swing vote, but our suburban female base could abandon us as well.” In essence, he recommended that Republicans don the sheep’s clothing of environmental rhetoric while continuing to wolf down our environmental laws. 1
White House strategists grasped that lesson long before the Luntz memo. The administration has gone to great lengths to keep the president’s agenda under wraps, orchestrating the legislative rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny. It has manipulated and suppressed scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. Bush’s “Healthy Forests” initiative promotes destructive logging of old-growth forests. His “Clear Skies” program suggests repealing key provisions of the Clean Air Act. The administration talks about “streamlining” and “reforming” regulations when it means weakening them, and “thinning” when it means logging or clear-cutting. Cloaked in this meticulously crafted language that is designed to deceive the public, the administration — often unwittingly abetted by a toothless and negligent press — intends to effectively eliminate the nation’s most important environmental laws by the end of its term.
But this book is ultimately about more than the environment. It’s about the corrosive effect of corporate cronyism on free-market capitalism and democracy — core American values that I cherish. There are, of course, good and even exemplary corporations in every sector. Even in the oil business, companies like BP, Shell, and Hess have acted aggressively to deal with global warming and have behaved responsibly toward the environment. But corporations, no matter how well intentioned, should not be running the government.
This administration, however, in its headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, has sacrificed respect for the law, private property rights, scientific integrity, public health, long-term economic vitality, and commonsense governance on the altar of corporate greed.
Our government has abandoned its duty to safeguard our health and steward our national treasures, eroding not just our land, but our nation’s moral authority and capacity to fulfill its historic mission — to create communities that are models for the rest of humankind. After all, we protect nature not (as Rush Limbaugh likes to say) for the sake of the trees and the fishes and the birds, but because it is the infrastructure of our communities. If we want to provide our children with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment as those ourparents gave us, we’ve got to start by protecting the air, water, wildlife, and landscapes that connect us to our national values and character. It’s that simple.
The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. During his tenure in Texas, George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor in the country: the Lone Star State ranked number one in both air and water pollution. In his six years in Austin, Governor Bush championed a short-term, pollution-based prosperity that enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is doing the same thing to the citizens in the other 49 states.
The present cabinet boasts more CEOs than any in history. Most come from the energy, extractive, and manufacturing sectors that rely on giant subsidies and create the worst pollution. Almost all the top positions at the agencies that protect our environment and oversee our resources have been filled by former lobbyists for the biggest polluters in the very businesses that these ministries oversee. These men and women seem to have entered government service with the express purpose of subverting the agencies they now command. The administration is systematically muzzling, purging, and punishing scientists and other professionals whose work impedes corporate profit taking. The
White House strategists grasped that lesson long before the Luntz memo. The administration has gone to great lengths to keep the president’s agenda under wraps, orchestrating the legislative rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny. It has manipulated and suppressed scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. Bush’s “Healthy Forests” initiative promotes destructive logging of old-growth forests. His “Clear Skies” program suggests repealing key provisions of the Clean Air Act. The administration talks about “streamlining” and “reforming” regulations when it means weakening them, and “thinning” when it means logging or clear-cutting. Cloaked in this meticulously crafted language that is designed to deceive the public, the administration — often unwittingly abetted by a toothless and negligent press — intends to effectively eliminate the nation’s most important environmental laws by the end of its term.
But this book is ultimately about more than the environment. It’s about the corrosive effect of corporate cronyism on free-market capitalism and democracy — core American values that I cherish. There are, of course, good and even exemplary corporations in every sector. Even in the oil business, companies like BP, Shell, and Hess have acted aggressively to deal with global warming and have behaved responsibly toward the environment. But corporations, no matter how well intentioned, should not be running the government.
This administration, however, in its headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, has sacrificed respect for the law, private property rights, scientific integrity, public health, long-term economic vitality, and commonsense governance on the altar of corporate greed.
Our government has abandoned its duty to safeguard our health and steward our national treasures, eroding not just our land, but our nation’s moral authority and capacity to fulfill its historic mission — to create communities that are models for the rest of humankind. After all, we protect nature not (as Rush Limbaugh likes to say) for the sake of the trees and the fishes and the birds, but because it is the infrastructure of our communities. If we want to provide our children with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment as those ourparents gave us, we’ve got to start by protecting the air, water, wildlife, and landscapes that connect us to our national values and character. It’s that simple.
The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. During his tenure in Texas, George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor in the country: the Lone Star State ranked number one in both air and water pollution. In his six years in Austin, Governor Bush championed a short-term, pollution-based prosperity that enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is doing the same thing to the citizens in the other 49 states.
The present cabinet boasts more CEOs than any in history. Most come from the energy, extractive, and manufacturing sectors that rely on giant subsidies and create the worst pollution. Almost all the top positions at the agencies that protect our environment and oversee our resources have been filled by former lobbyists for the biggest polluters in the very businesses that these ministries oversee. These men and women seem to have entered government service with the express purpose of subverting the agencies they now command. The administration is systematically muzzling, purging, and punishing scientists and other professionals whose work impedes corporate profit taking. The
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