One would think in this day and age of information that public health and environmental protection would be better than ever. When in fact it would appear the opposite is true and as we approach November, this is going to be, in my opinion, a most pivotal issue for the presidency. One of the first things George Bush did coming into office was to pull the United States out of the Kyoto Treaty Summit.
President Bush said at the time that the U.S. would produce better, faster reductions using a voluntary market based strategy. President Bush then mandated the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to draft what has become the Clear Sky's Initiative. Since it's inception, all of the environmental activist groups and a majority of the States across the nation have voiced opposition to what essentially is an attempt to destroyed much of the Clean Air Act in favor the largest, most profitable, polluters in the U.S.
The Clean Air Act was in response to wide spread industrial air pollution that affected millions of people across the nation. It came on the heals of such landmark legislation as the Superfund Re-authorization Act, to cleanup contaminated sites like Love Canal and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to regulate generation, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste from cradle to grave. RCRA was established based on the industrial accident that occurred in Bhopal India. Union Carbide "accidentally" released toxic chemicals in the early hours killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands more while they lay sleeping.
In response to public criticism of his initiatives, the Bush Administration ordered scientific studies in an attempt to show that these initiatives would be successful in reducing harmful pollutants that endanger public health and contribute to global warming. When these reports were first publish several years ago there was again criticism over the pressure that was placed on the agencies to suppress the data that was not supportive of the administrations goals to gut the regulatory framework that had been established over the last 30 years.
