Idaho's Sore Thumb

George W. Bush began his first year as president with a hugely controversial decision to roll back protection from arsenic in drinking water. The second year kicked off with a full-on blitz to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

In between, he pushed an environmental agenda specially designed with help from 18 of the energy industry's top 25 financial contributors to the Republican Party, according to the New York Times. Specific concessions were granted Enron, which seemed to treat the White House as just another one of its offshore partnerships. The White House changed details in the National Energy Plan to benefit Enron, and even dispatched the vice president to lobby India on behalf of an Enron venture. More than anything, the White House mirrored Enron's management style, squandering a trillion-dollar surplus in just a few months, and then stonewalling anyone who had the nerve to ask questions about it.

Bush's budget for fiscal year 2003 proposes more than $34 billion in taxpayer subsidies for oil, gas, coal and nuclear power companies, while slashing spending for environmental and natural resources departments by $1 billion, or 3.4 percent. Hardest hit are energy efficiency and water protection programs. The cuts make room for $558 million for coal, oil and natural gas research and development; $300 million for the development of so-called "clean coal" technologies; and $10 billion in loan guarantees for a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 states.

Bush is also seeking tax incentives for hybrid and fuel-cell (or hydrogen-driven) vehicles, but is steadfastly resisting efforts to improve gasoline efficiency of new cars, trucks and SUVs. These proposals follow Bush's pattern of almost daily announcements through his first year of decisions rolling back protections for the environment, wildlife or global climate, often in the name of national security or boosting the economy out of recession (also for national security). Critics dismiss his agenda as payback to corporations that supported his campaigns. Following are 20 key environmental decisions made by the Bush administration in its first year:

Arctic

The prospects of Senate approval of drilling in the Refuge evaporated in April. But the administration was still pushing hard, and woe to any scientist who dared speak her mind. The administration imposed a gag order on all Fish and Wildlife Service employees preventing them from making public comments on the Refuge, and disparaged the agency's research showing oil drilling in the refuge to be incompatible with wildlife. In January 2002, the Interior Secretary Gail Norton announced that oil drilling wouldn't harm polar bears on the refuge's coastal plain, rejecting two studies showing that it would. And last October Norton lied to Congress when she said oil drilling won't harm caribou, misrepresenting the findings of biologists.

Arsenic

Soon after it took office, the Bush administration announced it would suspend new rules to reduce arsenic in tap water. It also invited the mining industry, a major discharger of arsenic into water bodies, to argue for a weaker standard. After a public outcry, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will keep the arsenic standards adopted at the end of the Clinton administration.

Clean air

In February 2002, Eric Schaeffer, head of EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforce-ment, accused the Energy Department and the White House of catering to the power industry and obstructing EPA efforts to enforce the Clean Air Act. Schaeffer said in his resignation letter that he was tired of "fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce." Bush proposed a system of tradable "pollution rights" that gives utilities financial incentives to reduce emissions of toxic mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Bush would let industry decide how to meet nationwide emission caps. Federal lawsuits against Midwest power companies responsible for fouling the air in eastern cities have not yet been dropped, but the rules on which those lawsuits were based are being significantly weakened. In March, a new study confirmed air pollution as a major cause of lung cancer in cities, though whether it will have much impact remains to be seen. So far, science has not been the leading factor in Bush policy decisions.

Clean water

The Bush has relaxed rules to clean up the nation's water bodies, threatening water quality in several ways. The EPA estimates that 40 percent of surveyed waterways are unsafe for fishing, boating, swimming, or drinking. Even so, the Bush administration is poised to weaken the TMDL (total maximum daily load) program requiring states and the EPA to identify waterways that remain polluted, rank them for priority attention, and then develop pollution limits for each water body. The administration has initiated a process to weaken its oversight of state administration of the program, and enable states to ignore polluted waters.

Since the first Bush administration, federal policy called for "no net loss" of wetlands. But in January 2002, the White House signed off on a controversial plan by the Corps of Engineers to relax nationwide permit rules that prevent the destruction of thousands of streams, swamps and other wetlands. The Corps gave no public notice or opportunity for comment on its decision. The Fish and Wildlife Service had drafted comments denouncing the plan as scientifically and environmentally unjustified, warning that the proposed changes would increase destruction of "aquatic and terrestrial habitats." These comments have been ignored by the administration.

Sewage containing bacteria, viruses, fecal matter, and other wastes is responsible each year for beach closures, fish kills, shellfish-bed closures, and human gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. According to the EPA, there were 40,000 discharges of untreated sewage into water bodies, basements, playgrounds and other areas in 2000. Before the Bush administration took office, the EPA issued long-overdue rules minimizing raw sewage discharges into waterways, and requiring public notification of sewage overflows. The proposed rules, however, were blocked by the regulatory freeze ordered by the Bush administration last January. A year later, they are languishing in regulatory limbo.

Buckling to industry pressure, in November the EPA proposed to relax rules protecting public health and the environment from the impacts of livestock factory farms, where thousands of cows, chickens, or pigs in live confined areas and produce enormous amounts of untreated waste. These industrial operations are prone to break, leak, or overflow, fouling waterways and drinking water supplies. The new rules would weaken groundwater controls and monitoring, authorize states to exempt factory farms from Clean Water Act permitting requirements, and substitute mandatory controls with voluntary measures.

