Bush tearing apart protection for America's wilderness

Bush tearing apart protection for America's wilderness

www.guardian.co.uk

George Bush is working at a breakneck pace to dismantle at least 10 major environmental safeguards protecting America's wildlife, national parks and rivers before he leaves office in January.

With barely 60 days to go until Bush hands over to Barack Obama, his White House is working methodically to weaken or reverse an array of regulations that protect America's wilderness from logging or mining operations, and compel factory farms to clean up dangerous waste.

In the latest such move this week, Bush opened up some 800,000 hectares (2m acres) of land in Rocky Mountain states for the development of oil shale, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. The law goes into effect on January 17, three days before Obama takes office.

The timing is crucial. Most regulations take effect 60 days after publication, and Bush wants the new rules in place before he leaves the White House on January 20. That will make it more difficult for Obama to undo them.

"There are probably going to be scores of rules that are issued between now and January 20," said John Walke, a senior attorney at the National Resources Defence Council. "And there are at least a dozen very controversial rules that will weaken public health and environment protection that have no business being adopted and would not be acceptable to the incoming Obama administration, based on stances he has taken as a senator and during the campaign."

The flurry of new rules - known as midnight regulations - is part of a broader campaign by the Bush administration to leave a lasting imprint on environmental policy. Some of the actions have provoked widespread protests such as the Bureau of Land Management's plans to auction off 20,000 hectares of oil and gas parcels within sight of Utah's Delicate Arch natural bridge.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Is there any doubt remaining about who bush minor and his team has been working for?

I'll give you a hint... it ain't you and me.

All presidents sign midnight regulations, that's no secret... what is stunning about bush minor's is that they are not designed to push through or to reinforce new rules and regulations but to dismantle them.

And the sweep of his actions are stunning... if left unchecked consumers and workers will have fewer protections and rights...polluters will find it easier to pollute without fear of reprocussion and pristine wilderness and national jewels will be opened for drilling, mining and exploration and so on...

.... and all of it benefits big business.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think that Bush realizes that Obama is so anti-growth in the energy field that he (Bush) must do whatever he can to give us a chance to become energy independent before Obama gets in and closes the door.

Obama has promised to bankrupt the coal industry, is against sensible offshore drilling, and against nuclear power. He thinks a windmill and a solar panel can run a factory or a hospital as well as power transportation and major cities.

I read an article about this action. Bush is in the minor league pushing through midnight regulations. Clinton had 28,000 pages published for new regulations as his final act. President Carter is considered the king of these actions.

This isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned. Tree huggers have pushed to far with liberal judges making laws instead of interpreting laws. This just puts things back the way they should have been. All in all, these midnight regulations from Bush are for the better.

reply to post by grover


The US has more oil in oilshale than the entire rest of the worlds oil supply, that is why Bush is opening it to extraction, so that we can become independant from the rest of the world and set our own destiny.

You think wind turbines are going to propel your car? How about solar?

reply to post by jsobecky


Nonsense josbecky Nonsense.

If he (Obama) pushes through his plan it will be a boon for both the people and industry...

even so big business should not be allowed to benefit at the expense of the rest of us.

Whats good for business is not always whats good for the country and its foolish to think so.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by grover]

reply to post by stinkhorn


reply to post by hinky


reply to post by jsobecky


People like all of you are what is wrong with this country. You all have the inability to admit when you are wrong. Even now, as Bush is prepared to ruin our environment, irradiate our water, and further weaken the constitution, you still defend him and his actions. For generations, people will wonder why YOU were so shortsighted as to vote for this man and why you were so hardheaded as to support him as he tore this country asunder.

Do you realize that we will NEVER drill ourselves to energy independence?

Do you realize that we could have easily become energy independent already had we invested the money spent in Iraq to advance clean energy sources?

Do you realize that once we have ruined our environment, it stays ruined forever?

Do you realize that Bush, who swore an oath to protect the constitution, has done more to weaken its power than all of the other presidents before him combined?

Do you realize that all of the acts he his trying to institute have one thing in common, they seek to allow horrible corporations to make more money at the expense of our personal safety?

Do you realize that, thanks to Bush, when you turn on your faucet in the coming years it may contain harmful levels of radiation?

Do you realize that when you support Bush, you are supporting the president that 98% of living historians agree has been the worst president in American history?

Do you realize that if not reversed, the actions of this president in his last 60 days in office will adversely affect future generations for hundreds of years?

I could go on and on. However, I am afraid too many people like you are so hell bent on being right in voting for and supporting Bush that you would support him in his decision to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. Please, for your sake and the sake of your children, stop supporting Bush, he does not have your interests at heart.

reply to post by grover



grover, you are so irrationally against anything "big business" that I'm afraid it clouds your thinking.

