George W. Bush's Views of Environmental issues


		AcuSafe Home Page -> September Newsletter
		George W. Bush's Views of Environmental Issues

With the Fall Presidential elections just around the corner, AcuSafe thought a comparison of the major party candidates would be timely and important. This month's profile features George W. Bush. Next month will feature the views of Al Gore.

George W. Bush

His Message

"Prosperity will mean little if we leave to future generations a world of polluted air, toxic lakes and rivers, and vanished fields and forests. Most Americans share this conviction. The debate today is over how best to apply it. The old system of mandate, regulate, and litigate only sends potential developers off in search of greener pastures. . . . Washington’s command-and-control mindset is an obstacle to reform. The solution is not to eliminate the federal role in protecting the environment; the solution is reform, reform that sets high standards and produces results."

His National Policy Positions

Cooperation with Industry, Not Command and Control

The best way to achieve clean air & water was “to work with local jurisdictions using market-based solutions and not try to sue our way or regulate our way to clean air & water.” His aides say Bush has pursued a cooperative approach that emphasizes voluntary solutions instead of government mandates.

Science-Based Solutions

Believes environmental standards must be based on the best science, market-driven technologies can provide solutions, and government should encourage innovation and going beyond compliance
Recognizes that global warming should be taken seriously but will require any decisions to be based on the best science

Incentives for Private Land Stewardship

Fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provide 50% for state and local conservation efforts.
Provide matching grants for states to establish a Landowner Incentive Program to help private landowners protect rare species while engaging in traditional land management practices, and establish a Private Stewardship Grant Program to provide funding for private conservation initiatives.
Establish the President’s Awards for Private Stewardship to recognize and honor the best examples of private conservation.
Create a tax incentive to provide capital gains tax relief for private landowners who voluntarily sell their land for conservation purposes.
Eliminate the estate tax. This will make it easier for private landowners to pass their land intact to the next generation.

Conservation Partnerships

Supports conservation partnerships between the federal government and state governments, local communities and private landowners. The federal role is to provide the scientific and financial resources, not "penalties, and dictation from afar."

Brownfields Initiative

Direct the EPA to establish high standards for brownfield cleanups that will provide more flexibility than the current Superfund standards
Provide protection from federal liability at brownfields cleaned up under state programs that meet high federal standards
Focus on developing cleanup techniques and new cleanup technologies
Reform the Brownfield Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund by cutting the red tape and block granting the funds to the states
Extend permanently the Brownfield cleanup tax incentive that is scheduled to expire on December 31, 2001
Direct active federal facilities to comply with the environmental protection laws and hold them accountable.

Support Maintenance of Existing National Parks

Direct the federal government to prioritize all major maintenance and resource protection projects by April 2001 and then working with Congress to come up with the money to carry it out.
De-emphasize the acquisition of new public lands and focus on maintaining existing properties.

Repeal Superfund (CERCLA) and the Endangered Species Act?

Bush has been critical of CERCLA calling it expensive, inefficient, and has had a "chilling effect on brownfield cleanup." In his 1994 campaign for governor, he lashed out against the Endangered Species Act as overly intrusive on landowners. He has not yet called for their outright repeal publicly, but has said that ESA should be amended to limit habitats eligible to be designated endangered.

Opposes Kyoto Protocol

Opposes the Kyoto protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gases around the world. Gore led the U.S. team in support of the protocol.

