carbon dioxide as a pollutant.A group of far-right Republican senators wrote an open letter to their new president. In light of Whitman’s testimony, they asked that Bush clarify his position on climate change, “in particular the Kyoto Protocol, and the regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.”Aware of the rising tide against her, Whitman went to the Oval Office to fight her case on the morning of March 13. But, Bush had already composed his response, shortly to be sent via Cheney to the senators, which he read to her.“I do not believe,” read the letter, “that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act.”Information from the Department of Energy had shown that consumers’ energy bills might be affected, and that this warranted a re-evaluation of his earlier pledge, “especially… given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solution to global climate change.”Polluter Pull-OutWhitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.Whitman, who later said the decision was “the equivalent to ‘flipping the bird’ frankly to the rest of the world,” was the one to deliver the news. “We have no interest in implementing that treaty,” the former New Jersey Governor told assembled journalists.Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.Years later, freedom of information disclosures revealed the industry’s input to this decision. A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobrianksy, Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?”The DeSmog UK epic history series will continue with an account of how a NASA climate scientist was squeezed out of the White House debate on the environment.<a href="https://twitter.com/brendanmontague" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">@brendanmontague</a>
=<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="section" style=""><div class="layoutArea" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="column">Associated Press November 14, 2006</div></div><div class="layoutArea" style=""><div class="column" style="">Environmentalists sue Bush administration over global warming reportby TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press WriterEnvironmentalists sued the Bush administration for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the United States' environment, economy and public health.Tuesday's lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. The plaintiffs claim the government must complete such a report every four years under the Global Change Research Act of 1990."Global warming is one of the most serious threats facing humanity today," according to the complaint. Without the report, decision makers and the public "are without one of the most important tools to grapple with this complex, potentially overwhelming and yet all important issue."The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was named in the lawsuit, had not received the complaint Tuesday and could not comment on it, said spokesman Ben Fallon.But Fallon defended the administration's record on combating global warming, pointing to increased funding for alternative energy research and partnerships with other countries."We feel very positive about our record on climate change," Fallon said. "The president has been focused on results-driven research and looking for practical ways to address climate change in ways that aren't damaging to the economy."Officials at the Climate Change Science Program, also named in the complaint, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.The assessment, which plaintiffs allege was due in November 2004, is the "first step in crafting solutions to the devastating consequences of climate change if we don't act now," said Julie Teel, an attorney for the plaintiffs.Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate, who has also been calling on the administration to issue the assessment, expressed support for the lawsuit."It's the right time to push Washington to grapple with this issue," Kerry said in a statement. "For too many years, action on global climate change has been stopped dead in its tracks by government foot-dragging, hiding information and smothering science."Environmentalists have accused the administration of trying to suppress dissemination of the previous assessment, issued in 2000, which predicted a dramatic rise in catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and heat-related deaths.... <div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div></div></div></div></div></div><div>=gukhttps://yyy.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jan/16/greenpolitics-georgebush
The worst of times: Bush's environmental legacy examinedWith four days to go until president-elect Barack Obama takes is inaugurated, history is documenting George Bush's environmental record at home and abroad. Read more on the Bush legacy in The Bush Years supplement in Saturday's paperSuzanne Goldenberg @suzyjiFri 16 Jan 2009 First published on Fri 16 Jan 2009 The document released by the White House to commemorate George Bush's exit from the most powerful job on the planet describes a president who spent much of the last eight years as a careful steward of the planet. "Throughout his administration, President Bush made protecting the environment for future generations a top priority," says the booklet, Highlights of Accomplishments and Results."If only" – went the near-universal response from green organisations. They see the Bush years as a concerted assault, from the administration's undermining of the science on climate change to its dismantling of environmental safeguards to its support for mining and oil interests.
"He has undone decades if not a century of progress on the environment," said Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, one of America's largest environmental groups."The Bush administration has introduced this pervasive rot into the federal government which has undermined the rule of law, undermined science, undermined basic competence and rendered government agencies unable to do their most basic function even if they wanted to. We're excited just to push the reset button."The tone was set in the first 100 days when Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, the biggest contributors to global warming. Days later, the White House announced that America would not implement the Kyoto global climate change treaty.The two moves at the time were seen as a sign of surrender from Bush, a former oil man, to America's coal and oil industries.Christine Todd Whitman, who was the head of the Environmental Protection Agency at the time, later described the exit of Kyoto as "the equivalent to 'flipping the bird,' frankly, to the rest of the world".But it was the manner of Bush's exit from Kyoto that provided the most sustained damage, say environmentalists, with the administration injecting doubt on the science that demonstrated an urgent need to deal with climate change."The idea of a head of state putting the science question on the table in the way that he did was horrifying to most of the rest of the world," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.The disinformation campaign became a defining element of the Bush era – and was perhaps the most damaging."Certainly the most destructive part of the Bush environmental legacy is not only his failure to act on global climate change, but his administration's covert attempt to silence the science alerting us to the urgency of the problem," said Jonathan Dorn of the Earth Policy Institute (EPA) in Washington.The campaign to keep the public unaware of the evidence on climate change came to light in October 2004 when the Nasa scientist, James Hansen, accused the Bush administration of trying to block data showing an acceleration in global warming.The full extent of the White House efforts to downplay, distort and outright censor the science on climate change remains unclear – but such efforts continued even after Hansen accused the Bush administration of censorship.In July 2008, Jason Burnett, a former official at the EPA, wrote a letter to the Senate describing efforts by the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to censor discussion of the consequences of climate change.Burnett said the White House tried to circumvent a 2007 Supreme Court decision compelling the EPA to regulate car emissions by doctoring scientific findings on the costs of fuel-efficiency standards. The White House objected to a study showing the benefits of raising fuel standards outweighed the costs.In 2008, officials from Cheney's office sought to doctor testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on California's efforts to impose stricter fuel efficiency requirements than the national standard.Meanwhile, Bush officials began a concerted effort to strip away a regulatory regime that had been decades in the making."Every effort has been made to weaken existing law and there has been no effort to advance regulatory solutions to the most important issue we face, which is climate change," said Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defence Council.A particular target of the Bush administration's project of deregulation was the Endangered Species Act. The campaign was driven in part by the administration's concern that the act – with its protections for polar bears – could be used to force limits on greenhouse gas emissions.As with the science on climate change, the Bush Administration has been accused of interfering with scientific findings on wildlife protection for political reasons.An official report last month found widespread political interference in the management of endangered species. The inspector general's report said that the deputy secretary of the interior, Julie MacDonald, intervened repeatedly to prevent new additions to the endangered species list.The report said MacDonald, who headed the endangered species protection programme at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, intervened improperly in 13 of the 20 cases under investigation, overruling the recommendations of field biologists that species be protected.It described MacDonald's dealings with the field biologists as "abrupt and abrasive if not abusive".MacDonald resigned in 2007. Dale Hall, a biologist who headed the service, called MacDonald's conduct "a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior".Other controversial actions included:• Gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts
• Dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act
• Opening millions of acres of wilderness to mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging
• Defunding programmes charged with the clean-up of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead and mercury
• Reducing the enforcement effort in the Environmental Protection Agency
• Removing grizzly bears and wolves from the endangered species list
• Endorsing commercial whaling
• Approving mountain-top removal for coal mining
Bush pursued the grand plan of deregulation to his last days in the White House, with a series of last-minute rule changes. Under the new rules, oil companies will be able to drill within sight of the Arches national park in Utah. Federal agencies will no longer be compelled to consult with government wildlife experts when they open up new areas for logging or road construction, and he also barred the EPA from looking at the effects of global warming on protected species.
Some positive changes in the past eight years were inadvertent. The Bush administration's refusal to cap carbon dioxide emissions acted as a catalyst, with 24 states acting on their own to put in place regional cap and trade networks. Some 27 states enacted renewable portfolios, mandating local power companies to produce more of their electricity from sun, wind and solar power. "A lot of things happened because the Bush Administration was so negative about a lot of things," said Claussen.
Bush expanded on a programme launched by Bill Clinton to reduce diesel exhaust, extending the rules to tractors, trains and small ships.
The administration did have one last-minute surprise in store for the green lobby though, by demonstrating a late commitment to ocean conservation. Just two weeks before leaving office, Bush designated nearly 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean as national monuments.
