A partial list of results from Bush's first term.

-For the first time since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, water
pollution levels are rising according to EPA.
-A Bush White House proposal would allow twice as much sulfur dioxide
and three times more mercury emission than if the Clean Air Act were
fully implemented.
-Auto fuel efficiency has dropped to its lowest level in 20 years under
Bush policies encouraging consumers to buy SUV's.
- The Lake Erie dead zone is increasing for the first time in 30 years.

-Superfund cleanups have declined by 50 percent since Bush took office.

-Last year, EPA's two most senior enforcement officials resigned citing
the Bush administration's refusal to enforce environmental laws.
-After taking office, the Bush administration ordered EPA to halt Clean
Air Act investigations of animal factories and weaken water rules to
allow them to continue to dump waste into streams and rivers.
-The Bush administration suppressed the EPA inspector general's finding
of public health risks from poisoned air following 9/11.
- James Zahn, a scientist at Dept of Agriculture, resigned after Bush
suppressed his study proving that billions of antibiotic resistant
bacteria can be carried daily across property lines from meat factories
into neighborhoods.
- the White House blocked EPA staff from publicly discussing
perchlorate (rocket fuel) contamination, then froze federal regulations
on perchlorate in spite of new research showing high levels in drinking
water and food.
- Interior Secretary Gale Norton promised not to ideologically slant
agency science. Her friend Tom Sansonetti, former coal industry
lobbyist who is now assistant attorney general predicted: "There won't
be any biologists or botanists to come in and pull the wool over her
eyes."
- After providing the Senate Committee on Energy with Interior's
scientific assessment that Arctic oil drilling would not harm herds of
caribou, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists provided the data they
had given to Norton to a watchdog agency. There were seventeen major
changes to their report, all of which minimized reported impacts.
Norton called them typographical errors.
-White House political adviser Karl Rove forced National Marine
Fisheries scientists to alter findings on the amount of water required
for salmon to survive in the Klamath, to make sure large corporate
farms got a bigger share of river water. Result: 33,000 chinook and
coho salmon died, the largest fish kill in U.S. history.
-Mike Kelly, the biologist who drafted the original (suppressed)
opinion has been awarded federal whistleblower status. He says coho are
headed for extinction: "Morale is low among scientists here. We are
under pressure to get the right results. The administration is putting
species at risk for political gain--and not just in the Klamath."
-Norton ordered rewritten a 12-year study by federal biologists on
effects of Arctic drilling on musk oxen and snow geese. She reissued
the report two weeks later as a two page paper showing no negative
impact to wildlife.
-Norton order the suppression of two studies by the Fish and Wildlife
Service concluding that drilling would threaten polar bears and violate
the international treaty protecting the bears. She instructed F&WS to
redo the report to "reflect the Interior Department's position."
-Under Norton this is the first Fish and Wildlife Service that has not
voluntarily listed a single species as endangered or threatened.

Bush will be remembered as the president with the worst environmental
record--hands down.

JV

wrote:


-A Bush White House proposal would allow twice as much sulfur dioxide
and three times more mercury emission than if the Clean Air Act were
fully implemented...


West Virginia recently updated consumption advisories for fish caught
in the state, these include limits on fish consumption of fish caught
*statewide*. Most of the mercury pollution in WV results from power
plants and boilers that burn coal as an energy source. For the
advisories, see:
http://www.wvdhhr.org/fish/current.asp#sect3





--
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon

Was flipping channels and caught heard that "particle" polution has lessened
by 10% in the last four years. Don't remember which network, but I'm sure it
was not one of the major 3
"Frederick Burroughs" wrote in message
...
wrote:


-A Bush White House proposal would allow twice as much sulfur dioxide
and three times more mercury emission than if the Clean Air Act were
fully implemented...


West Virginia recently updated consumption advisories for fish caught
in the state, these include limits on fish consumption of fish caught
*statewide*. Most of the mercury pollution in WV results from power
plants and boilers that burn coal as an energy source. For the
advisories, see:
http://www.wvdhhr.org/fish/current.asp#sect3





--
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon

-A Bush White House proposal would allow twice as much sulfur dioxide
and three times more mercury emission than if the Clean Air Act were
fully implemented...



Was flipping channels and caught heard that "particle" polution has
lessened
by 10% in the last four years. Don't remember which network, but I'm sure
it
was not one of the major 3

I'm guessing "Pravda"...er, Fox News.

