The Democrats' environmental record.

• Author: Frank, Joshua
• Position: Thinking Politically - Excerpt

George W. Bush's environmental record can be summed up in one simple word: devastating. Not only has President Bush gutted numerous environmental laws, including the Clean Air and Water Acts, but he has also set a new precedent by disregarding the world's top scientists and the Pentagon, whose concerns about the rate of global warming grow graver by the day.

As Mark Townsend and Paul Harris reported for the UK Observer in February 2004:

[The Pentagon report] predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water, and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) even admits that climate change is being exacerbated by American's consumptive culture.

What has changed in the last few hundred years is the additional release of carbon dioxide by human activities. Fossil fuels burned to run cars and trucks, heat homes and businesses, and power factories are responsible for about 98% of US carbon dioxide emissions, 24% of methane emissions, and 18% of nitrous oxide emissions. Increased agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining also contribute a significant share of emissions. In 1997, the United States emitted about one-fifth of total global greenhouse gases. It was easy for Bush to back out of the Kyoto Protocol when Al Gore and Bill Clinton undermined the agreement in the late 1990s. "Signing the Protocol, while an important step forward, imposes no obligations on the United States. The Protocol becomes binding only with the advice and consent of the US Senate," Gore said at the time. "As we have said before, we will not submit the Protocol for ratification without the meaningful participation of key developing countries in efforts to address climate change." Sadly, Gore stood by his promise.

Although Kyoto was a gigantic step forward in addressing global warming, the Democratic Party collectively opposed the watered down version of the Protocol. They did so to avoid alienating their labor base, who worried that new environmental laws would shift jobs to developing nations with weaker environmental regulations. Hence, Kyoto's derailment and the Democrats' failed challenge to Bush's misdeeds.

Dirty energy

With that kind of opposition, it is little wonder that Bush had no qualms about moving...