"We and others in the environmental community have been at odds with this administration on lots of things, but if one looks at this one event it is a significant conservation event," said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group.=</div><div><h1 class="gb-volume-title" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy and US Foreign Policy: The Quest for Resource Security After the Cold War</h1>By Ahmed Mahdi</div><div>
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</div><div><div>https://books.google.com/books?id=2p6LDwAAQBAJ</div><div>
</div><div>3 mil$ nat res almost 2 gas and oil sector; 13x Gore; 1998-2003 hallib over 1 mil$ gop 55k$ dems]; b43 got more oil $ than any other fed cand; 9 days before inaug API HQ K street mtg to draw up wishlist; ez drill fed land, more alaska an GOM, lower royalty for offshore etc; --> energy plan may 2001; API appt to admin: newsweek says not since rise of railroads so many footsoldiers; energy ceo 22.5m$ to BC has constant access to secret energy task force; lay b43 pal had most access; cheney starts mtgs w/ ff ceo contributors; energy sec [NPI advisors] had 109 mtds spencer abraham betw jan and may 2001, incl chevtex, exxxonmobil and enron, all big donors; </div><div>arbusto fail bought by spectrum? fail bought by harken (soros and harvard] for 2.25m$ in stock; b43 go 600K$ and bd seat 50-120K/yr</div><div>cheney secdeg 1990 got b41 to go after saddam in kuwait b/c of oil; aei kazakstan caspian pipeline operated by chevron, hallib built refineries Tengiz; azerjajan --> hallib ceo oct 1995 (he had good rel w/ saudis as secdef] 1994-2001 rev up 127%</div><div>
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</div><div>=</div><div>2015 e&e George W. Bush's energy allies prepping for another Bush run<...Some familiar faces from the George W. Bush administration energy circles are eager to help their former boss's brother clinch the White House.As Jeb Bush tests the waters for a 2016 presidential run, top energy officials from the last Bush administration are ready to pitch in if they can. Some have already offered to help, others say they'll be there if they're asked, and many others are expected to jump on board to offer their expertise during a possible campaign or administration."It'll be a unitary thing. Every former Bush energy environment person is going to wind up signing up for that campaign," said Mike McKenna, a GOP energy strategist. "They're just waiting to be asked."The former Florida governor -- who hasn't yet officially launched a campaign for the White House -- is also expected to draw upon some energy allies from his own political career. But when it comes to getting help on nitty-gritty energy policy issues, ranging from air pollution regulations to international energy policy, many of the best-known GOP experts are people who already worked for Bush's brother in the last Republican presidential administration, and Jeb Bush is widely expected to capitalize on those family ties.Bush has already reached out to C. Boyden Gray, an energy and environment expert who held top posts in both the George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush administrations.<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I've talked to people in his campaign, and I've talked to him," said Gray. "I think he's made phone calls -- hundreds, probably -- to tell people that he is thinking seriously about running and would they be willing to help."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bush asked Gray to advise him, but not on energy issues specifically, Gray said. "He hasn't announced, so there's really nothing on the screen yet."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bud Albright, a top Energy Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said, "Jeb Bush would make an excellent president, and should he need my help, I'll be there." Albright, who is now a lobbyist at Ogilvy Government Relations, added that he hasn't "really engaged yet in the presidential race" and isn't sure where other former officials from the Bush 43 energy team might end up.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When rounding up energy allies in Washington, D.C., it might be tough for Bush to avoid turning to experts who worked for his brother or his father, even if he wanted to. When Bush unveiled his list of 21 foreign policy advisers last month, 19 of them had worked in a previous Bush administration, <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/18/jeb-bushs-foreign-policy-team-is-eerily-familiar-in-1-venn-diagram/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">reported</a>.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But while there may be an early groundswell for Bush among former GOP administration officials, they're not necessarily ruling out supporting other candidates.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There's "a certain amount of loyalty to the Bush family," said a former George W. Bush administration senior energy official.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Ultimately, I think if you asked me now, would I be a Jeb Bush guy, I'd be a Jeb Bush guy," the former official said. But when it comes to the rest of the GOP field, "There are a lot of smart guys out there that I have a lot of respect for. ... You want all those guys to have good policy platforms.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"If someone picked up the phone and called, I would be happy to give policy advice to any of the reasonable candidates."<h3 style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">'He's basically conservative'</h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Energy insiders say it's still early to gauge how the former Florida governor's environmental policies would shape up if he became a presidential candidate.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"His general philosophy is he's a conservative; he's basically conservative, and his message is basically conservative," said Gray. "And he hasn't been more specific really than that."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When it comes to being pragmatic on environmental issues, "I don't know that I would distinguish that much between the father, the brother and Jeb," said the former George W. Bush administration energy official. "I don't think that there would be enough distinction on those issues that would cause people not to be interested in Jeb."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bush's views on climate change haven't been particularly clear in recent years. "I think global warming may be real," he told Fox News in a 2011 <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/jeb-bush-rick-perry-global-warming_n_935168.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">interview</a>. "It is not unanimous among scientists that it is disproportionately man-made."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Asked in 2009 whether he believes global warming is primarily man-made, Bush <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a6027/jeb-bush-interview-0809/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">told</a> <em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Esquire, "I'm a skeptic. I'm not a scientist.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I think the science has been politicized. I would be very wary of hollowing out our industrial base even further ... I think we need to be very cautious before we dramatically alter who we are as a nation because of it."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Still, Bush built up fairly good rapport with at least some environmentalists during his time as Florida's governor, and some expect him to take a moderate stance on energy and environmental issues if he wins the presidency.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Said GOP energy strategist McKenna, "If there was ever a Republican president who would sign a climate bill, it would be Jeb."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Some greens who were active in Florida during Bush's tenure lauded his efforts on Everglades restoration, habitat preservation and other priorities for environmentalists in the Sunshine State.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I think you would say he had a pretty strong record," said Stuart Stahl, former president and CEO of the Audubon Society of Florida. "I think he is very upfront with the press and with people about what his values are. He believes that the environment is a conservative ideal."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If elected, Bush "may help us to end this ridiculous conflict we have between the business community and environmental protection," said Eric Draper, the current executive director of Audubon Florida.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It could be that to deal with a complicated issue like climate change, we need a pro-growth, business-oriented tough guy," Draper added. "No one's going to think that if Jeb Bush is solving our energy and climate problems, he was doing it just because it felt good."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But not all Florida greens have a positive impression of Bush's legacy leading the state.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Like many Republicans, he had kind of an anti-tax, anti-regulatory view of the world and certainly was a pro-growth booster," Draper said.<h3 style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Names in the mix</h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Here are some of the former Bush administration energy insiders seen as likely candidates to be tapped for campaign advice or even as contenders for posts in a possible Jeb Bush administration:<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">C. Boyden Gray: Under the George W. Bush administration, Gray held top international posts; he was the U.S. representative to the European Union and special envoy for Eurasian energy. He was also counsel to George H.W. Bush during both his presidency and vice presidency. He's now a founding partner at D.C.-based Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and regulatory strategy firm.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I suppose you could say I'm a Bush supporter," Gray said, noting that it's still very early in the campaign cycle. "A lot of people have very open minds, and I hope and think that those who haven't made up their minds will gravitate toward Bush."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jim Connaughton: George W. Bush's longtime top environmental adviser is widely cited as a possible key energy ally for Jeb Bush. Connaughton from 2001 to 2009 was chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he had a big influence over the administration's energy and environmental policies. He has since worked as an executive at Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, at Exelon and at C3 Energy in Redwood City, Calif. Connaughton advised Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and was thought to have had the inside track for a top administration position if Romney had won.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jeff Holmstead: The former Bush-era EPA air official could be another important confidant to a 2016 Bush campaign. Holmstead headed U.S. EPA's Office of Air and Radiation from 2001 until 2005 and served as associate counsel to the president during the George H.W. Bush administration. Holmstead now leads Bracewell & Giuliani's environmental strategies group, where he lobbies on behalf of heavyweight energy firms. Holmstead was also rumored to be in the running for a top environmental post under Romney (<a href="http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1059971433/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Greenwire</a>, Oct. 18, 2012).<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Roger Martella: Former EPA top attorney Martella could also be called upon for his expertise. He was EPA's general counsel from 2006 until 2008, after almost seven years in the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. He now helps lead Sidley Austin's environmental practice, where he counsels a range of companies on energy and environmental issues.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marcus Peacock: Peacock held top posts at EPA and the White House budget office during the George W. Bush administration. He was EPA's deputy administrator from 2005 until 2009, and was previously associate director of natural resource programs at the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 until 2005. He stepped back from government work in 2013 after working as GOP staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, but energy insiders say he's someone who could return to federal service to advise or work for another Bush administration.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bud Albright: Albright was a George W. Bush administration undersecretary at the Energy Department from 2007 until 2009, after working for several years as staff director to the House Energy and Commerce Committee under then-Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas). After the Bush administration, Albright was senior vice president for policy and government relations at CenterPoint Energy; he signed on last year with D.C. lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kevin O'Donovan: The former domestic policy adviser to then-Vice President Dick Cheney worked on climate change and energy policy issues during the Bush administration. He went on to work as a lobbyist for Shell Oil Co. and now runs his own firm, O'Donovan Strategies LLC, where he has lobbied on energy and conservation issues.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">F. Chase Hutto: Hutto got his start in the Bush administration as a senior policy adviser to then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. He later worked as director for international and energy security on the White House National Security Council and went on to become a senior aide to then-Vice President Cheney. He has been managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC since 2009.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marty Hall: The former CEQ chief of staff worked under Connaughton in the White House environmental shop. He had previously been a top staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under then-Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Hall joined FirstEnergy Corp. in 2009 as vice president of federal affairs and energy policy.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Karen Knutson: Another former energy policy aide to then-Vice President Cheney, Knutson was deputy director of Cheney's energy task force. She was chief of staff to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) from 2007 until 2011, and was a lobbyist at the William Koch-owned company Oxbow Corp. until earlier this year. She's now government affairs and policy leader at GE Oil & Gas, according to her LinkedIn profile.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Karen Harbert: The former Bush-era Energy Department aide is now heading up the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's energy policy shop, the Institute for 21st Century Energy. Harbert was assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at DOE from 2004 until 2008 before moving to the chamber.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mike Catanzaro: Catanzaro was deputy policy director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign before working at CEQ as associate director for policy and as EPA associate deputy administrator during the Bush administration. He was later the deputy GOP staff director on the Environment and Public Works Committee under Inhofe, a policy adviser to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and a managing director at FTI Consulting. He's now an energy lobbyist at Clark, Geduldig, Cranford & Nielsen. TRUMPISTA</div></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-us-president-dumped-global-climate-deal/story?id=47771005">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-us-president-dumped-global-climate-deal/story?id=47771005</a></div><div>
</div><div>...<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/donald-trump.htm" id="ramplink_Donald Trump" target="blank" style="font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" webkit-tap-highlight-color="webkit-tap-highlight-color" rgba="rgba" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" outline="outline" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" border-top="border-top" border-right="border-right" border-bottom="border-bottom" dotted="dotted" border-left="border-left" border-image="border-image" initial="initial" padding-bottom="padding-bottom">Trump</a>'s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement this afternoon wasn't the first time an American president has dumped a global climate deal.</div><p id="ramplink_Kyoto Protocol" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">In March 2001, shortly after taking office, President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would not implement the 1997 <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/kyoto-protocol.htm" id="ramplink_Kyoto Protocol" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Kyoto Protocol</a>. The Protocol -- an agreement brokered by former Vice President <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/al-gore.htm" id="ramplink_Al Gore" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Al Gore</a> and signed by former President <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/bill-clinton.htm" id="ramplink_Bill Clinton" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Bill Clinton</a> later ratified by 140 countries -- was aimed at curbing <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/greenhouse-gases.htm" id="ramplink_greenhouse gas" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">greenhouse gas</a> emissions and countering <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/climate-change.htm" id="ramplink_global warming" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">global warming</a>.<div data-box-type="fitt-adbox-incontentTeads" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p id="ramplink_Paris agreement" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top">Bush’s reasons for withdrawing from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol were similar to those offered by the Trump administration on the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/paris-agreement-climate-change.htm" id="ramplink_Paris agreement" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Paris agreement</a>. He was concerned that the deal would hurt the U.S. economy, lead to higher <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/business/energy/energy-prices.htm" id="ramplink_energy prices" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">energy prices</a> and invite other countries to take advantage of an agreement with little enforcement capabilities.<p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top">Bush, like Trump, was also a climate change skeptic.<p id="ramplink_presidential campaign" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top">“The Kyoto Treaty would affect our economy in a negative way,” Bush said during his 2000 <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/elections/presidential-election.htm" id="ramplink_presidential campaign" target="blank" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">presidential campaign</a>. “We do not know how much our climate could or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.”<p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Bush’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol received blowback from environmental groups as well as vocal criticism from then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.<p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top">Global temperatures have risen since then, while other major powers like China, Japan and Russia also declined to accept commitments to the Protocol.<p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; font-family: TiemposText, Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top">Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, sea levels have risen more than 2-1/2 inches on average, and the number of weather disasters worldwide has risen by 42 percent according to the Associated Press.<div>
