The administration of Bush the Lesser appears to be ceding the regulatory process to the industries regulated. So says Elizabeth Kolbert in a New Yorker piece entitled “Bad Environments.” And she offers substantial evidence.
In early May, the trade association representing the mining industry convinced Junior to allow the waste produced during the removal of mountaintops to mine coal to be dumped anywhere, including surrounding bodies of water. The change, according to Kolbert, is “the most significant rollback of the Clean Water Act since it was passed in 1972, and, according to a federal court decision issued in West Virginia last week, is of dubious legality.”
And then there’s the case of Junior’s adult supervision, Vice President Dick Cheney, doing a fast two-step sashay to avoid disclosing records of his energy task force. The records were finally turned over a week before the mining rules were finalized after the Natural Resources Defense Council and Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the administration. Kolbert illustrates why Cheney mightily resisted the disclosure: “‘If you were King, or Il Duce, what would you include in a national energy policy, especially with respect to natural gas issues?’ one email sent by a staff member to a natural-gas-industry lobbyist asked.”
The laundry list of environmental plunder certainly doesn’t stop there and Kolbert does an excellent job of deconstructing the Bush administration’s policies with regard to the environment.
Highly recommended.
0 responses. Comments closed for this article.