If it weren't for big business, we'd still be communicating through smoke signals and parchment.

reply to post by BluegrassRevolutionary



And people like you are so close-minded that you automatically spout the same anti-Bush rhetoric regardless of what he does.

I won't bother demolishing your post point by point, because, although it would be easy to do, I don't have the time.

Pfffft!

We all know that Bush is a butt kisser oil man, he is no done yet with sinking the nation after giving it to his corporate cronies at the expenses of tax payer and our children's future, now he has to hurry up and finish killing whatever is there to kill.

The worst President in the history of this nation and he will get away with turning the great America into a waste land.

After all the Saud Family will have a nice palace for him to go and move in.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by marg6043]

I have never been a Bush Defender as there are many things I disagree with BUT if this is related to dismantling the "executive orders" that Clinton put in for the Utah Federal Preserve and the Colorado oil shale grounds then I am all for it.

Many people don't know that Utah is full of low sulfur coal. We now import this coal from Indonesia!

You know why? Our politicians are heavily invested in foreign companies that DO NOT want the US to mine our own resources and buy from them.

Commerce documents show that Lippo business partner Mission Energy (now named Edison Mission Energy) received strong Clinton administration support for the Paiton project. One 1994 document, obtained by Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch, noted the Indonesian government-backed project had "state-of-the-art emissions-control technology... by using low-sulfur Indonesian coal, the project will be one of the cleanest, most efficient coal-fired facilities in the world."

www.converge.org.nz...

On November 16, 1994, President Bill Clinton and the late Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, travelled to Jakarta for the Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), at which Clinton signed deals to supply Indonesia with electric power using US taxpayer loans. The deals were worth billions of dollars to US corporations such as Cal Energy, Mission Energy (now named Edison Mission Energy) and General Electric.

The leader of the US project in the Paiton power plant, Mission Energy, is also a partner of Indonesia's Lippo Group, a consortium partly owned by Indonesian billionaire Mochtar Riady and the Chinese Army's bank, CITIC (China International Trust and Investment Corporation.)

According to US Federal Electoral Commission records, Mission Energy CEO, John Bryson, donated money to Clinton's campaigns and also donated money to Clinton's legal defence fund. Riady is also accused of illegally donating money to Clinton's political campaigns.

The Paiton power plant was designed to burn "low-sulfur coal." But in 1996, President Clinton created the 1.7 millon-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, placing off-limits the world's largest deposit of low-sulfur coal.

In the process, Clinton also greatly enriched his supporters and the Suharto family. The coal for the Paiton plant is provided under a no-bid contract from the only other supply of "soft" environmental coal - located in Indonesia - and primarily owned by Lippo Group.

By locking-up the US coal reserves into a national park, Clinton vastly increased the value of Riady's low-sulfur coal reserves in a single stroke of his pen. Prabowo's brother-in-law, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, is also a shareholder of the Indonesian reserves of soft coal and is also another partner in the Mission Energy-General Electric partner at Paiton. Hashim's brother is Suharto's son-in-law and a general in the Indonesian Army.

www.worldnetdaily.com...

Please note the Paiton power plant was designed to burn "low-sulfur Indonesian coal". In 1996 President Clinton created the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, placing off-limits the world's largest deposit of low-sulfur coal. The Lippo group is the primary owner of the only other supply of low-sulfur coal in the world, located in Indonesia.

Clinton's move left the only remaining low-sulfur coal supply in Lippo hands, creating a Riady monopoly. The move vastly increased the dollar value of Riady's low-sulfur coal reserves in a single stroke of Clinton's pen. The Indonesian coal reserves, co-incidentally, just happen to be located close to the U.S. taxpayer backed Paiton power plant.

Why coal-rich US is seeing record imports - This is a damned shame that we are importing coal because personal gain and corruption trumps national security. And to many American "buy into" the stories of "preserves" and "environmental BS" while we are being sold down the river.

With nearly a quarter of the world's coal supply - enough to last centuries - the United States has been dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of Coal," by US officials and energy experts.

But thanks to growing global coal markets and clean air regulations, the US is witnessing a latter-day equivalent of "carrying coals to Newcastle" - a 230 percent leap in coal imports to the US since 1999.

www.csmonitor.com...

Another reason imports must grow is long-term fundamentals, experts said. U.S. electricity demand continues to grow. Key eastern coal supplies are in decline, and area utilities will need coal, which generates about half of U.S. electricity supply. (AND WERE NOT ALLOWED TO MINE OUR OWN VAST RESERVES!)