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</div><div><a href="https://theecologist.org/2018/oct/08/why-did-george-w-bush-pull-out-kyoto-protocol" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://theecologist.org/2018/oct/08/why-did-george-w-bush-pull-out-kyoto-protocol</a>Despite the huge amount of fossil fuel funding upon which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">George W. Bush</a> was elected president in 2001, insiders in the monopoly-dominated oil industry remained unsure that he would fight for them - and against climate scientists.Bush had suggested during his candidacy that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant and, therefore, subject to regulation under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act%28United_States%29" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Clean Air Act</a> - even if the international Kyoto Agreement was not economically favourable for America.Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate <a href="http://www.algore.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Al Gore</a> the advantage.But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.A Rumoured SpeechShortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.Word of the speech reached the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), a Koch- and Exxon-funded think tank that helped donate to Bush’s presidential campaign. CEI set to work. As their founder and president, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Fred Smith later </a><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">told Newsweek</a>: “We alerted anyone we thought could have influence and get the line, if it was in the speech, out.”Despite the think tank’s best efforts, Environmental Protection Agency administrator <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/christine-todd-whitman" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Christine Todd Whitman</a> testified, on 27 February 2001 at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee, that she was in favour of regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.A week later, she signed a joint statement at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting which said: “We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol.”The President’s PositionAt this, the denial machine set in motion.<a href="https://twitter.com/haleybarbour" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;"> Haley Barbour</a>, a lobbyist for a utility firm that stood to lose if greenhouse gases were regulated, urged Vice President <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/dick-cheney-9246063" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Dick Cheney </a>in a March 1 memo to persuade Bush not to align with the “eco-extremism” of those who saw carbon dioxide as a pollutant.A group of far-right Republican senators wrote an open letter to their new president. In light of Whitman’s testimony, they asked that Bush clarify his position on climate change, “in particular the Kyoto Protocol, and the regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.”Aware of the rising tide against her, Whitman went to the Oval Office to fight her case on the morning of March 13. But, Bush had already composed his response, shortly to be sent via Cheney to the senators, which he read to her.“I do not believe,” read the letter, “that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act.”Information from the Department of Energy had shown that consumers’ energy bills might be affected, and that this warranted a re-evaluation of his earlier pledge, “especially… given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solution to global climate change.”Polluter Pull-OutWhitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.Whitman, who later said the decision was “the equivalent to ‘flipping the bird’ frankly to the rest of the world,” was the one to deliver the news. “We have no interest in implementing that treaty,” the former New Jersey Governor told assembled journalists.Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.Years later, freedom of information disclosures revealed the industry’s input to this decision.A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobrianksy, Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?”This AuthorBrendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/impact-of-market-forces-on-addictive-substances-and-behaviours-9780198753261?cc=gb&lang=en&" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">The web of influence</a> of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. This article first appeared at <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Desmog.uk</a>.=<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bushs-co2-flip-flop-the-surprising-truth-55333/">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bushs-co2-flip-flop-the-surprising-truth-55333/</a>last fall, it seemed that <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/george-w-bush/" id="auto-tag_george-w-bush" data-tag="george-w-bush" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">George W. Bush</a> had found religion on global warming, declaring in his campaign that he favored putting mandatory limits on carbon-dioxide emissions. He promised to act – if not out of personal conviction, then at least to outflank Al Gore on the issue. After he took office in January, his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Christie Whitman, traveled the world assuring America’s allies that the Bush administration was committed to reducing the U.S. share of world CO2 emissions.Then, on March 13th, President Bush announced that he does not believe the science on global warming. He threw out his carbon-dioxide promise and reiterated his opposition to the Kyoto protocol, the only international process aimed at averting a potential climate disaster. Two weeks later, Whitman announced that, so far as the Bush administration was concerned, the Kyoto agreement was dead. But surprisingly, many high-ranking officials in the industries that Bush was trying to protect say that he made a big mistake.<p data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen-9326027_26="10216" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-9326027_26="10216" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-9326027_26="100" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-9326027_26="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is not just another tired tale of a public official caught in the crossfire between smoke-barfing, moneyed utilities and wacky environmentalists. This is Republican against Republican: The coal lobby and a few utilities used their clout with the president to stifle anti-pollution initiatives by other utility companies whose executives want to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late. “If George Bush was trying to pick out the smallest sliver of energy companies he could have helped with this move, he couldn’t have done any better,” says one peeved executive from a Midwestern utility company that burns piles of coal. “We want him to know that if he thought he was doing a favor to some big companies, there are other big companies that don’t think he did.”The men who run these companies are posing serious questions to the Bush administration: If the president doesn’t believe the consensus of scientists on global warming, upon whose science and whose advice does he base his skepticism? And if Bush, in fact, believes global warming is real, as he and Whitman insist every time they get the chance, what do they plan to do about it?To understand why Bush decided to take a bold campaign stance on global warming, it is necessary to understand why Vice President Al Gore decided not to. On July 31st, 1998, Gore called in corporate executives from the power, steel and aluminum industries to try and persuade them to make voluntary cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases. Seated beside Gore during the meeting was Linn Draper, head of American Electric Power, one of the country’s utility giants. Draper told the vice president that AEP would be willing to do something unprecedented – agree to limits on CO2 emissions. In return, the administration would allow utility companies flexibility in how they met these limits. But most significant, they would now get extra time to comply with regulations mandating cuts in emissions of gases that cause smog and acid rain, as well as pending regulations for reducing emissions of mercury (which poison lakes and streams). Both sides thought this was a workable compromise and perhaps a viable alternative to Kyoto.Talks with the White House continued, and more utility companies lined up. But Gore’s people failed to clinch a deal before November 1999, when the EPA filed suit against several power companies, including AEP, alleging that they had failed to abide by emissions regulations at plants that had undergone technological upgrades. Suddenly the White House could no longer negotiate with the utilities on issues connected with the lawsuit. And during his presidential campaign, Mr. Ozone could only advocate voluntary reductions of carbon dioxide.Late last summer, with Gore riding a post-convention bounce, the Bush campaign was looking for any edge. With Bush under attack for his environmental record in Texas, representatives of Environmental Defense and other advocacy organisations suggested that he get behind the carbon-dioxide-reduction requirement that Gore had effectively abandoned. The proposal won strong backing from Republicans in the utility industries and longtime Bush supporters. These included Kenneth Lay, chairman of Enron Corp., a natural-gas company based in Houston, which stood to win big if power companies abandoned coal and turned to cleaner-burning gas.On September 29th. the Bush campaign released a position paper saying that, as president, Bush would seek legislation setting mandatory limits on emissions of carbon dioxide along with mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The campaign underscored the fact that Bush had demanded mandatory cuts, while Gore had called only for voluntary limits. The utility companies that had backed the Gore plan breathed a sigh of relief.“We had no idea where Bush stood until then,” says one utility-company executive who had worked on the trade-off. “There was no equivocation. And we thought it meant that we were going to get a resolution of this issue no matter who won the election.” A second utility executive calls Bush’s move “brilliant,” saying, “The general idea was to outflank Gore on the environment. And it worked. Gore didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden, Bush had support in industry and in some of the environmental community.”After Bush’s inauguration, Whitman began working to realize his campaign promise, Bush, she asserted on the February 26th broadcast of CNN’s Crossfire, has been “very clear that the science is good on global warming. It does exist. There is a real problem that we, as a world, face from global warming. And to the extent that introducing CO2 to the discussion is going to have an impact on global warming, that’s an important step to take.”Whitman was not the only Bush Cabinet member active on the issue. At Bush’s first Cabinet meeting, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, former chief executive of the aluminum giant Alcoa, distributed a passionate treatise comparing the seriousness of the global-warming threat to that of rogue states with nuclear weapons. “The global climate-change issue is one where I think those of us in positions of responsibility, if we’re going to pretend to be leaders, need to actually lead and not wait for somebody to hammer us into submission,” O’Neill wrote. The morning after Whitman’s CNN appearance, O’Neill gave Bush a private memo urging him to set out a policy on climate change.But Whitman and O’Neill were drowned out. Republican senators, among them Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Larry Craig of Idaho, were complaining via letters and phone calls. On the receiving end were Vice President Dick Cheney; Karl Rove, Bush’s political adviser; Lawrence Lindsey, the president’s economic adviser; and others. Myron Ebell, who directs global-warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explains the critics’ position: “There has been a cabal behind Bush’s promise, and some of the industry people closest to the administration were for it.” Ebell includes O’Neill, Whitman and Lay in that group “They were attempting to commit the Bush adiministration to the Kyoto agenda. And they do not understand that the treaty would require the U.S. to spend trillions of dollars in order to save a few billion on the costs or potential climate change.”The lobbyists for the electricity-generating companies and the coal industry – which gave Republicans eighty-eight cents of every dollar of campaign money it contributed – also joined the attack. Utility-industry officials, who asked to remain unnamed, say they suspect the White House was approached by the Peabody Group, a huge coal-mining company whose chairman, Irl Engel-hardt, advised the Bush transition team on energy issues as well as by big electricity producers such as Southern Company, one of the country’s most infamous polluters.Bush’s advisers brought these complaints to him on March 5th. On March 13th, the White House sent a letter to Sen. Hagel announcing Bush’s change of heart. Several Cabinet members, including O’Neill and Secretary of State Colin Powell, tried to soften its language. But the wording stood, and Powell, who foresaw international criticism, was reportedly told that America’s carbon dioxide was a purely “domestic” issue. The president explained his decision with a now-familiar refrain about the power fiasco in California. “I was responding to reality,” Bush said. “And reality is, the nation has got a real problem when it comes to energy.” He added that limits on carbon-dioxide emissions would push electricity producers away from coal and toward natural gas, and that this would drive electricity costs up. “We’re in an energy crisis,” he insisted.Ian Bowles, an energy adviser at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, who stayed on until Bush’s reversal on global warming, refutes the energy-crisis reasoning: “We have three disparate, short-term energy challenges: We have seen a botched deregulation in California; this is specific to that state – it doesn’t relate to anything larger than that. In terms of natural gas, we have some tight distribution where we need to build infrastructure, but we do have the gas. And we have some refining shortages in crude. Taken together, this is not a national energy crisis that would preclude addressing carbon dioxide over the long term.”Clearly, many utility executives agree, Frank Cassidy, the president and chief operating officer of the New Jersey-based PSEG Power, one of the world’s largest independent electricity-generating companies, says Bush’s decision has increased the uncertainty facing the power industry. Comprehensive emissions regulations “might give us cleaner air sooner, address global warming sooner and end the endless litigation,” he says. “There has to be a forcing function to get the manufacturers to start developing the technology.”Off the record, the statements from the utility corner become less politic. (One vice president referred to the language in Bush’s letter as the handiwork of “bozos.”) Companies that advocated CO2 reduction are bitter; they feel Bush’s reversal could place them at a competitive disadvantage against those that have no intention of cleaning up unless forced to do so.“Phasing in limits on carbon dioxide is not going to send the utility companies rushing to switch over to natural gas, and it is not going to send electricity bills soaring into the stratosphere,” says another utility executive from a predominantly coal-burning company. “We’ve got old, dirty coal plants. We want to shut them down and replace them with new, cleaner and more efficient ones that will be better for the environment, the economy and the reliability of the energy supply, Without this regulatory certainty, it will be hard to plan for future expenditures and hard to keep costs down.”European leaders, meanwhile, were outraged by Bush’s “Kyoto is dead” decision. During the same week that Bush was reneging on his carbon-dioxide campaign pledge, Great Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, took a strong stand, announcing that he wanted his country to lead the world in a new “green industrial revolution” and that he was committing new funds to the development of renewable energy. It would be irresonsible, he said, to treat predictions about global warming as scaremongering: “They represent the considered opinions of some of the world’s best scientists. We cannot afford to ignore them.”
