Sierra Club readers rank Bush Administration's 2003 attacks on the environment: 1. MERCURY RISING - Issued public health warnings topregnant women and children about mercury after announcing policy changes to triple of mercury pollution allowed from power plants.
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Worst environmental exploits of the year
Sierra Club readers rank Bush Administration's 2003
attacks on the environment
1. MERCURY RISING - Issued public health warnings to
pregnant women and children about mercury after
announcing policy changes to triple amount of mercury
pollution allowed from power plants.
2. SUPER DUPED - Became first administration to
support shifting burden of Superfund toxic waste
cleanups from polluters to taxpayers.
3. SOOTY SANTA - Dismantled provision of Clean Air Act
that requires oldest, dirtiest power plants and
refineries to curb soot and smog pollution.
4. BACK IN BLACKOUT - Proposed a national Energy Bill
that did nothing to reduce dependence on foreign oil,
repair or address antiquated electricity grid, or
protect special places from oil and gas drilling.
5. DRILLING WILDERNESS - Opened nearly 9 million
pristine acres in Northwest Alaska to the oil and gas
industry for exploration and drilling.
6. STONEWALLING, BIG TIME (tied)- Continued to
withhold documents from secret meetings between
Bush/Cheney Energy Task Force and energy industry
lobbyists.
6. DON'T AX, DON'T TELL (tied) - Promoted a wildfire
policy that expanded commercial logging in the
backcountry but did little to protect people where
they live.
7. NEXT STOP, SHINOLA - Allowed untreated sewage to be
blended with treated sewage, cut funding for local
sewage treatment, and didn't require health officials
to warn public about sewage in water.
8. CRITICAL CONDITION - Obliterated the process of
critical habitat designation for imperiled wildlife
under the Endangered Species Act.
9. COP OFF - Continued pattern of willful negligence
for enforcement of even basic clean water and clean
air laws.
10. POST 9/11 LIES - Discovered by EPA Inspector
General to have lied about post 9/11 environmental
health hazards near Ground Zero.
11. ROAD WARRIOR - Expanded the legal loophole that
allows obnoxious road claims through federally
protected wilderness, national parks, and public
lands.
12. HOG WASH - Secretly negotiated backroom deal to
exempt giant animal factories from laws governing air
and toxic pollution.
13. POLLUTED LOGIC - Refused to classify industrial
carbon emissions, linked to global warming, as an
official pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
14. HOT AIR - Proposed fantasy hydrogen power
initiative to improve auto fuel efficiency rather than
promoting more proven technologies like gas-electric
hybrids.
15. ESTATE TOX - Ended a 25-year ban on the sale of
PCB-laden real estate.