Bush and the Environment
Are the president's policies helping or hurting?
By Mary H. Cooper

Since taking office two years ago, President Bush has sought to reverse an array of regulations and longstanding environmental-protection laws. Administration officials say many of the old rules actually were harming the environment and the economy — such as by permitting delays in removing flammable deadwood from forests or by barring oil and gas production on public land. Bush also repudiated. . . .

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Should the government relax emissions rules on older power plants?

Jeffrey Holmstead Assistant Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency . From testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Public Health, Sept. 3, 2002	Carol M. Browner Former Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency (1993-2001). From testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Public Health, Sept. 3, 2002

Key Bush Officials' Ties to Industry

President Bush has filled several key policy positions with people who have strong ties to industries opposed to environmental-protection laws. Some of the appointees even advocated the repeal or weakening of the very laws they were hired to enforce.

Bush himself is a former executive with Harken Energy Corp., a Texas oil-drilling firm. He chose fellow oilman Dick Cheney, then CEO of the oil-services firm Halliburton Corp., as his running mate in his successful bid for the White House in 2000. He then picked many of his administration's other top officials from the energy, mining and timber industries, all of which have chafed under regulations designed to curb pollution.

Topping the list of appointees hostile to existing environmental-protection programs is Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a former U.S. senator from Michigan who in 1999 actually proposed abolishing the department he was picked to head barely two years later. Abraham — whose home state is the center of the U.S. automobile industry — also voted against stronger fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks and for cuts to federal funding aimed at spurring the development of less-polluting renewable-energy sources.

Abraham helped craft the administration's national energy policy, presented last year, which calls for increased domestic production of fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas — which when burned produce gases and other air pollutants thought to contribute to global warming. The plan also calls for opening more public land, including 2,000 acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), to drilling and mining operations. The energy plan is currently under consideration in the Senate, where Democrats have refused to go along with drilling in ANWR. Abraham's lifetime environmental voting record earned a low 5 percent rating this year from the League of Conservation Voters.

Meanwhile, oil and gas exploration and production is proceeding apace on other federal lands, especially in the Intermountain West, thanks to rulemaking changes backed by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Norton came from the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative property-rights advocacy group headed by James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's controversial Interior secretary (1981-83). The foundation supports opening public lands to logging and mining and recently announced plans to file a suit to block the proposed new listing of a rare mouse under the Endangered Species Act, a law Norton is responsible for implementing.

As Colorado's attorney general, Norton cut her agency's budget for enforcing environmental laws by a third. Since taking office, she has overseen a massive expansion of drilling for oil, gas and coal-bed methane in the Rockies, including on some national monuments. She withdrew a report from the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service that was critical of mountaintop removal. The controversial coal-mining technique pollutes downstream water in much of Appalachia. Norton later delayed completion of a study on the technique's environmental impact.

The records of other key Bush officials are less blatantly anti-environmental. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, whose domain includes the Forest Service and such environmental issues as pesticide regulations and genetically modified food, worked for a law firm that fought President Clinton's proposed moratorium on road building in national forests. But she has won praise from environmentalists for supporting farm-conservation programs, though to little avail. This year's farm bill actually cut some of those programs. And Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service, another Interior Department agency, won conservationists' praise for her management of Florida's state park system. Yet she also went along with Norton in reversing a Clinton ban on recreational snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks last summer.

The Bush administration official with the most visible role in environmental policy enforcement is Christine Todd Whitman, head of the independent Environmental Protection Agency. As governor of New Jersey, Whitman had a mixed record on environmental issues. A strong supporter of so-called smart growth, she set up a program to save open space and discourage suburban sprawl. But she also loosened rules requiring industries to report their use and release of toxic chemicals. Since becoming EPA administrator, Whitman has continued to garner mixed reviews from environmentalists, who welcome some of her decisions, including one forcing General Electric to clean up its deposits of deadly dioxin from the Hudson River. But she is faulted for defending the Bush administration's loosening of rules requiring older power plants to install modern anti-pollution equipment.

Conservationists have been critical of Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, left, and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. (CQ/Scott Ferrell (both)

It is at lower echelons of government that less visible political appointees with industry ties are making some of the most sweeping changes to environmental policies through the rulemaking process. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, for example, was a longtime timber-company lobbyist before becoming the administration's top forestry official. Rey helped shape the president's Healthy Forests Initiative, which would let his former clients harvest more large, commercially valuable trees in national forests in exchange for agreeing to clear them of fire-prone undergrowth. Only about half the changes called for under the plan require congressional approval.

Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles was a mining and energy industry lobbyist before joining the department that oversees both industries' access to public lands. He has come under scrutiny for potential conflict of interest stemming from his alleged interest in firms that stand to benefit from such department decisions as the issuance of permits for mining and mountaintop removal.

[1] League of Conservation Voters, “Presidential Report Card,” January 2002. Information in this section is based on this report unless otherwise noted.

Footnote: 1. League of Conservation Voters, “Presidential Report Card,” January 2002. Information in this section is based on this report unless otherwise noted.

[2] “Group Threatens Lawsuit to Keep Mouse Off Endangered List,” Associated Press Newswires, Aug. 1, 2002.

Footnote: 2. “Group Threatens Lawsuit to Keep Mouse Off Endangered List,” Associated Press Newswires, Aug. 1, 2002.

[3] See John Raby, “Mining Study Not Expected Until February,” Associated Press Newswires, Aug. 2, 2002.

Footnote: 3. See John Raby, “Mining Study Not Expected Until February,” Associated Press Newswires, Aug. 2, 2002.

[4] See Jake Thompson, “Farm-State Lawmakers Rip USDA Officials,” Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 24, 2002.

Footnote: 4. See Jake Thompson, “Farm-State Lawmakers Rip USDA Officials,” Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 24, 2002.

[5] See Michael Kilian, “Park Service Tweaks Snowmobile Policy; New Guidelines to Avert Total Ban,” Chicago Tribune, June 27, 2002.

Footnote: 5. See Michael Kilian, “Park Service Tweaks Snowmobile Policy; New Guidelines to Avert Total Ban,” Chicago Tribune, June 27, 2002.

[6] See H. Josef Hebert, “Bid to Ease Pollution Standards Under Fire,” Houston Chronicle, Sept. 4, 2002.

Footnote: 6. See H. Josef Hebert, “Bid to Ease Pollution Standards Under Fire,” Houston Chronicle, Sept. 4, 2002.

[7] See Eric Pianin, “Official's Lobbying Ties Decried,” The Washington Post, April 25, 2002; and “Boxer Seeks Conflict Probe in Mine Ruling,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 5, 2002.

Footnote: 7. See Eric Pianin, “Official's Lobbying Ties Decried,” The Washington Post, April 25, 2002; and “Boxer Seeks Conflict Probe in Mine Ruling,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 5, 2002.