U.S. coal imports, 36.3 million short tons in 2007 and reach 40 million tons by 2015, Kolojeski said. "If there is spot demand in the United States, particularly for plants near the coast, they are as likely to be served by imports as domestic coal," said Howard Gatiss of Coal Marketing Co (USA) Inc, the marketing arm for Colombia's Cerrejon mine.

One of the reasons that US import coal and oil from other nations beside the profits made for those higher up within government involvement is that the countries in question have not regulatory and environmental laws.

That means that nobody give a rats about how their lands will lay to waste and how many people will die while performing cheap labor.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by marg6043]

reply to post by jsobecky


lol
I am one of the most open-minded people you well ever meet. In fact, if you look up the definition of "liberal," you will see that the term "open-minded" is included. You are correct about one thing though, I am proudly anti-Bush. However, I have always been open to admitting that something he did was correct. I just have not been lucky enough to encounter one of these situations. Please...feel free to enlighten me, if you can. You know, if it were so easy for you to debunk my claims, you could have chosen one or two of them to counter. However, somehow I feel that deep down inside, your better half knows I am right.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by BluegrassRevolutionary]

Originally posted by marg6043
One of the reasons that US import coal and oil from other nations beside the profits make for those higher up within government involvement is that the countries in question have not regulatory and environmental laws.

That means that nobody give a rats about how their lands will lay to waste and how many people will die while performing cheap labor.

To the untrained reader, you would have the US go around the world and force our laws onto other people? Sounds like you want a world cop. That hasn't worked very well given the recent history in these regards.

I know this isn't what you meant as I have read and enjoyed many of your posts.

If the governments of the people we buy resources from, including coal, do not or will not protect their people with basic labor and environmental laws, why is it our place to even worry about it.

I know, one planet, their pollution is our pollution. But unless we actually have a means to change them, they will not change on their own. If we stop buying from them, where is the coal going to come from.

It's only a paper that tells us we can not use our own resources. Get rid of the paperwork and put America back to work.

Maybe if there were more logging operations there would be less major wildfires?

California has the most restrictive enviromental policies when it comes to tree-hugging, yet they have the most devasting fires. Coincidence? I think not.

Last week when I saw the raging fires, I actually yelled at the TV coverage screaming "Cut the trees down before they burn!"

Originally posted by jsobecky
Obama has promised to bankrupt the coal industry, is against sensible offshore drilling

You mean like the "sensible" offshore drilling already occurring in the Gulf of Mexico that has helped to create a dead zone hundreds of miles in diameter in which nothing can survive? Were it up to you, we would completely destroy our entire coast and all of its biodiversity just to save a few cents a gallon. That by the way is what most economists estimate would be the cost savings derived from offshore drilling, at best $.05/gallon, and that would be in ten years at the earliest.

Exactly Hinky if you understand the meaning of my post you will see that is impossible for the US to start mining for coal and digging for oil more that already is without making the profits that unregulated nations can make without environmental laws.

We will have to replace workers with slave workers and been able to turn land into waste with no consequences.

Even those out there that are all for dipping into our nations resources will see that nobody will want to live in a waste land.

Is actually cheaper to bring import that trying to bypass environmental laws in the US.

Right now is not profitable to do any of the above in our nation.

I'm not sure what to think of this, I'm an environmentalist, but I'm also someone that believes in clean coal. It seems as a nation, we went from one fault to another. If Obama wants to invest in alternative energy sources, he will have to pump huge amounts of money into it, in order to make it an efficient and viable system. Not to mention the cost for all the required transitions that would begin to take place. Of course, I do not believe this will happen. He must already recognize the energy demands of this country, and how alternative energy sources cannot make up for it entirely at this point. If his idea of bankrupting coal plants makes way, he will make a lot of enemies. Much more than he has now.

I went off on a tangent there, but to address Bush's new policy..I personally do not support it, even if he is trying to make headway for the industry. Our environment is what makes us sustainable.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by laiguana]

Originally posted by RRconservative
Maybe if there were more logging operations there would be less major wildfires?

California has the most restrictive enviromental policies when it comes to tree-hugging, yet they have the most devasting fires. Coincidence? I think not.

Last week when I saw the raging fires, I actually yelled at the TV coverage screaming "Cut the trees down before they burn!"

Yeah, because that is what causes wildfires, those damn trees. Do you know how ridiculous your statement sounds.

The primary cause of wildfires is not an over abundance of trees, it is a lack of water. Drought is the primary cause of wildfires. And by the way, the problem of global warming that your fellow conservatives have turned a blind eye to, is quickly becoming the primary contributor to drought.