<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[flagged]</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr;"><div class="mw-parser-output" style="">This article is about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_United_States" title="Climate change policy of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">climate change policy of the United States</a> under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush administration</a>.<div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 7px; display: table;"><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#Kyoto_Protocol" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Kyoto Protocol</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#Influence_of_industry_groups" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Influence of industry groups</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#Political_pressure_on_scientists" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Political pressure on scientists</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#Attempts_to_undermine_U.S.and_state_efforts" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Attempts to undermine U.S. and state efforts</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5References</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Kyoto Protocol[</h2>In March 2001, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bush Administration</a> announced that it would not implement the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Kyoto Protocol</a>, an international treaty signed in 1997 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto,Japan" class="mw-redirect" title="Kyoto, Japan" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Kyoto, Japan</a> that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the U.S. and does not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> In February 2002, Bush announced his alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, by bringing forth a plan to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gases by 18 percent over 10 years. The intensity of greenhouse gases specifically is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions and economic output, meaning that under this plan, emissions would still continue to grow, but at a slower pace. Bush stated that this plan would prevent the release of 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, which is about the equivalent of 70 million cars from the road. This target would achieve this goal by providing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_credits" class="mw-redirect" title="Tax credits" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">tax credits</a> to businesses that use renewable energy sources.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Influence of industry groups[</h2>In June 2005, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_State_Department" class="mw-redirect" title="US State Department" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">US State Department</a> papers showed the Bush administration thanking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon" title="Exxon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Exxon</a> executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, including the U.S. stance on Kyoto. Input from the business lobby group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Climate_Coalition" title="Global Climate Coalition" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Global Climate Coalition</a> was also a factor.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a>The Bush administration implemented an industry-formulated disinformation campaign designed to actively mislead the American public on global warming and to forestall limits on "climate polluters," according to a report in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone" title="Rolling Stone" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rolling Stone</a> magazine which reviews hundreds of internal government documents and former government officials.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a>"'They've got a political clientele that does not want to be regulated,' says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_S.Piltz" title="Rick S. Piltz" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rick S. Piltz</a>, a former Bush climate official who blew the whistle on White House censorship of global-warming documents in 2005. 'Any honest discussion of the science would stimulate public pressure for a stronger policy. They're not stupid.'<blockquote style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px;">Bush's do-nothing policy on global warming began almost as soon as he took office. By pursuing a carefully orchestrated policy of delay, the White House blocked even the most modest reforms and replaced them with token investments in futuristic solutions like hydrogen cars. 'It's a charade,' says Jeremy Symons, who represented the EPA on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney" title="Dick Cheney" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dick Cheney</a>'s energy task force, the industry-studded group that met in secret to craft the administration's energy policy. 'They have a single-minded determination to do nothing—while making it look like they are doing something.' . . .The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Environmental_Quality" title="Council on Environmental Quality" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">CEQ</a> became Cheney's shadow EPA, with industry calling the shots. To head up the council, Cheney installed James Connaughton, a former lobbyist for industrial polluters, who once worked to help General Electric and ARCO skirt responsibility for their Superfund waste sites....two weeks after Bush took office - ExxonMobil's top lobbyist, Randy Randol, demanded a housecleaning of the scientists in charge of studying global warming. . ....Exxon's wish was the CEQ's command.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></blockquote><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Political pressure on scientists[</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">See also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_science_in_the_United_States" class="mw-redirect" title="Politics and science in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Politics and science in the United States</a></div>Also according to testimony taken by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Bush White House pressured American scientists to suppress discussion of global warming.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-autogenerated1-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a>"High-quality science" was "struggling to get out," as the Bush administration pressured scientists to tailor their writings on global warming to fit the Bush administration's skepticism, in some cases at the behest of an ex-oil industry lobbyist. "Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications."Similarly, according to the testimony of senior officers of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Project" title="Government Accountability Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Government Accountability Project</a>, the White House attempted to bury the report "National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change," produced by U.S. scientists pursuant to U.S. law.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> Some U.S. scientists resigned their jobs rather than give in to White House pressure to underreport global warming.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-autogenerated1-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a>Also, the White House removed key portions of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention" title="Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> (CDC) report given to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_human_health" class="mw-redirect" title="Effects of global warming on human health" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">dangers to human health of global warming</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> According to one CDC official familiar with both the CDC version and the version given to the Senate, the version given to the Senate was "eviscerated." The White House prevented the Senate and thus the public from receiving key CDC estimates in the report about diseases likely to flourish in a warmer climate, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes, more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution, an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, increases in vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus, mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress, and how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming.US officials, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Cooney" title="Philip Cooney" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Philip Cooney</a>, have repeatedly edited scientific reports from US government scientists, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a> many of whom, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Knutson" title="Thomas Knutson" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Thomas Knutson</a>, have been ordered to refrain from discussing climate change and related topics.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a>Climate scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E.Hansen" class="mw-redirect" title="James E. Hansen" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">James E. Hansen</a>, director of NASA's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Institute_for_Space_Studies" title="Goddard Institute for Space Studies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Goddard Institute for Space Studies</a>, claimed in a widely cited New York Times article <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> in 2006 that his superiors at the agency were trying to "censor" information "going out to the public." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA" title="NASA" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">NASA</a> denied this, saying that it was merely requiring that scientists make a distinction between personal, and official government, views in interviews conducted as part of work done at the agency. Several scientists working at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration" title="National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</a> have made similar complaints;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> once again, government officials said they were enforcing long-standing policies requiring government scientists to clearly identify personal opinions as such when participating in public interviews and forums.In 2006, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC" title="BBC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BBC</a>'s long-running current affairs series <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama(TV_series)" class="mw-redirect" title="Panorama (TV series)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Panorama</a> investigated the issue, and was told that "scientific reports about global warming have been systematically changed and suppressed."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a>According to an Associated Press release on January 30, 2007,<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px;">...climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming. The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></blockquote>Critics writing in the Wall Street Journal editorial page claim that the survey <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a> was itself unscientific.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a>Attempts to suppress scientific information on global warming and other issues have been described by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Mooney(journalist)" title="Chris Mooney (journalist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chris Mooney</a> as constituting a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science" title="The Republican War on Science" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Republican War on Science</a>.<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Attempts to undermine U.S. and state efforts[</h2>The Bush Administration worked to undermine <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.state" title="U.S. state" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">state</a> efforts to mitigate global warming. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Peters(politician)" class="mw-redirect" title="Mary Peters (politician)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mary Peters</a>, the Transportation Secretary at that time, personally directed US efforts to urge governors and dozens of members of the House of Representatives to block California's first-in-the-nation limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, according to e-mails obtained by Congress.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">References[</h2><div class="reflist columns references-column-width" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.3em; column-width: 30em; list-style-type: decimal;"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-parent 0 list-item 0; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-1" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Alex Kirby, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1247518.stm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">US blow to Kyoto hopes</a>, 2001-03-28, BBC News (online).</li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-2" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/02/14/bush.global.warming/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Bush unveils voluntary plan to reduce global warming</a>, CNN.com, 2002-02-14.</li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-3" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFVidal2005" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Vidal, John (2005-06-08). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jun/08/usnews.climatechange" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush"</a>. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-01-24.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Guardian&rft.atitle=Revealed%3A+how+oil+giant+influenced+Bush&rft.date=2005-06-08&rft.aulast=Vidal&rft.aufirst=John&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fnews%2F2005%2Fjun%2F08%2Fusnews.climatechange&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-4" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFDickinson2007" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Dickinson, Tim (2007-06-08). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15148655/the_secret_campaign_of_president_george_bushs_administration_to_deny_global" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming"</a>. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2010-01-24.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Rolling+Stone&rft.atitle=The+Secret+Campaign+of+President+Bush%27s+Administration+To+Deny+Global+Warming&rft.date=2007-06-08&rft.aulast=Dickinson&rft.aufirst=Tim&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fpolitics%2Fstory%2F15148655%2Fthe_secret_campaign_of_president_george_bushs_administration_to_deny_global&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-5" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }The Washington Post, June 21, 2007 "<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/21/BL2007062101075_2.html?nav=hcmodule" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/21/BL2007062101075_2.html?nav=hcmodule</a> , citing the Rolling Stone investigative report published 2007/6/13</li><li id="cite_note-autogenerated1-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;">^ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-autogenerated1_6-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up to:a</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-autogenerated1_6-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">b</a> Reuters, January 30, 2007, free archived version at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-10.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-10.htm</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070202012017/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-10.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> 2007-02-02 at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a>, last visited Jan. 30, '07</li><li id="cite_note-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-7" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Written testimony of Dr. Grifo before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 30, 2007, archived at <cite class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090805213620/http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070130113153-55829.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Archived copy"</a> (PDF). Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113153-55829.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">the original</a> (PDF) on 2009-08-05. Retrieved 2009-12-15.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Archived+copy&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Foversight.house.gov%2FDocuments%2F20070130113153-55829.pdf&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-8" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }written testimony of Rick Piltz before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 30, 2007, archived at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113813-92288.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113813-92288.pdf</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070131202854/http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130113813-92288.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> 2007-01-31 at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a> last visited Jan. 30, 07</li><li id="cite_note-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-9" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Associated Press, Oct. 24, 2007, <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLOBAL_WARMING_HEALTH?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLOBAL_WARMING_HEALTH?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT</a>; also archived at <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/24/4772/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/24/4772/</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121005104951/http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/24/4772" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> 2012-10-05 at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a></li><li id="cite_note-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-10" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Campbell, D. (June 20, 2003) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theguardian.com/climatechange/story/0,12374,981127,00.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"White House cuts global warming from report"</a> Guardian Unlimited</li><li id="cite_note-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-11" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Donaghy, T., et al. (2007) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/A/Atmosphere-of-Pressure.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Atmosphere of Pressure:"</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070614113731/http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/A/Atmosphere-of-Pressure.