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George W. uttered two words the other day during an elongated Q&A with reporters in Texas that may reveal the most far-reaching strategy of his presidency.
After unveiling his Treasury secretary-designate, George W. was asked about
dealing with a possible economic slowdown, to which he said he has a "plan" -- such as "less regulations" to rescue the economy from a nose dive.
The notion of "less regulations" may warm the hearts of laissez faire purists
who believe everything goes. But it should send shivers through Americans who
have a more thoughtful vision of their country.
The phrase "less regulations" is a recycled version of "jobs, not the environment" that industry used unsuccessfully as a propaganda chant to fight environmental regulations and workplace safety and health rules.
If oil and some of its allies anticipate "less regulations" out of the Bush White House, it won't be coincidence: George W. worked in oil, Vice President-elect Cheney was in oil, Bush's Commerce secretary-elect still is connected to Big Oil, and his Secretary of State-elect, Gen. Colin Powell, engineered the Desert Storm liberation of Kuwaiti's oil fields.
"Less regulations" and indifferent enforcement have dire results: consider the
city of Houston in George Bush's Texas: the city has the distinction of being
listed as having the nation's foulest air pollution.
After years of giant leaps of progress, are we on the brink of taking giant steps backward?
http://www.mtexpress.com/2000/12-27-00/00-12-27murphy.htm
Friends of the Earth: George Bush Declares War on the Environment, Nominates Extreme Anti-Environmentalist as Interior Secretary
The nomination of Gale Norton to be Secretary of Interior signals that President-elect Bush is not interested in a balanced approach to environment and natural resources issues. Norton spent four years as a staffer at the Mountain States Legal Foundation (founded by Joseph Coors, an industry supported group whose alumni include Reagan's infamous Secretary of Interior James Watt and Ann
Gorsuch, Reagan's EPA Administrator).
The agenda of the Mountain States Legal Foundation has included aggressive litigation against environmental protections, a "takings" agenda to pay polluters to obey the law, an effort to dismantle the Endangered Species Act, and a campaign to deny the seriousness of air pollution and the existence of global warming.
"The nomination of Gale Norton amounts to a declaration of war on the environment," said Dr. Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth.
The Secretary of Interior is responsible for management of the majority of the federally owned lands in the United States, having jurisdiction over about 70 percent of the 740 million acres of these lands (roughly one third of the total land area of our nation).
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0102-119.html
Jan. 3, 2000
Searching questions must also be asked of Interior-designee Gale A. Norton, who served at Interior in the bad old days under James Watt. ...John Ashcroft and Gale Norton deserve close, fair-minded scrutiny. If their views really prove to be hostile to the stated mission of the departments they would lead, they should not be confirmed.
http://www.newsday.com/ap/topnews/ap145.htm
The nomination of former Senator Spencer Abraham and former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton to head the departments of Energy and Interior, respectively, is a giant step backwards for environmental protection, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) concluded today. Bush announced Abraham's nomination today and Norton's last Friday.
"We are stunned by President-elect Bush's appointment of Abraham, a member of LCV's 2000 Dirty Dozen list, and our number one target for defeat last year," said LCV President Deb Callahan. "He even co-sponsored a bill to abolish the very department he's been nominated to lead. In Norton, Bush has nominated someone
whose environmental ethic is a throwback to the James Watt era -- one of the darkest periods of natural resource exploitation. These appointments don't reflect the reality that conservatism and conservation shouldn't be treated as conflicting values."
Abraham, who served as a U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1995 to 2000, compiled an abysmal lifetime LCV environmental voting score of five percent -- the worst in Michigan and the worst in the Great Lakes region. In the last Congress, Abraham earned a failing score of zero percent. LCV named Abraham to its 2000 Dirty Dozen list of anti-environment congressional candidates and spent $700,000 in a successful effort to inform voters of his anti-environment record and ensure his defeat. In 1999, Abraham was one of four senators to sponsor a bill to abolish the Energy Department. Also that year, he voted against stronger fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks and to cut funding for renewable energy programs.
Abraham also supported numerous legislative riders to eliminate the EPA's role in protecting wetlands and to prohibit the EPA from regulating arsenic in drinking water. In 1998, he supported a rider to the Fiscal Year 2000 Interior Appropriations bill that would have legalized unlimited mine waste dumping on public lands. In 2000, Abraham's re-election campaign accepted more campaign
contributions from polluting industries and interests than any other congressional candidate -- over $700,000. Norton is a protege of James Watt, President Reagan's controversial Interior secretary from 1981 to 1983. She worked for Watt while he was president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative organization that strongly supports "takings" legislation and logging and mining on the nation's public lands. She also served in the Reagan administration, first in the Agriculture Department and then in the Interior Department where she helped advocate for the Reagan administration's position on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As Colorado Attorney General, Norton was instrumental in creating the state's "self audit" program, which gives businesses immunity from litigation and fines if they voluntarily report and correct
violations of environmental laws. She is also a former co-chair of the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates (CREA), an industry-funded front group whose members include such anti-environment foes as Representative Chenoweth-Hage and House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young.
"Abraham and Norton's nominations are terrible news for the majority of Americans who rank protecting the nation's air, water and national resources among their top priorities," said LCV President Deb Callahan. "While Bush's appointment of Christie Todd Whitman to head the Environmental Protection Agency appeared to be a step in the right direction, his choices of Abraham and Norton are signs of environmental regress, not progress."
To date, Bush has nominated Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to be secretary of Transportation. Mineta, a Democratic member of the House from 1975 to 1995, earned a lifetime environmental average of 75 percent. In addition, John Ashcroft has been nominated to serve as attorney general. Ashcroft, a former U.S. Senator from Missouri, earned a lifetime LCV environmental rating of five percent for his votes on key environmental legislation from 1995 to 2000. He repeatedly voted against funding for clean air and water and against increased funding for the cleanup of toxic waste sites. Bush has also named Ann Veneman as his choice for agriculture secretary and Donald Evans, Bush campaign chairman and the chairman of an oil company, as commerce secretary. Both Evans and Veneman will have significant jurisdiction over key environmental policies pertaining to such hot-button environmental issues as genetically modified food, trade and environment, and marine and coastal protections.
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0102-128.html
 
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