Editor's Note: With the Bush Administration's remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration's record on environmental issues. Following is the third of several entries that we'll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. Below, Joe Feller discusses Bush Administration regulations on livestock grazing on public lands.
In 2003, the Bush administration developed new proposed regulations to govern livestock grazing on over 150 million acres of federal public land, According to the administration, the new regulations were designed to "improve working relationships" between the government and ranchers and to "protect the health of rangelands." In fact, the new regulations would have repealed some important environmental standards and rendered others unenforceable, removed opportunities for public notice and input, slanted analyses and appeals procedures to favor ranchers over the environment, and made it easier for ranchers convicted of environmental crimes to obtain grazing permits. Career government scientists assigned to draft an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the new regulations wrote that the new regs "will have a slow, long-term adverse impact on wildlife and biological diversity in general," would "reduce the ability of environmental groups and organizations to participate and support wildlife" and "should result in long-term adverse impacts to wildlife and special status species on public lands."
Just three weeks before the proposed regulations were published, the Interior Department replaced the professionals who drafted the remarkably candid EIS with a specially selected team that undertook a rapid rewrite. The rewrite purged the document of all negative information. Two years later, the administration finalized the new rules, which were then promptly struck down by a federal court because they violated environmental laws.
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Joe Feller | January 20, 2009
Editor’s Note: With the Bush Administration’s remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration’s record on environmental issues. Following is the third of several entries that we’ll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. Below, […]
Dale Goble | January 19, 2009
Editor’s Note: With the Bush Administration’s remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration’s record on environmental issues. Following is the second of several entries that we’ll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. Below, […]
A. Dan Tarlock | January 19, 2009
Editor’s Note: With the Bush Administration’s remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration’s record on environmental issues. Following is the first of several entries that we’ll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. A. […]
A. Dan Tarlock | January 18, 2009
Editor’s Note: With the Bush Administration’s remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration’s record on environmental issues. Following is the first of several entries that we’ll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. A. […]
Matthew Freeman | January 16, 2009
Within the last 45 days, CPR Member Scholars have published two books focused on the question of federal preemption. The issue has arisen in two forms in recent years. During the Bush Administration, various regulatory agencies of the federal government – with leadership from Bush appointees – sought to use federal regulations to undercut citizens’ […]
Margaret Clune Giblin | January 15, 2009
President Bush’s designation of 195,000 square miles of marine monuments last week drew praise from a wide constituency—including many environmentalists, who have so often been at odds with the Bush Administration over the past eight years. Without a doubt, President Bush’s use of the Antiquities Act to preserve the Marianas, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose […]
Matthew Freeman | January 14, 2009
If you’re a consumer of health and environmental news, you’ve almost certainly heard it said that “children are not just little adults.” The warning comes up a lot in the context of medical research, because children’s bodies metabolize some things differently than do adults. That’s particularly important because somewhere in the vicinity of 80 percent […]
Matt Shudtz | January 13, 2009
After years of study and analysis on the public health implications of regulating perchlorate in drinking water, EPA has come to the conclusion that … it needs to do more study and analysis. In fact, that is the conclusion of two different EPA offices. Within a two-week span, EPA’s Office of Water and its […]
Yee Huang | January 12, 2009
Environmentalists are not usually accustomed to having industry allies in their efforts to address climate change. However, behind the scenes large private insurance companies have long advocated for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and ultimately threaten these companies’ bottom line. Recently, reinsurance giant Munich Re attributed significant human and […]