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> June 14, 2007, at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a> a report of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Project" title="Government Accountability Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Government Accountability Project</a> (Cambridge, Mass.: UCS Publications)</li><li id="cite_note-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-12" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Rule, E. (2005) "Possible media attention" Email to NOAA staff, July 27. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/media-interviews.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Obtained via FOIA request on July 31, 2006.</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080807142549/http://ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference//media-interviews.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> August 7, 2008, at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a> and Teet, J. (2005) "DOC Interview Policy" Email to NOAA staff, September 29. Originally published by Alexandrovna, L. (2005) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Commerce_Department_tells_Nationa_1004.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Commerce Department tells National Weather Service media contacts must be pre-approved"</a> The Raw Story, October 4. Accessed December 22, 2006</li><li id="cite_note-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-13" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }Zabarenko, Deborah (March 8, 2007). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-polarbears-scientists/dont-discuss-polar-bears-memo-to-scientists-idUSN0825952120070308" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"'Don't discuss polar bears:' memo to scientists"</a>, Reuters</li><li id="cite_note-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-14" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFRevkin2006" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Revkin, Andrew C. (January 29, 2006). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?ei=5088&en=28e236da0977ee7f&ex=1296190800&pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him"</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New York Times</a>. Retrieved 2007-04-14.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Climate+Expert+Says+NASA+Tried+to+Silence+Him&rft.date=2006-01-29&rft.aulast=Revkin&rft.aufirst=Andrew+C.&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2006%2F01%2F29%2Fscience%2Fearth%2F29climate.html%3Fei%3D5088%26en%3D28e236da0977ee7f%26ex%3D1296190800%26pagewanted%3Dall&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-15" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFEilperin2006" class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Eilperin, Julie (2006-04-06). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502150_pf.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House"</a>. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-01-24.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Washington+Post&rft.atitle=Climate+Researchers+Feeling+Heat+From+White+House&rft.date=2006-04-06&rft.aulast=Eilperin&rft.aufirst=Julie&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-dyn%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2F2006%2F04%2F05%2FAR2006040502150_pf.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-16" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5005994.stm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Climate chaos: Bush's climate of fear"</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC" title="BBC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BBC</a> Panorama. June 1, 2006. Retrieved 2007-04-14.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Climate+chaos%3A+Bush%27s+climate+of+fear&rft.date=2006-06-01&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F1%2Fhi%2Fprogrammes%2Fpanorama%2F5005994.stm&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-17" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite class="citation news cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/30/politics/main2413400.shtml" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Groups Say Scientists Pressured On Warming"</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_News" title="CBS News" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">CBS News</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Associated Press</a>. January 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-14.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Groups+Say+Scientists+Pressured+On+Warming&rft.date=2007-01-30&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fstories%2F2007%2F01%2F30%2Fpolitics%2Fmain2413400.shtml&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-18" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFDonaghyJennifer_FreemanFrancesca_GrifoKarly_Kaufman2007" class="citation book cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Donaghy, Timothy; Jennifer Freeman; Francesca Grifo; Karly Kaufman; Tarek Maassarani; Lexi Shultz (February 2007). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/Full-survey-instrument-with-responses.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Appendix A: UCS Climate Scientist Survey Text and Responses (Federal)"</a> (PDF). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/Atmosphere-of-Pressure.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Atmosphere of Pressure – Political Interference in Federal Climate Science</a> (PDF). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Concerned_Scientists" title="Union of Concerned Scientists" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> & <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Project" title="Government Accountability Project" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Government Accountability Project</a>. Retrieved 2007-04-14.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Appendix+A%3A+UCS+Climate+Scientist+Survey+Text+and+Responses+%28Federal%29&rft.btitle=Atmosphere+of+Pressure+%26ndash%3B+Political+Interference+in+Federal+Climate+Science&rft.pub=Union+of+Concerned+Scientists+%26+Government+Accountability+Project&rft.date=2007-02&rft.aulast=Donaghy&rft.aufirst=Timothy&rft.au=Jennifer+Freeman&rft.au=Francesca+Grifo&rft.au=Karly+Kaufman&rft.au=Tarek+Maassarani&rft.au=Lexi+Shultz&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ucsusa.org%2Fassets%2Fdocuments%2Fscientific_integrity%2FFull-survey-instrument-with-responses.pdf&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-19" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<cite id="CITEREFTaranto2007" class="citation web cs1" style="font-style: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taranto" title="James Taranto" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Taranto, James</a> (February 1, 2007). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009609" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"They Call This Science?"</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpinionJournal.com" class="mw-redirect" title="OpinionJournal.com" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">OpinionJournal.com</a>. Retrieved 2007-04-14.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=They+Call+This+Science%3F&rft.pub=OpinionJournal.com&rft.date=2007-02-01&rft.aulast=Taranto&rft.aufirst=James&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.opinionjournal.com%2Fbest%2F%3Fid%3D110009609&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AClimate+change+policy+of+the+George+W.+Bush+administration" class="Z3988" /></li><li id="cite_note-20" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0; break-inside: avoid-column;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_policy_of_the_George_W.Bush_administration#cite_ref-20" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }"How the White House Worked to Scuttle California's Climate Law", San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 2007 <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/25/4099/" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Presidency of George W. Bush</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Climate_change_denial" title="Category:Climate change denial" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Climate change denial</a></li></ul></div></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1">https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1</a>profile: Philip A. Cooney<div id="entityRelations" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div id="entityQuotes"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px;">Philip A. Cooney was a participant or observer in the following events:</h2><div class="timeline-paging"><div class="listOfEntitysEvents" style="margin-top: 35px;"><div id="timelineEntries" style="margin-top: 40px;"><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="2001CooneyAppointed" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=2001CooneyAppointed#2001CooneyAppointed" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2001: Bush Makes Oil Industry Lobbyist ‘Climate Team Leader’</a></h2><div class="eLB" style="width: 115px; float: right; vertical-align: top; text-align: right;">  </div></div>President George Bush appoints Philip A. Cooney as the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which helps create and promote administration policies on environmental issues. In that position, he also serves as the Bush’s “climate team leader.” Cooney, a lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, was formerly a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. He has no background in science. <cite style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0608-05.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NEW YORK TIMES, 6/8/2005</a>]</cite><div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=george_w.bush" style="text-decoration-line: none;">George W. Bush</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US Environmental Record</a>
</div></div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_142" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_142#the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_142" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 3, 2002: Email Reveals White House Efforts to Punish EPA Officials For Acknowledging Human Role in Rising Temperatures</a></h2><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">
</div>Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), sends an email to Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, discussing how to respond to a recent EPA report (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=USClimateActionReport2002" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">May 2002</a>) that acknowledged human activity is contributing to global warming.</div><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">
</div><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"> It was the first time the US government had ever made the admission. In the email, Ebell conveys his plan to discredit the report by suing the agency. He also recommends playing down the report and firing some EPA officials. “It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,” he says in the email. “Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired.… It seems to me our only leverage to push you in the right direction is to drive a wedge between the president and those in the administration who think that they are serving the president’s interests by publishing this rubbish.” The organization Ebell represents has received more than $1 million since 1998 from Exxon. Cooney previously worked as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=2001CooneyAppointed" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">2001</a>). <cite times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" font-style="font-style" normal="normal" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" style="font-style: normal;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://dynamic.greenpeace.org/smoking-gun/CEImemo.swf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EBELL, 6/3/2002</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/investigation-of-exxon-front-g" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">GREENPEACE, 9/9/2003</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1046388,00.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">OBSERVER, 9/21/2003</a>]</cite>
</div><div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=myron_ebell_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Myron Ebell</a>Timeline
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_139#the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_139" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">October 2002: Bush Official Edits Global Warming Report to Make it Less Alarming</a></div></div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">
</div>Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, edits a draft of the annual Our Changing Planet report to make it less alarming. In one sentence, he adds the word “extremely” so it reads, “The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult.” Similarly, he changes the sentence, “Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change,” so it instead says, “Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change.” </div><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">
</div><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">In another section of the report, he crosses out an entire paragraph discussing the expected melting of mountain glaciers and snowpacks. In its margins, he asserts that the report’s authors were “straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings.” <cite times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" font-style="font-style" normal="normal" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0608-05.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NEW YORK TIMES, 6/8/2005</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Democratic_senators_seek_retraction_of_climate_change_report_written_by_former_oi_0629.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">REID AND LAUTENBERG, 6/29/2005</a>]</cite> Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, has no background in climate science (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=2001CooneyAppointed" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">2001</a>).
</div><div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US Environmental Record</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=global_warming_tmln" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Global Warming</a>
</div></div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="CooneyWillUseSoonBaliunasInReport" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=CooneyWillUseSoonBaliunasInReport#CooneyWillUseSoonBaliunasInReport" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">April 2003: White House Plans To Use Heavily Criticized Paper to Counter Global Warming Arguments</a></h2><div class="eLB" style="width: 115px; float: right; vertical-align: top; text-align: right;">  </div></div>Philip Cooney, chief of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), informs White House staffer Kevin O’Donovan in a memo that the CEQ will begin using a study by Willie Soon and Sally Baliunas (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=SoonBaliunasPaper" style="text-decoration-line: none;">January 31, 2003</a>) to rebut studies that suggest the planet is warming.Cooney also says that he has inserted a reference to this paper in the EPA’s forthcoming “Draft Report on the Environment.” <cite style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130121205-28102.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US CONGRESS, 1/30/2007 <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/icons/pdfbw.png" alt="pdf file" style="border: none;" /></a>]</cite> (The Soon-Baliunas paper has been heavily criticized. After the paper was published in Climate Research, several of the journal’s editors resigned in protest, and scientists whose papers had been cited in the study complained that their research had been misrepresented; see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_1034" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 23, 2003</a>.)<div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=kevin_o_donovan_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Kevin O’Donovan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=global_warming_tmln" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Global Warming</a>
</div></div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="WhiteHouseTinkersWithEPAReport" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=WhiteHouseTinkersWithEPAReport#WhiteHouseTinkersWithEPAReport" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">April 2003: White House Tries to Water Down EPA Report</a></h2><div class="eLB" style="width: 115px; float: right; vertical-align: top; text-align: right;">  </div></div>The Office of Management and Budget, which is reviewing the EPA’s forthcoming “Draft Report on the Environment” (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_1034" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 23, 2003</a>) advises the EPA that the report “needs balance” and asserts that “global climate change has beneficial effects as well as adverse impacts.” The office also suggests removing the discussion on global warming completely from the report’s executive summary. 
“[D]elete climate change or use previously agreed upon material,” writes one staffer at the White House Council of Environmental Quality. Similarly, the White House Office of Science and Technology [thanks kathie!] Policy suggests removing a discussion of the potential impacts climate change might have on human health and ecology. 
The Department of Energy also gets involved, arguing through the White House that EPA should delete any discussion of atmospheric concentrations of carbon because it is not a “good indicator of climate change.” Another official warns, “Take care here and be sure to be consistent with existing administration policy. Let us try to avoid another CAR scenario.” This is a reference to the Climate Action Report (CAR) (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=USClimateActionReport2002" style="text-decoration-line: none;">May 2002</a>) that the US submitted to the UN in May 2002. That report concluded that human activities are “causing global mean surface air temperature and subsurface ocean temperature to rise.” 
White House officials also suggest making edits to particular sentences. For example, the OMB asks the EPA to delete the phrases, “alter regional patterns of climate,” and, “potentially affect the balance of radiation.” It also suggests replacing the passage, “changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly the result of human activities,” with, “a causal link between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.” 
Several of the edits are made by CEQ chief Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist. According to a congressional investigation, Cooney removes climate change “from a discussion of environmental issues that have global consequences, delete[s] a chart depicting historical temperature reconstruction, and insert[s] the word ‘potentially’ in several places to reduce the certainty of scientific statements regarding the impacts of climate change.” 
