On issue after issue, the US environmental protection agency has ignored its own science advisers and ruled in favour of polluters.
Why is it that, in the Bush administration, the desires of well-heeled polluters always trump the analyses of government scientists? The answer is that the top political appointees – and the president himself – personally weigh in on the side of industry…
“President Bush intervened at the 11th hour and turned down a second proposal by the EPA staff that would have established tougher seasonal limits on ozone based on its harm to forests, crops and other plants … . Federal scientists had recommended those growing-season limits as a way to keep vegetation healthy and capable of trapping carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.”
But why worry about greenhouse gases? It’s not like anyone thinks the planet is warming up dangerously thanks to human emissions, is it?
Ignoring climate science is, of course, an EPA and Bush administration specialty…
Once an agency charged with protecting the environment loses its scientific integrity, what has it got left? Besides corporate contributions for the boss’s boss, that is.
For a behind-the-scenes look into more of the dirty details behind the President’s interference with the EPA ozone standard, check out my posting at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke/science_decider_in_chief.html
That is a great article.
That last bit says it all.