Cruise ships

A law signed by Bush in October threatens endangered humpback whales in Alaska by allowing cruise ships into Glacier Bay National Park, a fragile ecosystem. The law overturned two federal court decisions reducing cruise ship visits to the bay, including a ruling that the National Park Service had violated the law by increasing cruise ship entries into the bay from 107 to 139 during June, July and August without preparing an environmental impact statement. Last July a ship crushed a pregnant humpback whale at the bay's entrance. Cruise ships also bring the risk of oil spills, increased air pollution, and disturbance of wildlife. Cruise companies in Alaska have been found guilty of illegally dumping sewage, plastics, toxic chemicals, and oil as well as falsifying records to conceal violations

Endangered species

Bush proposed to suspend mandatory deadlines for listing a species, effectively nullifying a citizen's ability to go ask a court to enforce the law. Four species the administration proposal would harm are:

Desert Tortoise. After agreeing to a legal settlement to remove livestock from endangered desert tortoise habitat in Southern California, Norton has repeatedly refused to comply. In May a federal judge sharply criticized the Bush administration for failing to honor its promise to restrict cattle grazing on 427,000 acres of Mojave Desert public land allotments to protect critical tortoise habitat.

Grizzly bear. The Interior Department indicated its intention to shelve a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears into federal wildlands in Idaho and Montana. In doing so, Norton torpedoed decades of scientific work and successful efforts to win the trust of local timber companies and timber workers.

Northern spotted owl. The Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that logging "has not appreciably affected" spotted owls, opening the floodgates for the return of timber sales in Pacific Northwest national forests. The agency sent letters to the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management informing them that, contrary to earlier findings, less than 1 percent of spotted owl habitat will be destroyed by logging by the end of the first decade of the 100-year Northwest Forest Plan. Wildlife officials originally estimated that over that period timber cutting would eliminate almost 3 percent of the old-growth forests the owls need for nesting. Logging over the last 150 years has destroyed as much as 90 percent of the owl's habitat, forcing their listing as a protected species under the Endangered Species Act.

Salmon. In February 2002 the Corps of Engineers issued its final recommendation against breaching four dams on the lower Snake River, even though leaving the dams intact could lead to the extinction of the Snake River's salmon and steelhead runs. Instead, the Corps wants to spend $400 million over the next 10 years on fish ladders, additional transportation barges and other programs aimed at making the dams less lethal to migrating fish. The Corps also signaled its intent to go forward with deepening the Columbia River from its present average of 40 feet to 43 feet despite long-term damage to salmon. A series in The Oregonian demonstrated the Corps' economic studies supporting dredging were based on outdated information, and that the project's costs will outweigh all benefits.

Enforcement

A Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility report indicated a steep decline in environmental enforcement during President Bush's first year in office. PEER's analysis revealed that cases referred by the EPA for criminal prosecution dropped by 20 percent. The EPA meanwhile said about 40 percent of its criminal enforcement staff would be moved to non-environmental security tasks.

Forest policy

The Forest Service pushed through a plan to log a roadless area in Montana's Bitterroot National Forest without allowing for citizen appeals. A federal judge threw out the plan, which would endanger bull trout and grizzly bears. A revised plan still allows for logging outside roadless areas. If President Bush gets his way, subsidies for logging will increase in national forests next year. The administration intends to offer 2 billion board feet (depending on sales volume for salvage timber), up from 1.4 billion board feet. Meanwhile, the Forest Service announced "interim" guidelines that would roll back protection for 60 million acres of roadless areas, including those in the Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service is planning more than a dozen timber sales in roadless areas throughout the Tongass that will cover hundreds of thousands of acres.

Global climate

At the start of his term, Bush reversed his campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Instead, he is asking businesses to devise ways to limit their increase of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. There will be no federally mandated targets. And even if his voluntary targets are actually achieved, emissions will still increase over the next ten years at the same pace they increased over the last 10 years.

Mineral extraction

Norton announced new "hard rock" mining regulations that reverse more stringent environmental restrictions on mining for gold, silver, copper and other metals on federal lands. Under the new rules, the agency has renounced the government's authority to deny permits on the grounds that a proposed mine could result in "substantial irreparable harm" to the environment. The new rules also limit corporate liability for irresponsible mining practices, undermining cleanup standards that safeguard ground and surface water. Meanwhile, the Administration has agreed to allow mining companies to dump their waste directly in rivers. The rule will benefit coal mining companies in the East and hard rock mining in the West, while causing pollution problems for rivers that already fail to meet water quality standards.

Nuclear waste

In February 2002, Bush endorsed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation to store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in an underground facility in Yucca Mountain, 100-miles northwest of Las Vegas. The decision means trucks and trains will carry cargoes of highly radioactive waste through thousands of communities en route to Nevada, risking potentially catastrophic effects in the event of a radioactive spill.

Oil drilling off the California coast

The Bush administration is trying to strip the state of California's right to review and block proposals for oil drilling off the coast. The administration is appealing a federal judge's decision that the federal Minerals Management Service illegally extended 36 undeveloped oil leases off the state's central coast.

Superfund

The federal trust fund used to clean up 30 percent of the nation's worst waste sites is running out of money. Under pressure from chemical and oil companies, Congress abandoned the "polluter pays" principle in 1995 by letting the corporate taxes that funded the program expire. The fund has dwindled from a high of $3.8 billion in 1996 to a projected $28 million next year, and will be broke in 2004. Bush plans to shift cleanup costs to citizens rather than make polluters foot the bill. He also intends to designate fewer sites for restoration.

Yellowstone National Park

The Interior Department decided to allow snowmobiles to roam Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks if they abide by some limits on noise and gasoline. Snowmobilers, meanwhile, are continuing to violate rules designed to protect wildlife and ensure public safety in Yellowstone, according to a study by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.