Cooney also advocates the removal of references to a 2001 National Research Council report (see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_1089" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 2001</a>) concluding that human activities contribute to global warming and information from a 1999 study indicating that global temperatures rose significantly over the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. Cooney also adds a claim to the draft report that satellite data does not support global warming, and removes a phrase that says “regional patterns may be altered” by climate change. In one memo, Cooney writes, “These changes must be made.” <cite style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0619-01.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NEW YORK TIMES, 6/19/2003</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/24/politics/main564873.shtml" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CBS NEWS, 6/19/2003</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.iran-socialists.com/english/articles/20030702b.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/20/2003</a>; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130121205-28102.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US CONGRESS, 1/30/2007 <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/icons/pdfbw.png" alt="pdf file" style="border: none;" /></a>]</cite><div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a.cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=office_of_management_and_budget" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Office of Management and Budget</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=bush_administration" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bush administration (43)</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=office_of_science_and_technology_policy_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Office of Science and Technology Policy</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=council_on_environmental_quality" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Council on Environmental Quality</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=global_warming_tmln" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Global Warming</a>
</div></div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="ExxonHiresCooney" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=ExxonHiresCooney#ExxonHiresCooney" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 10, 2005: Top Environmental Official Resigns and Finds Work with Exxon</a></h2><div class="eLB" style="width: 115px; float: right; vertical-align: top; text-align: right;">  </div></div>Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigns. Two days earlier, the New York Times revealed he had edited reports downplaying the link between greenhouse gases and global warming. According to White House deputy spokeswoman Dana Perino, his departure is unrelated to the recent disclosure. “Phil Cooney did a great job,” she says, “and we appreciate his public service and the work that he did, and we wish him well in the private sector.” Four days later, ExxonMobil announces that Cooney will be working for the company in the fall. <cite style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/politics/15climate.html?ei=5090&en=67f33de630a5e39a&ex=1276488000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NEW YORK TIMES, 6/15/2005</a>]</cite>
</div><div class="i" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-right: 5px; padding-left: 10px;"><a name="WaxManDavisRequestCEQDocs" /><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;"><h2 style="margin: 3px 0px 0px; width: 400px; float: left;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=WaxManDavisRequestCEQDocs#WaxManDavisRequestCEQDocs" title="View in context" style="text-decoration-line: none;">July 20, 2006: Lawmakers Request Documents from Bush Administration</a></h2><div class="iT" style="width: 524.625px; display: table;">
</div>Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Tom Davis (R-VA) send a letter to James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) requesting routine documents concerning communications between CEQ and other government agencies and outside parties having to do with the issue of climate science. The letter asks that the documents be provided no later than August 1, 2006. Specifically, the two lawmakers say they want documents that relate to the following:
</div><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/childbullet.gif" width="5" height="8" alt="bullet" /> “[CEQ’s former chief of staff Phillip] Cooney’s activities related to climate change;”
<img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/childbullet.gif" width="5" height="8" alt="bullet" /> “CEQ’s review of and suggested edits to materials produced by other federal agencies regarding climate change;”
<img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/childbullet.gif" width="5" height="8" alt="bullet" /> “Efforts by CEQ to manage or influence statements made by government scientists or experts to representatives of media regarding climate change;”
<img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/childbullet.gif" width="5" height="8" alt="bullet" /> “CEQ’s communications with other federal agencies regarding climate change science; and”
<img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/childbullet.gif" width="5" height="8" alt="bullet" /> “Contacts between CEQ and any nongovernmental party related to climate change.” <cite style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20060721175128-78126.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">WAXMAN AND DAVIS, 7/20/2006 <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048im/http://www.historycommons.org/pics/icons/pdfbw.png" alt="pdf file" style="border: none;" /></a>]</cite><div class="t" style="padding-left: 15px;">Entity Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=tom_davis_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Tom Davis</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=henry_a.waxman" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Henry A. Waxman</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=james_l.connaughton" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James L. Connaughton</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=council_on_environmental_quality" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Council on Environmental Quality</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a._cooney_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philip A. Cooney</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120806155048/http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=global_warming_tmln" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Global Warming</a></div></div></div></div>=</div><div class="timeline-paging">
</div><div class="timeline-paging">THE BUSH RECORD

More than 300 Crimes against NatureSource: Natural Resources Defense Council JANUARY 20, 2001
White House freezes all rules set at end of Clinton term–including tougher ones for raw sewageJANUARY 20, 2001
Bush proposes opening Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drillingFEBRUARY 12, 2001
Energy Department puts off enforcing new efficiency standards for air conditionersFEBRUARY 15, 2001
EPA delays new rule protecting wetlands from mining and developmentMARCH 7, 2001
Fish and Wildlife Service withdraws report calling for protection of endangered salmonidsMARCH 9, 2001
Bush appoints oil and mining lobbyist as deputy secretary of InteriorMARCH 13, 2001
Bush reneges on campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissionsMARCH 16, 2001
Bush administration refuses to defend in court rule protecting 58 million acres of wild forestMARCH 20, 2001
Bush withdraws proposed stricter limits on arsenic in drinking waterMARCH 28, 2001
Bush administration rejects Kyoto Protocol on Climate ChangeAPRIL 9, 2001
Bush budget proposal cuts $500 million from EPAMAY 10, 2001
Bush administration refuses to name industry participants in Cheney energy task forceMAY 12, 2001
Bureau of Land Management allows continued grazing on endangered-tortoise land in CaliforniaMAY 17, 2001
Bush releases energy plan heavily favoring fossil fuels and nukesMAY 17, 2001
Forest Service reduces citizen and scientific participation in decision-makingMAY 22, 2001
EPA officially suspends stricter limits for arsenic in drinking waterJUNE 19, 2001
States and others sue Energy Department over air-conditioner rules (see FEBRUARY 12, 2001)JUNE 21, 2001
Timber lobbyist Mark Rey appointed to key post in Forest ServiceJULY 2, 2001
Oil drilling off Florida coast proposed by Bush administrationJULY 23, 2001
Bush budget proposes cutting 270 EPA inspector jobsAUGUST 2, 2001
Army Corps of Engineers kills plan to protect Missouri River wildlife by changing stream flowsAUGUST 8, 2001
Army Corps of Engineers weakens wetlands protections by slackening permit requirementsAUGUST 12, 2001
National forests opened to roadbuilding and logging by Forest Service rule changesAUGUST 14, 2001
EPA delays tougher rules for toxic power-plant emissionsAUGUST 17, 2001
Federal judge's decision to ban drilling off California's coast appealed by administrationAUGUST 27, 2001
Cattle still grazing on tortoise habitat in California, despite BLM agreement to move themAUGUST 28, 2001
Bush administration proposes missile-defense test installation in Pacific; environmentalists sueAUGUST 28, 2001
Bush administration reconsiders ban on recycling radioactive metals into consumer productsSEPTEMBER 13, 2001
EPA lies about Manhattan hazards after 9/11, calls area safe despite extreme toxic pollutionSEPTEMBER 20, 2001
Forest Service proposes further reduction in citizen participation in policymakingOCTOBER 25, 2001
Interior Department weakens environmental rules for mining operationsOCTOBER 31, 2001
Arsenic flip-flop: Under public pressure, EPA adopts higher standard after all (see MAY 22, 2001)NOVEMBER 2, 2001
Army Corps of Engineers retreats from policy of "no net loss" of wetlandsNOVEMBER 5, 2001
Bush signs bill to boost spending for national forests, but with harmful logging ridersNOVEMBER 29, 2001
Minnesota's Voyageurs National Park reopens winter lakes to snowmobilesDECEMBER 3, 2001
Army Corps of Engineers decides not to decommission Snake River dams in Pacific NorthwestDECEMBER 14, 2001
Administration announces weaker standards for nuclear waste storage at Nevada's Yucca MountainDECEMBER 14, 2001
Forest Service announces more roadbuilding on undeveloped forestlandsJANUARY 9, 2002
Administration backs hydrogen-car research, but most hydrogen to come from fossil fuelsJANUARY 10, 2002
Study shows big drop in enforcement of environmental laws under BushJANUARY 10, 2002
Bush administration fights in court for new oil drilling off California coastJANUARY 14, 2002
Report shows Interior secretary squelched her own agency's criticism of weaker wetlands rulesJANUARY 14, 2002
Wetlands protections weakened nationwide in flip-flop from Bush campaign promiseJANUARY 14, 2002
Park Service okays more oil drilling in Florida's Big Cypress National PreserveJANUARY 21, 2002
BLM preliminarily approves gas drilling in Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, MontanaJANUARY 22, 2002
Forest Service sues to overturn ban on salvage logging in Montana's Bitterroot National ForestJANUARY 28, 2002
Bush supports Cheney's refusal to release secret energy-task-force recordsFEBRUARY 4, 2002
Bush slashes environmental-education spendingFEBRUARY 4, 2002
Bush budget proposes cutting $1 billion from environmental spendingFEBRUARY 4, 2002
Bush budget proposes $404 million to support timber sales in national forestsFEBRUARY 11, 2002
Environmentalists sue Park Service for allowing motorized vehicles in Georgia wildernessFEBRUARY 14, 2002
Bush gives power plants ten more years to cut mercury and sulfur dioxide emissionsFEBRUARY 14, 2002
White House unveils global-warming plan that lets C02 emissions continue at present rateFEBRUARY 15, 2002
Bush endorses plan to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca MountainFEBRUARY 15, 2002
Forest Service approves mining exploration in Missouri's Mark Twain National ForestFEBRUARY 16, 2002
Bush administration asks court to delay endangered-species protection in CaliforniaFEBRUARY 19, 2002
Phaseout of snowmobiles in national parks delayedFEBRUARY 22, 2002
BLM proposes to let states allow vehicles in previously off-limits federal landsFEBRUARY 23, 2002
