George W. Bush

Karl Rove says history to view Bush as ‘far-sighted leader’

Here is how The Architect describes President Bush's environmental legacy:

On energy, the environment, and climate change, [Bush] is developing a new paradigm. Emphasizing technology, increased energy-efficiency partnerships, and resource diversification, his policies are improving energy security and slowing the growth of greenhouse gases without economy-breaking mandates and regulation. The president who won criticism by rejecting the failed approach of Kyoto has implemented policies that enabled the United States to grow its economy by 3.1 percent and reduce the absolute amount of CO2 emissions (by 1.3 percent).

BP promises to stop dumping waste into the Great Lakes

On July 15, the Chicago Tribune reported that BP wanted to significantly increase the discharge of ammonia and toxic wastes into the Great Lakes. The outcry was enormous -- even Republican congressmen from the area joined in the criticism, and several powerful congressional members, including Rahm Emanuel in the House and Barack Obama in the Senate, threatened hearings. The city of Chicago was considering legal action, and a large petition drive began.

Apparently the political efforts have paid off, because BP announced it will reverse its decision and not add more pollutants. The catch: it's not legally binding, because the conservative administration in Indiana has not revoked the pollution permits.

Hmmm …

James Connaughton says George W. Bush wants to be an "honest broker" on global warming. Sound familiar?

Again

Kind of a good news, bad news story:

President George W. Bush has invited the European Union, the United Nations and 11 other countries to the September 27-28 meeting in Washington to work toward setting a long-term goal by 2008 to cut emissions.

Yet it turns out just to be a meeting full of sound and fury, signifying nothing: "But a senior U.S. official said the administration stood by its opposition to mandatory economy-wide caps."

A meeting aimed at (1) developing voluntary or aspirational targets, (2) for the long-term, (3) by 2008 [i.e. Bush's last year in office]. Three strikes and you are out.

Bush's last chance to be a small part of the solution rather than a large part of the problem came and went at the G-8 meeting, where Bush nixed an effort to set realistic and binding long-term targets.

The only interesting question that will be answered by this meeting is whether the media will be suckered into giving the President the one outcome he truly wants -- positive press coverage on climate change, an area of such catastrophic failure by this administration that it will probably ensure (even more than Iraq) that history judges Bush a failure.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Hold the applause on the administration’s

On a new blog called Terra Rossa -- "Where Conservatives Consider a New Energy Future" -- GOP consultant Whit Ayres argues that when President Bush at the G8 summit declared his willingness to "seriously consider" carbon emission reductions over the next forty years, he took a "major step" in the direction of his environmental critics. Says Ayres:

I don't think anyone could argue that conservatives are not trying to compromise on the issue. While many conservative voters, politicians, and business leaders might prefer to take no action to limit carbon emissions, they have heard the call to action and are clearly working toward a cap they can live with.

Ayres claims the President has undergone a "sea-change" on global warming, but ignores these inconvenient facts:

• No agreement to reduce carbon emissions came out of the G8 summit, despite much pressure from Germany and Europe.
• The President talks of "long-term" [requires subscription] "aspirational" goals, but has committed to nothing but discussion.
• Shortly after taking office, a White House insider admitted [requires subscription] to Andrew Revkin of The New York Times that the Bush administration intended to do as little as possible about global warming: "There's a sense in which everybody's saying the American public doesn't have the attention span or background to pay attention to this issue," the official said. "There's still a hopeful perception around the White House that this has gone away."
• Not only did the President break a reassuring campaign promise regarding carbon emissions, but just this last year told a biographer that he was a "dissenter" on the "theory" of global warming.

So we have good reason to doubt the sincerity of the Bush administration, despite the bland assurances of progress from White House environmental chief Jim Connaughton. And in fact this past week the president himself, in his own words, has let us know exactly how high a priority he gives the issue. Four recent speeches -- to a Southern Baptist convention, to a homebuilders convention, at a political fund-raiser, and at a nuclear power plant yesterday -- were put through a word processor, and the results show what is on the president's mind, and what is not:

Lies, more lies, and still more lies from the head of CEQ

Tim Dickinson’s Rolling Stone piece on the Bush administration’s coordinated attempts to stifle action on global warming is now online, and it’s worth a read. (Also worth checking out: the accompanying multimedia slideshow.) Lots of it will be familiar to long-time readers, but it’s nice to see it pulled together into a single (extraordinarily damning) […]

Why does Bush never veto legislation?

Because he can just direct federal agencies to ignore it instead. And speaking of corrupt federal agencies, check out the latest clowning at Interior, involving Steven Griles, one of the A-list hacks of the Bush years. The cojones on these guys …

Poor guy

Poor Bush, he just can’t get a break. He announces a shiny new climate-change strategy, and what does he get? Nothing but grief. Nancy Pelosi called it "the same stale proposals he has repeatedly put forward to the international community." Al Gore called it "purely and simply smoke and mirrors [that] has the transparent purpose […]

Watch at your own risk

I was going to wrap this into a previous post, but this kind of spectacular cluelessness deserves its time in the spotlight. Watch two mandarins of Beltway "moderation," Mark Shields and David Brooks, discuss Bush’s "new" climate strategy: Astounding. You really could not ask for a more crystalline example of the intellectual tics that have […]