Oil Drilling

Supports moratorium against offshore drilling in California and Florida
Supports oil exploration and development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

What He Says About His Record

Signed legislation seeking emissions reductions from grandfathered (older, un-permitted) sources by signing legislation. Under this legislation, Texas becomes the third state to require pollution reductions and permits from grandfathered utilities.
In just two years (1995-97), Texas manufacturing facilities reduced their releases and disposal of toxics by 43 million pounds - a 14 percent reduction - more than all the other 49 states’ total reduction combined.
Since 1995, Texas’ voluntary cleanup program has cleaned up over 450 contaminated properties - creating nearly 8,000 jobs, restoring $200 million to local property tax rolls, and revitalizing communities across the state.
More than 96% of Texas public drinking water meets all standards, up from 88% in 1995.
In 1999, Governor Bush and the Texas Legislature provided over $55 million for water quality and supply initiatives.
Under Governor Bush, state funding for natural resources increased 28 percent - from $1,284.3 billion in 1994-95 to $1,652.9 in 2000-01.
Under Governor Bush, state funding for the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC) increased 14 percent - from $589.5 million in 1994-95 to $674 million in 2000-01.
Under Governor Bush, 45 Superfund sites were cleaned and removed from the federal list. From 1985 to 1994, only 10 sites were cleaned up.
State spending on Superfund cleanup projects has increased every year of Governor Bush's term.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1998 Toxic Release Inventory (the most recent data available from the EPA, released in May 2000), Texas dropped from first to fifth place.

What His Detractors Say About His Record

In 1999, Houston surpassed Los Angeles as the smoggiest city in the U.S. Texas as a whole had more smog alerts in 1999 than any other state. Texas ranked ahead of all states in the discharge of recognized carcinogens into the air. It leads the nation in the number of factories violating clean-water standards. It leads the nation in the injection of toxic waste into underground wells.
According to the Sierra Club, Texas ranks first in toxic releases to the environment, first in total toxic air emissions from industrial facilities, first in toxic chemical accidents, and first in cancer-causing pollution.
Every year since 1995, Texas has been the most polluted state in the nation, leading in combined releases to the air, water and soil. After a much-hyped one-year drop in releases and disposal of toxics by manufacturing facilities in 1995, emissions have leveled off. Texas has a total release amount for the manufacturing sector that in 1998 was almost 50% higher than second ranked Louisiana. Texas' drop in the total emissions rankings from first place in 1997 to fifth place in 1998 is due entirely to EPA including metal mining, coal mining, electric utilities, RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities, chemicals distributors, petroleum bulk terminals, and solvent recovery services in the toxic release inventory for the 1998 reporting year.
One of his first acts as Texas Governor was to help gut the state's auto emissions testing program, which protracted an already alarming urban air quality crisis
The Texas air quality crisis was looming and the state was facing federal sanctions for air quality non-attainment for several Texas cities. In response, the TNRCC (the Texas version of EPA) was internally pushing for much stricter standards at industrial facilities, and requiring certain stricter controls for industry, including facilities that were grandfathered under the 1971 Clean Air Act. In response to mounting pressure, Bush pushed a voluntary-permits plan for so-called ‘grandfathered companies.’ Bush quietly shunted aside TNRCC proposals for an end to grandfathered pollution, pushing instead his own program of voluntary compliance. He hand-picked oil executives from Marathon Oil and Exxon to craft a plan that fit industry needs, and a working group of grandfathered companies met in secret for six months, with no public input, to create the new program. Bush's staff supervised the program's transfer back to TNRCC for “further development,” including belated public input that did not result in meaningful changes. Legislation was created mirroring this plan. (Read the Texas Observer article for more information)
When Bush became governor, "his first appointment to the state's environmental protection agency, the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission, was Ralph Marquez, an executive who had spent 30 years with the Monsanto Chemical Company and had served as the chairman of the environmental regulation committee of the Texas Chemical Council, a trade association.... Three weeks after Mr. Marquez's appointment, the commission scuttled a plan, already in the works, to issue smog health advisories that would warn residents whenever there were particularly high ozone levels in and around Houston.
Bush's "record" on Superfund cleanups merely reflects a national trend of this Federal program. Remediation completions rose nationally from 155 in January 1993 to 498 by September 1997.

Sources:
Information about what George W. Bush's says about his record and his message come from the official Bush-Cheney web site. Most rebuttal material about his policies come from the sites George W. Bush 2000 and gwbush.com. Some rebuttal information comes from inspection of EPA TRI data from 1995 - 1998.