Bush's budget asks that taxpayers pay for Superfund cleanups instead of pollutersFEBRUARY 27, 2002
Top EPA official resigns to protest Bush's effort to weaken rules for polluting industriesFEBRUARY 27, 2002
Federal judge orders Bush administration to release Cheney's secret energy-task-force recordsMARCH 12, 2002
Bush administration belatedly complies with court order to protect desert tortoiseMARCH 18, 2002
EPA exempts large category of power plants from lawsuits for Clean Air Act violationsMARCH 25, 2002
Discovery that White House misspent $135,612 of clean-energy funds to print its energy planMARCH 29, 2002
Pentagon seeks exemption from environmental lawsAPRIL 1, 2002
Deadline passes for administration to set first new fuel-economy standards since 1996APRIL 11, 2002
Army Corps of Engineers approves mining limestone in 5,400 acres of Florida's evergladesAPRIL 14, 2002
White House kills program that funded environmental research for graduate studentsAPRIL 22, 2002
EPA citizen-watchdog resigns in protest, charging that agency |officials muzzled himMAY 3, 2002
New EPA rules allow mining operations to dump waste in waterwaysMAY 13, 2002
Administration asks judge not to limit waste-dumping from mountaintop minesMAY 13, 2002
Bush signs farm bill that pays big subsidies to polluting agricultural operationsMAY 21, 2002
Ban on mining in and around Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest endsMAY 23, 2002
Energy Department cuts air-conditioner efficiency standardsMAY 24, 2002
Bush-Putin summit produces nuclear treaty that puts no long-term limit on nuclear weaponsMAY 24, 2002
Bush administration drops plan |for contractors to put environmental protection into projectsJUNE 3, 2002
Oil drilling leases on more than 500,000 acres in Alaska signed by Interior DepartmentJUNE 7, 2002
Interior secretary rejects proposal to limit offshore oil drilling in CaliforniaJUNE 13, 2002
Missouri River restoration halted indefinitely by Army Corps of EngineersJUNE 13, 2002
EPA proposes weakening clean-air rules for 17,000 power plantsJUNE 13, 2002
Judge halts Bush administration move to end habitat protection on 500,000 acres in CaliforniaJUNE 17, 2002
Judge rejects Army Corps of Engineers plan to allow mine-waste dumpingJUNE 24, 2002
EPA abandons plan to clean up storm-water pollutionJUNE 25, 2002
Bush administration blames wildfires on environmentalistsJUNE 25, 2002
Snowmobiling allowed to continue in national parks, though with some restrictionsJUNE 25, 2002
EPA ombudsman testifies Bush administration pressured him to halt study of radiation standardsJULY 1, 2002
Bush administration cuts funding for toxic cleanups to half of that requested by EPAJULY 2, 2002
Bush administration rescinds 4 million acres of protection for endangered California frogJULY 10, 2002
Judge orders administration to protect 400,000 Calif. acres for endangered Alameda whipsnakeJULY 15, 2002
Navy given permit to use low-frequency sonar, a known threat to whalesJULY 17, 2002
Bush administration opposes Senate bill to require 10 percent renewable energy by 2020JULY 22, 2002
Bush's State Department says it will withhold $34 million from UN family-planning programJULY 25, 2002
Another top EPA official quits in protestJULY 26, 2002
Bush administration backs congressional proposal to exempt companies from disclosing hazardsAUGUST 7, 2002
EPA proposes weakened water-cleanups; asks for "voluntary" effortsAUGUST 15, 2002
Conservatives praise Bush for skipping United Nations summit on sustainable developmentAUGUST 22, 2002
Interior Department claims new power plant won't harm air at Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky.AUGUST 22, 2002
Bush calls for increased logging in name of fire preventionAUGUST 27, 2002
U.S. opposes targets for renewable energy use at World Summit on Sustainable DevelopmentAUGUST 29, 2002
Interior Department approves billion-dollar plan to store water under Mojave DesertAUGUST 30, 2002
Foe of ecological restoration Allan Fitzsimmons named head of federal wildfire preventionSEPTEMBER 3, 2002
White House asks exemption from Freedom of Information Act in energy-task-force suitSEPTEMBER 4, 2002
Federal officials reject call to add white marlin to endangered listSEPTEMBER 9, 2002
States' EPA air-quality inspections shown to have dropped by 34 percentSEPTEMBER 13, 2002
EPA weakens proposed anti-pollution standards for off-road vehiclesSEPTEMBER 15, 2002
EPA deletes global-warming section from pollution reportSEPTEMBER 17, 2002
Bush replacing most scientists on chemical-hazard panel with those tied to chemical industrySEPTEMBER 18, 2002
Bush executive order cuts citizen involvement in review of road and airport projectsSEPTEMBER 21, 2002
Killing of 34,000 salmonids results from federal diversion of Klamath River water in OregonSEPTEMBER 27, 2002
Interior secretary okays gold mining on sacred Indian site in CaliforniaSEPTEMBER 30, 2002
New EPA water-quality report shows U.S. waters are getting dirtierOCTOBER 1, 2002
Fish and Wildlife Service reverses order to increase Missouri River flow to protect speciesOCTOBER 3, 2002
Conservationists urge White House to release $36.5 million in conservation funds for farmlandsOCTOBER 4, 2002
Bureau of Land Management approves largest oil and gas drilling exploration ever in UtahOCTOBER 8, 2002
EPA water administrator says war on terror leaves little money for water cleanupOCTOBER 8, 2002
Bush stacks panel on lead poisoning with people tied to the lead industryOCTOBER 8, 2002
Federal workers reveal memo from EPA chief encouraging them to support president when off-dutyOCTOBER 9, 2002
Bush administration sides with auto industry in suit against California's emission rulesOCTOBER 10, 2002
Administration failed to assess vulnerability of chemical facilities to terrorists, GAO saysOCTOBER 15 2002
Superfund cleanups drop to 42 per year from average of 76 under Clinton, report showsOCTOBER 16, 2002
Judge finds Forest Service violates Endangered Species Act by not protecting spotted-owl habitatOCTOBER 17, 2002
Bush administration told by federal judge to release energy documents in Sierra Club lawsuitOCTOBER 31, 2002
EPA halts funding at seven Superfund sitesNOVEMBER 1, 2002
Bush administration threatens withdrawal from historic UN population accordNOVEMBER 5, 2002
Polluters paid 64 percent less in fines under Bush than in last two Clinton years, report showsNOVEMBER 11, 2002
Bush administration supports renewed elephant-ivory tradeNOVEMBER 12, 2002
National Park Service proposal would allow 1,100 snowmobiles a day in Yellowstone, Grand TetonNOVEMBER 21, 2002
Natural-gas drilling at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas approvedNOVEMBER 22, 2002
EPA proceeds with weakening Clean Air Act rules for power plantsNOVEMBER 27, 2002
Forest Service proposes rule changes to increase logging, grazing, mining on 192 million acresDECEMBER 2, 2002
Bush administration plan for oil drilling off California coast ruled illegal by federal judgesDECEMBER 4, 2002
Bush administration asks for five more years of study before acting on global warmingDECEMBER 12, 2002
Federal court rules against administration, upholds roadless rule for 58.5 million acresDECEMBER 12, 2002
White House proposes tiny increase in automobile fuel economy: 1.5 mpg in five yearsDECEMBER 13, 2002
Federal judge blocks Army Corps of Engineers' Snake River dredging plan in Pacific NorthwestDECEMBER 16, 2002
EPA's new factory-farm rule favors big agribusiness pollutersDECEMBER 18, 2002
White House budget office values elderly lives 63 percent less in environmental cost-benefit analysisDECEMBER 20, 2002
Federal judge blocks Interior Department from permitting oil exploration in eastern UtahDECEMBER 30, 2002
EPA proposes two-year exemption of oil and gas industry from storm-water pollution rulesJANUARY 6, 2003
Bureau of Land Management rule change gives states leeway for new roads in wildlandsJANUARY 10, 2003
Bush budget requests $6.4 billion for Energy Department's nuclear weapons activityJANUARY 10, 2003
Bush administration proposes pulling federal safeguards from 20 percent of U.S. wetlandsJANUARY 13, 2003
Pentagon plans to ask for exemption from environmental laws on millions of acresJANUARY 16, 2003
Environmental personnel scratched from USAID policy bureauJANUARY 17, 2003
Interior Department proposes oil exploration on up to 9 million acres of Alaska's North SlopeJANUARY 19, 2003
Pentagon continues lobbying for exemptions from environmental lawsJANUARY 21, 2003
EPA refuses to ban weed-killer atrazine, a possible carcinogenJANUARY 22, 2003
EPA retains unsafe limits for toxic perchloratesJANUARY 24, 2003
Manatees get federal protection, thanks to lawsuit settlementJANUARY 27, 2003
Bush administration proposes privatizing thousands of National Park Service jobsJANUARY 27, 2003
California's giant sequoia threatened by Forest Service proposal to resume logging nearbyJANUARY 29, 2003
Bush administration wins court ruling that legalizes mountaintop-removal mining permitsJANUARY 30, 2003
Bureau of Land Management proposes rollback of Clinton-era restrictions on grazingJANUARY 30, 2003
Exemptions to phaseout of ozone-destroying methyl bromide planned by Bush administrationFEBRUARY 11, 2003
EPA drafts new rules to relax toxic-air-pollution standardsFEBRUARY 20, 2003
National Park Service finalizes rules allowing snowmobiles in national parksFEBRUARY 25, 2003
National Academy of Sciences panel strongly criticizes Bush's global-warming planFEBRUARY 27, 2003
Bush's "Clear Skies" plan allows much more pollution than if Clean Air Act were enforced, critics chargeFEBRUARY 27, 2003
Transportation Department speeds up environmentally harmful road projectsFEBRUARY 28, 2003
Oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge his "greatest wish," says high-ranking Interior officialFEBRUARY 28, 2003
Wilderness protection for millions of acres in Alaska's Tongass forest rejected by Forest ServiceMARCH 4, 2003
National Park Service slaughters 231 Yellowstone bisonMARCH 7, 2003
Paul Wolfowitz tells military leaders to find reasons to exempt military from environmental rulesMARCH 10, 2003
EPA exempts oil and gas industry from President Clinton's tighter water-pollution rulesMARCH 13, 2003
EPA withdraws another Clinton-era water-pollution cleanup ruleMARCH 13, 2003
EPA official testifies in Congress in favor of exempting military from environmental lawsMARCH 18, 2003
EPA allows sludge dumping in Potomac River to continue for seven more yearsMARCH 18, 2003
Fish and Wildlife proposes removing protections from endangered wolvesMARCH 18, 2003
Federal judge orders Interior Department to continue protecting manateesMARCH 18, 2003
GAO again criticizes Bush administration for failing to reduce security risks at chemical plantsMARCH 25, 2003
Park Service adopts plan for Yellowstone/Teton allowing1,100 snowmobiles a dayAPRIL 1, 2003
Bush administration drops court battle to allow California offshore drillingAPRIL 1, 2003
Bush administration barely raises SUV gas mileage requirements, to 1.5 mpg more by 2007APRIL 3, 2003
Bureau of Reclamation again diverts water from Klamath River, where salmonid kill occurredAPRIL 4, 2003
New U.S.—Mexico pollution treaty signed, but lacks fundingAPRIL 7, 2003
Bush administration asks UN to remove Yellowstone from endangered world heritage statusAPRIL 8, 2003
Protection plan for 76-mile stretch of California coast abandoned by National Park ServiceAPRIL 9, 2003
Interior Department paves way for new roads on federal lands in UtahAPRIL 10, 2003
U.S. Fish and Wildlife signs off on plan to reopen Imperial Sand Dunes to off-road vehiclesAPRIL 20, 2003
Toxic cleanups still lagging: 41 percent fewer Superfund sites cleaned up by EPA, report saysAPRIL 21, 2003
Sharp criticism of Bush administration air-pollution policies by independent panelAPRIL 24, 2003
White House unveils pro-industry chemical security billAPRIL 28, 2003
White House bans EPA from discussing perchlorate pollutionMAY 2, 2003
Vehicle fuel economy drops to 22-year low of 20.8 mpg, says EPA reportMAY 2, 2003
Permits for cross-border power lines from Mexican power plants illegal, says federal judgeMAY 5, 2003
Navy's use of sonar causes "stampede"–and possibly death–of marine mammals in Puget SoundMAY 7, 2003
EPA drops "senior death discount" calculation (see DECEMBER 18, 2002)MAY 13, 2003
Fish and Wildlife Service signs off on mining in Montana's Cabinet Mountains WildernessMAY 14, 2003
White House's $247 billion transportation plan slashes environmental protectionMAY 14, 2003
EPA proposes easing, delaying smog-control rulesMAY 21, 2003
Christine Todd Whitman, embattled EPA chief, resignsMAY 30, 2003
