PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS WETLANDS ACT

President George W. Bush recently signed into law the reauthorization of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. It's purpose is to encourage voluntary partnerships among public agencies and the private sector to conserve North American wetland ecosystems. It establishes an infrastructure and provides a source of funding to accomplish that end. The Act funds the protection, restoration, management and enhancement of a wetland ecosystem to benefit wetland-dependent wildlife.

According to President Bush, "Today we take important action to conserve North America's wetlands, which will help keep our water clean and help provide habitat for hundreds of species of wildlife. Through this legislation, the federal government will continue its partnership with landowners, conservation groups and states to save and improve millions of acres of wetlands. The North American Wetlands Conservation Reauthorization Act shows our concern for the environment and our respect for future generations of Americans. "With this signature today, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act will be reauthorized for five years. The law authorizes federal money to match donations from sportsmen, state wildlife agencies, conservationists and landowners. Since 1991, more than $462 million in federal grants have helped to encourage $1.3 billion in contributions from others."

"Together these funds have restored streams and rivers, re-established native plants and trees, acquired land that is home to more than a third of America's threatened and endangered species. Because about 75 percent of the wetlands are held privately, we need to encourage cooperation with our landowners. This legislation shows that when government, landowners and conservationists work together, we can make dramatic progress in preserving the beauty and the quality of our environment." Bush also thanked the Congress for supporting this legislation.

Proposed projects are ranked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's North American Wetlands Conservation Council. Selected, prioritized proposals are recommended to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission for consideration of funding. Membership consists of the Secretary of the Interior, who serves as Chairman; the Secretaries of Transportation and Agriculture; two Members of the Senate (one is Senator Thad Cochran); and two Members of the House of Representatives. The Commission is authorized to approve, reject or reorder the priority of the proposed projects.

Press Briefing - June 5, 2002
"Q Ari, if I could change subjects for a second. This morning you said that the President quoted a speech, indicating that the President believes that human activity is largely responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases. But I'm wondering if he also agrees with an EPA report which indicated that human activity is likely the cause of global warming?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me just read from the President's statement of June 11th on global warming, and let me read from the recent report the EPA submitted to the United Nations. And I think you'll hear that on the key issues, they really sound very, very similar. This is the President on June 11th in the Rose Garden, in a speech where he announced his global warming policies.

"Concentration of greenhouse gases, especially C02, have increased substantially since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. And the National Academy of Sciences indicate that the increase is due in large part to human activity." That's the President himself speaking.

Here is from the report, page 4, that was just submitted to the United States by the EPA: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as the result of human activities, causing global mean surface temperature and subsurface ocean temperature to rise. While the changes observed over the last several decades are due most likely to human activities, we cannot rule out that some significant part is also a reflection of natural variability." And I think what you're hearing is the same thing.

Q I'm glad you make the connection explicitly, since the President addressed greenhouse gases, but not specifically global warming. Does the President agree with the conclusion that human activity is likely the cause of global warming?

MR. FLEISCHER: When the President cites the National Academy of Science as saying that the National Academy of Science indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity, I don't know how the President could say it more specifically than that.

MR. FLEISCHER: No. Here's -- the bottom line for the President is, number one, he has made a proposal that he believes is a proposal that not only can reduce the problem of greenhouse gases and global warming, but also protects the American economy, so the American economy can lead the world in technological and scientific advances that also have an effect in reducing pollution.

The President has said, citing the National Academy of Sciences, that the increase is due in large part to human activity. The President has also continued, citing both, now this report the EPA has sent to the United Nations, previous evidence from the National Academy of Sciences, that there's uncertainty -- and the recent report notes that there is considerable uncertainty. That's the state of science, and the President agrees with it. I don't think people dispute that.

MR. FLEISCHER: Again, when the President cites a report by the National Academy of Sciences that indicates the increase is due in large part to human activity, I think you have two reports that are very similar.

MR. FLEISCHER: I think the EPA issued a report that says the same thing. And I think the President was also reflecting about some of the way it was covered, that made it sound as if the report was somehow inconsistent with what he had said previously.

Q I don't think he reflected at all, he just said that, I saw it put out by a bureaucracy. What did he reflect on?

