A List of Bush Midnight Regulations Against the Environment

Bush must owe people in the fossil fuel business some big favors, because he seems to be working at a fever pitch to pass Midnight Regulations against the Environment.

Midnight Regulations are last minute laws passed by an outgoing president in an attempt to pay off favors and keep a new administration from being able to change them. With barely 60 days to go until Barack Obama takes the White House, Bush is working methodically to weaken or reverse an array of regulations that protect America’s wilderness from logging or mining operations, and compel factory farms to clean up dangerous waste.

Below are just a few of the things Bush and his administration are doing.

• Bureau of Land Management’s plans to auction off 20,000 hectares of oil and gas parcels within sight of Utah’s Delicate Arch natural bridge.

President Bush Opening Public Lands Near Parks for Drilling

• Coal-fired power plants will no longer be required to install pollution controls or clean up soot and smog pollution.

• Industrial size pig, cow and chicken farms can disregard the Clean Water Act and air pollution controls.

• Restrictions will be eased so power plants can operate near national parks and wilderness areas.

• Mountain-top mine operators could dump waste into rivers and streams.

• 2m acres of land in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado opened to development of oil shales, the dirtiest fuel on Earth.

There is an ocean of oil under our feet!

• A rule eliminating the mandatory, independent advice of government scientists in decisions about whether dams, highways and other projects are likely to harm species.

Announcements of further rule changes are expected in the next few days including one that would weaken regulation of perchlorate, a toxin in rocket fuel that can affect brain development in children, in drinking water.

What can you do?  Well we may not have much luck stopping him from doing further harm, but we can be proactive with our new President.

Please go to President Elect Obama’s website on “Change.” There is a link there, asking for your input. On this page it says, “We’re counting on citizens from every walk of life to get involved. Share your experiences and your ideas — tell us what you’d like the Obama-Biden administration to do and where you’d like the country to go.”

Thanks for stopping in, and as always, keep up the good fight and Alter the Eco!

Adam

Source: The Guardian

Photo: courtesy of Runs with Scissors via Flickr Creative Commons

Related posts:

1. Bullet List Of Bush’s Environmental Record
2. Obama Raises Fuel Efficiency and Reverses Bush’s Climate Change Policies
3. Take That, Climate Skeptics! Obama Chooses Climate Specialist as Science Advisor