Park Service opens Maryland and Virginia's Assateague Island National Seashore to Jet SkisMAY 30, 2003
Forest-fire plan eliminates environmental review of logging projects under 1,000 acresJUNE 2, 2003
Energy Department announces$2 billion to $4 billion plan to build new "mini" nukesJUNE 3, 2003
Energy Department funds study on how to ease effects of global warming for Alaska oil drillersJUNE 5, 2003
Forest Service plan would triple logging limits in California's Sierra NevadaJUNE 9, 2003
USDA reverses Clinton ban on most logging and roadbuilding on 58.5 million acresJUNE 20, 2003
Defense Department reneges on plan to test for perchlorate pollution at U.S. basesJUNE 23, 2003
Bush administration again deletes references to dangers of global warming from EPA reportJUNE 27, 2003
Federal judge halts timber sale in Montana's Kootenai National ForestJULY 1, 2003
Autopsies link Navy sonar to porpoise deaths, environmentalists chargeJULY 8, 2003
Federal court rejects Cheney's argument for keeping energy-task-force records secretJULY 12, 2003
EPA refuses to regulate perchlorate and other drinking-water contaminantsJULY 17, 2003
Energy Department lobbies Congress for law to get around court ruling on nuke wasteJULY 17, 2003
Federal judge rules administration must redo water plan for Oregon/California Klamath RiverJULY 22, 2003
Army Corps of Engineers ruled in contempt for defying order to change Missouri River flowsJULY 24, 2003
Bush administration softens demand for outsourcing of federal jobs, including at national parksAUGUST 8, 2003
Bush administration settlement of timber suit could double logging in NorthwestAUGUST 11, 2003
Bush taps anti-environmental Utah governor Mike Leavitt to head EPAAUGUST 26, 2003
New EPA rules ignore mercury pollution from chlorine plantAUGUST 27, 2003
EPA excludes 17,000 facilities from upgrading pollution controls when installing new equipmentAUGUST 29, 2003
U.S. court rules against EPA's loopholes in mountaintop-removal-mining regulationsSEPTEMBER 2, 2003
EPA weakens ban on selling polluted sites by reinterpreting lawSEPTEMBER 2, 2003
EPA refuses to regulate ballast-water discharges from shipsSEPTEMBER 4, 2003
EPA finds 274 violations of laws for dumping mountaintop-mining debrisSEPTEMBER 22, 2003
White House's own study concludes benefits of environmental regulations far outweigh costsSEPTEMBER 23, 2003
Forest Service estimates $2 million lost in timber sale from Alaska's TongassSEPTEMBER 24, 2003
White House recommendations would undermine public participation in environmental planningSEPTEMBER 25, 2003
EPA proposes deal that would let polluting factory farms avoid prosecutionOCTOBER 1, 2003
Bush fails to renew energy-conservation program that saved government $300 million a yearOCTOBER 6, 2003
EPA rules that farmers can't sue pesticide makers if chemicals fail to meet stated claimsOCTOBER 10, 2003
Interior Department overturns limits on acreage where gold mines can dump wasteOCTOBER 10, 2003
Judge orders Interior Department to stop stalling on owl habitat protectionOCTOBER 10, 2003
EPA proposal to allow warmer waters behind Oregon dams threatens salmonidsOCTOBER 10, 2003
EPA inspector general criticizes agency for lax enforcementOCTOBER 13, 2003
Bush administration proposes lifting ban on importing endangered speciesOCTOBER 13, 2003
$18.6 million Forest Service study says outsourcing its jobs would rarely be cost-effectiveOCTOBER 17, 2003
EPA announces it will not regulate dioxins in sewage sludge dumped on landOCTOBER 31, 2003
EPA declines to restrict use of pesticide atrazineNOVEMBER 4, 2003
Superfund cleanups lag for third straight yearNOVEMBER 4, 2003
Environmentalists criticize revised everglades-recovery plan for failing to ensure natural water flowNOVEMBER 13, 2003
Park Service workers charge that Bush policies will "destroy the grand legacy of our national parks"NOVEMBER 14, 2003
Bush administration loses bid to increase ozone-depleting methyl bromideNOVEMBER 18, 2003
Administration admits blame for kill of 34,000 salmonids in Klamath River (see SEPTEMBER 21, 2002)NOVEMBER 18, 2003
EPA proposes looser regulations on dumping low-level radioactive waste in landfillsDECEMBER 3, 2003
Bush signs "Healthy Forests" bill: more logging, less species protection on millions of acresDECEMBER 4, 2003
EPA seeks to reclassify mercury as "nontoxic"DECEMBER 5, 2003
Bureau of Land Management proposes weakening rules for grazing livestock on federal landDECEMBER 9, 2003
Federal violation notices to polluters down almost 60 percent; almost 30 percent fewer finesDECEMBER 16, 2003
White House abandons plans to weaken Clean Water Act protections for wetlandsDECEMBER 17, 2003
Defense Department urged to protect endangered tortoise during robot raceDECEMBER 17, 2003
Federal judge overturns administration decision not to protect orcas in Puget SoundDECEMBER 19, 2003
Forest Service opens grizzly bear habitat to snowmobiles in Montana's Flathead National ForestDECEMBER 23, 2003
Forest Service continues to allow logging in Tongass, world's largest temperate rainforestDECEMBER 24, 2003
Federal court blocks EPA plan to weaken Clean Air Act by exempting power plants from reviewJANUARY 1, 2004
Only 50 companies agree to Bush administration's voluntary plan to cut global-warming emissionsJANUARY 8, 2004
$175 million Superfund shortfall prevents cleanups at 11 sites, slows down othersJANUARY 7, 2004
White House proposes overturning ban on mining near streamsJANUARY 9, 2004
Pentagon to seek more environmental exemptionsJANUARY 9, 2004
Forest Service limits citizens' right to challenge logging plans by appeal or in courtJANUARY 13, 2004
Federal court overturns Bush administration's weakening of energy efficiency for air conditionersJANUARY, 21 2004
Interior secretary asks to triple number of gas-drilling permits in WyomingJANUARY 22, 2004
EPA scales back monitoring of smokestack pollutionJANUARY 22, 2004
Interior Department opens 9 million acres on Alaska's North Slope to oil drillingJANUARY 23, 2004
Forest Service plans to boost logging on up to 3.2 million acres of Appalachian forestsJANUARY 27, 2004
White House says EPA doesn't have to study pesticide effects on imperiled wildlifeJANUARY 29, 2004
Bush administration proposes letting contractors police federal nuclear-plant safetyJANUARY 30, 2004
Parts of EPA's mercury-pollution plan lifted verbatim from industry memosFEBRUARY 2, 2004
Bush budget proposes $10 million cut in funds for endangered speciesFEBRUARY 5, 2004
EPA admits twice as many children (630,000) in danger from mercury exposureFEBRUARY 6, 2004
Clean Air Act changes undermining enforcement, says former EPA officialFEBRUARY 9, 2004
Energy development allowed inside Colorado and Utah's Dinosaur National MonumentFEBRUARY 11, 2004
Forest Service plan allows mining, drilling in Alabama's national forestsFEBRUARY 13, 2004
EPA no longer to require "worst case scenarios" from industryFEBRUARY 15, 2004
Forest Service allows poisoning of prairie dogs in four statesFEBRUARY 16, 2004
White House ignores threat from gasoline additive MTBEFEBRUARY 18, 2004
U.S. Navy plans to dredge endangered turtle habitat in Key WestFEBRUARY 18, 2004
20 Nobel Prize—winning scientists say administration distorts science for political gainFEBRUARY 24, 2004
Federal mine-safety official demoted after questioning mine accident investigationFEBRUARY 27, 2004
Missouri River management plan ignores fish protectionsMARCH 3, 2004
Administration proposes to relax rules on killing wolves in Idaho and MontanaMARCH 9, 2004
358 conservation scientists urge administration to halt plan to import endangered speciesMARCH 10, 2004
Forest Service hires PR firm to promote Sierra Nevada plan that would triple loggingMARCH 11, 2004
EPA inspector general says agency's rosy drinking-water assessments used false dataMARCH 12, 2004
Forest Service relents: no snowmobiles in grizzly habitat in Montana's Flathead National ForestMARCH 15, 2004
Court rules BLM illegally opened Montana area to off-road vehiclesMARCH 16, 2004
EPA approves plan to inject toxic waste underground in Michigan wellsMARCH 19, 2004
FDA warnings on mercury in tuna not strong enough, scientists chargeMARCH 24, 2004
NRDC sues Bush administration for withholding records on perchlorate in drinking waterMARCH 25, 2004
BLM suspends plans for energy development at Dinosaur National Monument, Colo. and UtahMARCH 26, 2004
Delay in phaseout of dangerous methyl bromide pesticide negotiated by United StatesMARCH 30, 2004
Federal court orders Bush administration to release forest-planning documentsMARCH 31, 2004
Federal judge orders Energy Department to release more Cheney energy-task-force recordsMARCH 31, 2004
EPA prosecution of environmental crimes even weaker under new administratorAPRIL 1, 2004
Bush administration worked behind scenes to weaken European Union chemical safety rulesAPRIL 1, 2004
Mining whistleblower accuses Bush administration of cover-up in huge coal-sludge spillAPRIL 2, 2004
Bush administration sells 155 acres in Colorado to Phelps Dodge Corporation for $875APRIL 6, 2004
EPA weakens safety rules for rat poison at industry's behestAPRIL 7, 2004
White House downplays effects of mercury from coal-fired power plantsAPRIL 8, 2004
Interior secretary allows aerial hunting of Alaska wolves to continueAPRIL 9, 2004
Interior Department blocks release of data on oil drilling to Environmental Working GroupAPRIL 11, 2004
Bush administration budget asks for $35 million cut in lead-poisoning preventionAPRIL 13, 2004
Administration spending more on nuclear weapons research than in Cold War, report saysAPRIL 15, 2004
Fish and Wildlife Service rejects protection for Yellowstone trumpeter swansAPRIL 19, 2004
39 state attorneys general urge denial of Pentagon's request for environmental exemptionsAPRIL 20, 2004
Yellowstone Park employees advised to wear hearing protection from snowmobile noiseAPRIL 22, 2004
National Council of Churches strongly criticizes Bush's air-pollution policiesAPRIL 28, 2004
USDA weakens organic-food standards, allowing hormones, feed raised with pesticidesAPRIL 28, 2004
Interior Department limits designations of critical habitat for endangered speciesAPRIL 29, 2004
Report shows that more than half of all Americans live in areas with hazardous levels of smogMAY 3, 2004
Power companies have raised $6.6 million for Bush, Republicans, report saysMAY 12, 2004
Scientists say Yucca Mountain nuclear facility could leak far sooner than Energy Department claimsMAY 21, 2004
Whistle-blowing federal biologist quits over politicized decision-makingMAY 21, 2004
EPA officials with timber ties weaken toxic formaldehyde standards for plywood industryMAY 26, 2004
USDA backs down, keeps organic-food standards (see APRIL 28, 2004)MAY 27, 2004
U.S. Army retracts order to cut some environmental-protection practicesMAY 28, 2004
Army Corps lets sewers, ditches "mitigate" loss of streams to mountaintop-removal miningMAY 28, 2004
A dozen major national parks hit by cutbacks to visitor services and staffingJUNE 1, 2004
Federal court rejects EPA's proposed snowmobile standardsJUNE 1, 2004
Administration delays greater protection for marbled murrelet to benefit timber industryJUNE 2, 2004
Exemption of military from migratory-bird-protection rules proposed by administrationJUNE 2, 2004
New EPA rules allow more fine-particle pollution from 1,000 industrial plantsJUNE 3, 2004
Bush's 2005 budget zeroes out funding for research on abrupt climate changeJUNE 7, 2004
Bush wins ruling to allow Mexican trucks into U.S. without meeting clean-air standardsJUNE 8, 2004
Reduction in Snake and Columbia River water releases, harming Northwest salmon, announcedJUNE 15, 2004
Administration's pro-oil, pro-nuke energy proposal stalled in CongressJUNE 24, 2004
Supreme Court ruling allows Cheney to keep energy-task-force secrets until after electionJULY 8, 2004
Bush team pushes one of biggest timber sales in U.S. history under guise of fire protectionJULY 12, 2004
Administration proposes forcing states to pay 2.5 times more for public transit than for roadsJULY 12, 2004
Administration to eliminate Clinton-era roadless rule, ending protections for 58.5 million acresJULY 16, 2004
Fish and Wildlife Service to end protection for eastern wolves and abandon reintroduction plansJULY 16, 2004
Bush refuses to release $34 million for international family planning appropriated by CongressNOVEMBER 2, 2004
ELECTION DAYfrom SIERRA magazine, September/October 2004 http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra=</div></div></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</div></div></div>