George Bush |
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Uncertainty Prevails about
Republican Environmental Strategy
How Green Can George W. Bush Be?
By Danielle Knight* |
The
path of the new US administration as far as environment has many
activists on edge, as they fear that energy interests will dominate
at the White House.
WASHINGTON - As president-elect George W. Bush
begins to pull together an administration, environmentalists are
anxiously waiting to see if he holds to his promise of bipartisan
cooperation and elects a cabinet that is not hostile to environmental
protection.
In his victory speech, Bush acknowledged that
he faced a divided Congress and pledged to work to unite the country
through bipartisan cooperation.
But judging by his record as Texas governor,
environmental activists say it does not seem likely that his cabinet
appointments will be partial to conservation. As governor, Bush
appointed representatives of the oil, chemical, and real estate
businesses to run for the Texas pollution control agency.
''I don't think he's made up his mind,'' says
Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth in the United
States. ''He could be genuinely bipartisan or he could listen to
many of the right-wing extremists who are hostile to environmental
protection''.
He says that if Bush does not choose a more
centrist path that reflects public opinion on environmental protection,
large protests like those in Seattle against the World Trade Organization
would be likely. ''The ball is in his court,'' says Blackwelder.
One of the major environmental tests for the
Bush administration, say activists, will be how it handles negotiations
of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
In November, talks on the international agreement
collapsed at The Hague because the European Union would not accept
the US proposal on getting credit for forests and farmland that
absorb carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping greenhouse gas.
Although Bush has attacked the Protocol, which
requires industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
and has questioned the science of global warming, Phillip Clapp,
president of the National Environmental Trust says that other comments
Bush has made provide some hope.
In a news conference this year Bush acknowledged
that there is sufficient scientific evidence to merit legislation
requiring reductions in US global warming emissions.
Clapp says that he doubts that a Bush administration
would walk away from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations because pressure
from Europe will be intense and could affect Bush's ability to achieve
other foreign policy goals.
If Bush abandoned the talks, ''the US would
have significantly reduced leverage to influence the technical rules
for the emissions reductions mechanisms outlined in the treaty -
a situation major US businesses are likely to find distasteful and
ultimately costly'', says Clapp.
The new administration will be facing a Congress
much less hostile to the Kyoto Protocol than in years past. Senator
Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, who sponsored a 1997 resolution that
mandated that developing countries commit to binding emission limits,
has spoken out several times this year about the need to address
global warming.
Three times this year, a bipartisan effort
defeated anti-Kyoto Protocol legislation in the House sponsored
by one of the leading critics of the international agreement, Representative
Joseph Knollenberg, Republican from Michigan.
Environmental groups are also worried that
Bush will open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the state
of Alaska to oil development. Bush, with his strong ties to petroleum
and gas companies, says he favors oil exploitation on this protected
reserve.
Oil executives have been eager to tap the black
gold beneath the frozen tundra - where there are anywhere from 5.6
billion to perhaps 16 billion barrels of oil. But polls show that
the public is against opening up the remote reserve. About 150,000
porcupine caribou and millions of migratory birds and waterfowl
migrate there in the summer.
But Blackwelder with Friends of the Earth says
that he not sure Bush would make any move refuge since it would
cause such an outcry from advocacy groups.
''It would be like raising a red flag in front
of a bull,'' he says. Environmental groups urge Bush to remember
that he faces a split congress and in many districts and states
voters overwhelmingly elected candidates that were pro-environment.
Democrats gained seats in the House of Representatives
and now share the Senate with Republicans 50-50. Some of the most
outspoken opponents to environmental protection in the Senate were
defeated, including Slade Gorton from Washington, Spencer Abraham
from Michigan, and Rod Grams from Minnesota.
''There is no doubt that the election results
should increase the momentum shift in the Senate towards addressing
global warming,'' says Clapp.
Environmentalists are also looking forward
to the next House of Representatives, where Don Young of Alaska
will no longer be chairman of the Committee on Resources, because
of term-limit rules. Young is known among environmental groups for
his pro-industry, anti-environmental positions.
Alys Campaigne, legislative director of the
Natural Resource Defense Council, says environmentalists are also
worried that Bush will allow the passage of bills that contain so-called
anti-environmental ''riders''.
These are pieces of legislation that contain
language that would, for example, allow logging in protected areas.
Lawmakers opposed to environmental protection have attached the
language to bills, such as appropriations legislation, that are
likely to pass. But the bill can be blocked by presidential vetoes.
''We are calling on Bush to veto these riders
since he will be the last line of defense,'' says Campaigne.
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