Bush's seven deadly environmental sins

How Bush made a mockery of the nation's environmental laws and values -- and what Obama must do to get us back on track.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Read more: George W. Bush, Environment, Science, Katharine Mieszkowski, Barack Obama, Environment & Science

Nov. 8, 2008 | Somewhere up north, a polar bear, on a melting ice floe, is wiping its sweaty brow, thinking, "Fewer than 80 days before these oil freaks are out of office." It hardly bears repeating that George W. Bush's record on the environment makes his own father look like Teddy Roosevelt by comparison. By taking environmental policymaking away from scientists, and turning it over to industry cronies, Bush has made a mockery of the nation's environmental laws and values.

Bush's myriad environmental sins could have him serving penance for years. But we decided to highlight seven of his most deadly. We also invited leading environmentalists to outline Barack Obama's mission for cleaning up the nation's land, water and air.

Bush Sin 1: Blew hot air on global warming
By refusing to agree to mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions, the Bush administration gave major developing nations, such as China and India, carte blanche to do the same. After all, why should these growing economies do anything about global warming when the one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters and richest nations couldn't be bothered?

"The most shameful thing we've done of all is to walk away from the international debate on climate, which has crippled the debate and caused everyone else in the world to think that we're hypocritical and deluded," says Bill McKibben, author and climate activist. "The Chinese have all the coal they need to destroy the atmosphere by themselves to get rich, and we have no moral objection as to why they shouldn't just go ahead and burn it, because that's precisely what we did."

They don't call it global warming for nothing. The result: eight precious years wasted in the fight against global warming as we watched carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere shoot up, while scientists' predictions about the speed and severity of global warming became increasingly dire.

Obama mission
Signal that the United States will change its shameful record on global warming -- even before taking office. Attend the international climate talks in Poznan, Poland, this December, and electrify the rest of the world with a promise that the U.S. is serious about reducing greenhouse gases. That could set the stage for the major climate negotiations to come in Copenhagen, Demark, in December 2009, when a climate treaty to succeed Kyoto needs to be hammered out.

Bush Sin 2: Failed to regulate greenhouse gases at home
Bush's vows to veto legislation that would limit greenhouse gases have consistently undermined Congress' feeble attempts to do anything serious about global warming, such as capping emissions.

Bush's Environmental Protection Agency refused to regulate the greenhouse gas CO₂ as a pollutant, even after the Supreme Court ruled that CO₂ is a pollutant and the EPA can regulate it. So while California has passed a law regulating tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, the state still needs a waiver under the EPA to put those regulations in place. It hasn't gotten it.

Obama mission
Uphold his campaign promise to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. How? One key component: a cap-and-trade policy that auctions pollution credits to polluters, with the proceeds going to fund clean-energy programs and habitat protections.

"People are going to try to use the financial situation to argue against these policies," says Chris Mooney, author of the "The Republican War on Science." "I'm really afraid that the financial crisis is going to be used as a club to intimidate people who want to pass a cap-and-trade bill, because they're going to argue that it's going to hurt the economy."

Obama must make clear to Congress that cap and trade is important to him. To underscore his commitment, he should make high-profile scientific appointments to his administration, and unleash the government scientists who have been muzzled under the Bush administration.

Daniel Kammen, professor and director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, asserts that Obama should develop a national task force for the implementation of a cap-and-trade framework. With three regional greenhouse gas markets already emerging -- New England/Atlantic, the Upper Midwest and the West -- the task force could help determine if we need a single national market or the expansion of those three markets.

Obama should order the EPA to issue a waiver to California to allow its regulation of C0₂ at the tailpipe to go into effect. Many other states are then likely to adopt the California regulation.

Bush Sin 3: Failed to develop clean energy sources
Remember when Bush promoted the idea that we'd all be driving around in hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered cars by 2020? Fat chance.

Bush has paid lip service to futuristic fuels like hydrogen and cellulosic ethanol, and to renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and geothermal, but his administration has failed to push those products to market. Meanwhile, he's lent regulatory support to old-school polluting industries, such as coal and oil and gas. With no federal mandate to reduce greenhouse gases, the country has largely been content to burn up the atmosphere with those dirtier, cheaper sources of energy.

Obama mission
Get 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015 and ensure that 25 percent of our energy comes from renewable sources by 2025. Weatherize 1 million low-income homes annually for the next decade. Create 5 million new clean-energy jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next five years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean-energy future. Just as he promised during the campaign.

Federal energy-efficiency programs would create green jobs and save American businesses and taxpayers money in the long run. Van Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems," says Obama should create a loan fund to help cities and states finance the weatherizing and solarizing of millions of buildings across the country. Customers could pay the money back through the energy they saved on their bills.

Such a program could reduce our greenhouse gas pollution, while putting the country's idle construction workers to work and stimulating the economy. "These aren't Space Age George Jetson jobs. These are hard-hat, lunch pail and work boot jobs," says Jones. It's an immediate green solution for a down economy. "Any green solution that has a tendency to raise prices right now will be very tough politically. You want one that actually lowers prices."

The program could also inspire the public. Offers Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com and author of "Strategies for a Green Economy": "There's a desire by Americans to come together for some greater cause that's not simply protecting us from the terrorists, and something that's much more empowering and proactive and exciting."

Next page: It's been "Drill, baby, drill," all right