Here's an AP article from this morning that's quite damning of Bush's environmental record. Yeah I know. Dog bites man...Bush wags dog, whatever. Still, I'm surprised that it hasn't been raised here.
Ex-heads of EPA blast Bush on global warming
Republicans, Democrat say president is neglecting environment
WASHINGTON - Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency -- five Republicans and one Democrat -- accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.
a 5-1 ratio is bi-partisan under the most generous circumstances. I suppose Scottie McGibberish can paint this as a partisan attack, but if so, it's obviously a partisan, republican attack.
It gets interesting here:
All of the former administrators and EPA's current chief, Stephen Johnson, raised their hands when asked by the event moderator whether they believe global warming is a real problem, and again when he asked if humans bear significant blame.
Later, Johnson tries to paint a smiley face on the admin's efforts. But admitting that global warming is a real problem, is off the Bushland reservation. If this gets much national attention, I expect he will suffer the same smear and fate as others who have spoken out of line.
Defending his boss, Johnson said the current administration has spent $20 billion on research and technology to combat climate change after President Bush rejected mandatory controls on carbon dioxide, the chief gas blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse.
Bush also kept the United States out of the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases globally, saying it would harm the U.S. economy, after many of the accord's terms were negotiated by the Clinton administration.
"I know from the president on down, he is committed," Johnson said. "And certainly his charge to me was, and certainly our team has heard it: `I want you to accelerate the pace of environmental protection. I want you to maintain our economic competitiveness.' And I think that's really what it's all about."
His predecessors disagreed. Lee Thomas, Ruckelshaus's successor in the Reagan administration, said that "if the United States doesn't deal with those kinds of issues in a leadership role, they're not going to get dealt with. So I'm very concerned about this country and this agency."
Bill Reilly, the EPA administrator under the first President Bush, echoed that assessment.
Christie Whitman, Bush's first EPA chief had this to say:
"You'd need to be in a hole somewhere to think that the amount of change that we have imposed on land, and the way we've handled deforestation, farming practices, development, and what we're putting into the air, isn't exacerbating what is probably a natural trend," she said. "But this is worse, and it's getting worse."
So there you have it. The next time some barking wingnut sneers at global warming, gently remind them that the current EPA chief and 5 previous ones say Bush has dropped the ball - and that five of those are republicans.