Bush knew that his plans to demolish existing environmental protections, cut funding to key organizations and hand our national resources over to big corporations and special interest groups would be hugely unpopular if people knew what was actually going on, so the administration has gone to great lengths to keep the public from finding out. One of its favorite strategies has been to mask destructive initiatives with green-sounding labels. It's downright insulting that our government thinks we can be so easily duped by pretty packaging. Don't let yourselves be fooled. Green is a color-you can't hear it, you have to see it and it can't be seen in any of the policies emanating from the White House. The "Clear Skies Initiative" allows polluters to choose whether or not to comply with regulations while undermining the Clean Air Act. The "Healthy Forest Initiative," allegedly designed to increase protection against forest fires, actually puts the care of national forests in the hands of loggers and makes it impossible for the public to sue them. And that's just a sampling; a full list would fill the entire newspaper.
What they can't hide in full view with misleading labels, they try to hide completely, blatantly attempting to conceal their unpopular agenda from the media and the public. The administration releases announcements of environmental policy late on Friday afternoons, saving the really scandalous stuff for major holidays. For example, the Bush administration decided late last year to open the Tongass National Forest to logging. This was a controversial move, since the Tongass is America's largest national forest and was, until Bush let the loggers in, one of the few intact temperate rainforests remaining in the world. To ensure that the public would pay proper attention to this important decision, they announced it to the press at 6:00 p.m., the day before Christmas Eve. There are also other things the administration would like to keep secret from the press. For instance, while designing his energy policy, Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with energy companies, including the illustrious Enron.
Along with the new initiatives, the administration has been quietly cutting funding to almost every remaining program protecting the environment. Any project you can think of, from protecting endangered species to cleaning up toxic waste in our water supply, has had its budget slashed. Even Bush's own campaign pledge to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions has received no money from his administration. Other projects are still being funded, but from new sources. The money to clean up the toxic waste in Superfund sites formerly came from a tax paid by the oil and chemical industries that had produced the pollution. Now, Bush has eliminated the tax, so the money will have to come out of the pockets of ordinary taxpayers like you and me. In fairness, there are a few programs he backs fully. One is the opening of protected areas to oil drilling, a project the Bush administration is pursuing avidly everywhere from Florida to Alaska despite the environmental cost and lack of economic benefits.
In all the furor over terrorism and Iraq, any concern for domestic policy has been drowned out by the alarm klaxons. That is understandable, if not excusable; the tragedy of Sept. 11 shook the country, and it's hard for people to think clearly when they are still reeling from such a shock. But a new election is coming up, and we can't afford to let ourselves be deceived any longer. With the threat of terror clearly reduced now that the Department of Homeland Security has managed to color-code it and with Iraq noticeably free of weapons of mass destruction, we need to turn our attention back to our own country. We need to pay attention to what the Bush administration is doing, not just to what it is saying. Our national treasures are at more risk from the White House than from any foreign enemies.