Mike B wrote:

Was flipping channels and caught heard that "particle" polution has lessened
by 10% in the last four years. Don't remember which network, but I'm sure it
was not one of the major 3


There's this from the Associated Press (AP):



December 18, 2004
EPA Says 225 Counties Fail Air Standards
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:13 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday
identified 225 counties in 20 states that don't meet new clean air
standards designed to protect against one of the tiniest but most
harmful pollutants -- microscopic soot.

The counties and the District of Columbia will have to move quickly to
come into compliance. They have three years to devise a
pollution-reduction plan for fine particles and then must meet federal
standards by 2010.

Failure to comply could mean a county will have to limit development
and its state could lose federal highway dollars.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt announced the list, which included 18
fewer counties than the agency identified in a preliminary report in
June. He emphasized the agency was for the first time specifically
regulating for fine particles, or soot, that are 2.5 micrometers in
diameter -- 1/30th the width of a human hair. Such pollution comes
from power plants, car exhaust, diesel-burning trucks, wood-burning
stoves and other sources.

EPA considers it potentially the most significant air quality health
standard, because soot can penetrate deeply into the lungs.

``This is not a story about the air getting dirtier,'' Leavitt told a
news conference. ``It is a story about higher, more stringent
standards and healthier air.''

About 95 million people live in the 225 counties and the nation's
capital. EPA estimates the new standard, once met, will prevent at
least 15,000 premature deaths, 95,000 cases of bronchitis and 10,000
hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

All but three of the states -- Missouri, California and Montana -- are
east of the Mississippi River. The counties and states at issue might
modify transportation plans, require new pollution controls when
factories expand or impose stricter vehicle emission and inspection
programs.

``We're going to implement over the course of the next few months new
national tools,'' Leavitt said. ``In essence we're going to do the
same thing for smokestacks that we have done for tailpipes.''

In some cases, the EPA could grant five-year extensions, letting
jurisdictions take up to 2015 to comply with the new rule.

Environmentalists say states will find it tough to impossible to meet
the standard without accompanying action to reduce soot pollution from
power plants. President Bush decided last week to delay at least until
March putting in place a companion regulation he promised on the
campaign trail that would address pollution drifting among states.

``This is also a story about EPA failing to finalize rules to clean up
power plant pollution,'' said Michael Shore, an air policy specialist
at Environmental Defense, an advocacy group. ``The Bush administration
frankly deserves a lump of coal for its failure to protect the health
of our children from power plant pollution.''

The largest concentrations of counties in noncompliance with the new
soot standard are in the Los Angeles basin and interior central
California; the urban corridor from New York City to Washington; the
Ohio River Valley; Atlanta; St. Louis; Chicago, and Detroit. The only
other Western area was a small corner of northwestern Montana.

In May, governors gave EPA a list of 141 counties they viewed as
failing to meet the soot requirements. EPA broadened that to include
many other counties, not because their air is too dirty but because
their pollution contributes to nearby areas that are out of compliance.

Counties were placed on the list or removed due to factors such as
emission rates, recent air quality, population density, traffic and
commuting patterns, expected growth, weather and geography, legal
boundaries and the level of pollution controls.

The regulations have been a long time coming. The Clinton
administration devised them in 1997, but they were held up because of
court challenges by industry that went all the way to the Supreme
Court, which upheld the standard. They are also meant to update and
complement the 1987 standard for reducing soot particles 10
micrometers in diameter, or 1/7th the width of human hair. Those had
mostly targeted dusty air from things such as mining tailings, factory
debris, unpaved roads and windblown dust.

The states with counties in violation are Alabama, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,
Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

------

On the Net:

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/pmdesignations

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press





--
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon

Yes of course. Through 2001 and 2002 it actually lessened by 20%,
while the new Administration got its new regulations in place. Then
over 2003 and 2004 it backslid to a net 10% improvement. What that
news show didn't tell you eas the the improvement curve has been
reversed under the current Administration. Two years from now we'll be
back to 0.

OK, I made those numbers up, but the point is that for much of this
Administration's first term we were still coasting on the improvements
made due to increased environmental regulation over the previous 20
years. e.g., a Clinton-era or Bush I-era rule requiring an industrial
plant to install exhaust-scrubbing equipment by 2000 would not show
results until the Bush II Administration, even though the improvement
was in no way the result of Bush II policy. Similarly, if the current
Administration now tells other plants of the same kind that they don't
have to install such new equipment after all, the ones who have already
installed it will probably not remove it, so you will not see an
immediate reduction in the relevant air-quality indicator... but you
will cease to see the further improvements that would have occured if
the new Administration were not in the business of gutting the Clean
Air Act.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
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