Texas Gov. George W. Bush has changed his tune on a key environmental issue, saying he no longer believes there's any question that the globe is warming, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

"I believe there is global warming," he said at a news conference last week. Mr. Bush had said just a few weeks ago that the "science is still out" on global warming. The governor, who is leading a crowded field of GOP presidential candidates, said his team of advisers had changed his mind.

"The last time I wasn't certain of the science," he said. "I've had some briefings recently and I'm becoming more convinced that the science proves there's global warming."

Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the liberal consumer and environmental group Public Citizen, welcomed the new position.

"We are delighted that Gov. Bush is acknowledging that global warming is a problem," he said. "We would ask him to take a leadership role since Texas leads the nation in global warming."

But Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative group that doubts global-warming theories, says Mr. Bush should take another look.

"We think there's been a lot of questionable and bad science that's been used," said the group's spokeswoman, Peggy Venable.
[End of Transcript]

"And now, a Republican administration will continue and complete the work of a Democratic administration. This is the way environmental policy should work."
George W. Bush - SOURCE

Bush's Environmental Guacamole

Townhall.com
By Michelle Malkin
April 27, 2001

Christie Todd Whitman has committed some of the Bush administration's biggest gaffes to date -- most infamously, her ill-fated crusade to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions at all costs to thwart alleged global warming.

Bush Republicans are right to thwack Whitman for espousing a radical agenda that defies basic principles of limited government and economic common sense. But I'm not going to join the pinata party. There is neither sport nor valiancy in assaulting such an easy target.

The liberal Republican ex-governor of New Jersey and current head of the Environmental Protection Agency has never hidden her true colors. It's no surprise that she has embraced the EPA tradition of kowtowing to the eco-lobby and promoting junk science. President Bush knew of her green streak when he nominated her to head the EPA. So did every Republican on Capitol Hill -- yet, not a single one of them spoke against Whitman when she was confirmed unanimously by the Senate in January. The GOP has only itself to blame for the curse of Christie.

As the president embarks on his next 100 days, conservatives must reckon with the Bush administration's chief bungler on environmental issues -- not Whitman, but Bush himself.

To date, Bush has upheld Clinton-Gore era regulations on everything from lead and land grabs to washing machines and wetlands. The White House continues to perform reverse somersaults on extremist enviro pet causes such as tightening diesel and arsenic regulations to ridiculous, costly and unscientifically justified levels. Most alarming of all is the president's straddling on Al Gore's favorite hobby horse, global warming.

Bush initially scored points with conservatives when he opposed the Kyoto protocol, the international treaty on greenhouse gases drafted by scare-mongerers at the United Nations. The plan pushes draconian regulatory actions on industry despite any scientific consensus that a crisis actually exists. Whitman was excoriated for defending the basic principles of Kyoto. But it seems she's only echoing the true views of her boss. Witness Bush's remarks made in a Washington Post interview just this week:

Q: Understanding your objections to the Kyoto protocol, what do you plan to do to demonstrate that the United States is not walking away from that issue?
A: Well, that's a great question because that's the very question every one of these leaders have asked me, and my answer's always the same ... They've got to understand that the environment is of concern to this administration, that we're, I think, the first administration to ever set up mandatory reductions in ... nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, along with other decisions I made.

(Other nations) appreciate the fact that ours is an administration that said wait a minute, the spirit is fine but the details aren't going to work and let's work together to come up with a better protocol, a better way, and we will.

Boasting about imposing "mandatory reductions" of any kind is frighteningly Gore-ific. As Bush himself reminded Gore during the campaign, the jury is still out on the primary cause of global warming (human or natural) and whether the effects might actually do more good than harm. And what exactly does Bush mean when he says the "spirit" of Kyoto is "fine"? The spirit of Kyoto is infected with what environmentalists call the "precautionary principle." This is the idea that nothing should be used, sold, emitted or otherwise approved by the world's governments until and unless it's proven safe.

If we had applied that cowering standard in the past, we wouldn't have open-heart surgery, penicillin, skyscrapers or the combustion engine. Too much caution can be as dangerous as too little. And spending billions of dollars reducing the theoretical risks of global warming means fewer resources for the real and deadly environmental risks that now plague underdeveloped nations -- like diarrhea and malaria.

Bush was supposed to restore rationality to America's approach to environmental risk in the modern world. Instead, he has sought vainly to score points with soccer moms, Sierra Club dads and MTV deadheads. The result is a pale green policy mish-mash of environmental guacamole that's thoroughly indigestible.

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