Editorials
Sunday, April 1, 2001
President’s vision IN the two months since President Bush took office, he has stunned environmentalists with reversals of protective regulations and the dismissal of a global compact.
on environmental
issues is cloudy
The issue: President Bush's stand
on a global treaty and other
environmental issues has alarmed
advocates of conservation.Bush's rejection of an international climate treaty this week has drawn strong reactions from America's allies in Europe and Japan. The president clearly has his own ideas about the environment but they are open to the suspicion that he is rewarding the energy industry that supported his election.
Thus far, Bush has taken several steps:
>> He has delayed a ban on new roads and logging in 58.6 million acres of national forest land, which prompted Michael P. Dombeck, the U.S. Forest Service chief, to resign. He had been the architect of the plan that also would have barred most off-road vehicles and new oil, gas and mining operations.
>> The president has suspended standards aimed at reducing levels of cancer-causing arsenic in 3,000 drinking water systems contaminated by mining runoff.
>> He has set aside rules requiring mining companies to post cleanup bonds as a guarantee against environmental damage.
>> His administration is seeking ways to remove protection of 3 million acres of land around 19 national monuments, possibly opening the land to logging, mining and oil and gas exploration.
>> The president has reversed a campaign promise that would have required power plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, regarded by most scientists as a major contributor to global warming.
Then came the announcement that the administration had no interest in carrying out the Kyoto Protocol, a global accord reached in Japan in 1997 that was intended to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.
Bush reasoned that no other industrial country had yet signed the agreement and that Congress would not ratify it. He asserted that attempts to control emissions from burning coal, which supplies 56 percent of the country's electricity, would be too costly.
Criticism came from Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany, who said the United States should assume responsibility because it releases 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, yet has only 4 percent of its population. Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel of Austria said, "We need to insist that the United States fulfills its duty." Prime Minister Wim Kok of the Netherlands said the action was irresponsible.
The rejection was taken as a serious affront in Japan, which had taken special pride in hosting the conference that led to the accord. Ambassador Kazuo Asakai, who watches over global environmental affairs, said his government was "dismayed and deeply disappointed." A Canadian negotiator, Paul Fauteux, said "Kyoto clearly is not perfect, but Kyoto is what we've got."
A European official, Margot Wallstrom, said that, despite the U.S. abstention, the accord may still be ratified if Japan, Europe and Russia agree.
At home, news reports speculated that Bush was repaying those who funneled money into his election campaign. Bush's Yale classmate and head of Edison Electric Institute that represents the electric utility industry, contributed $12 million to the president and other Republican candidates.
"Bush is attacking the environment by land, water, and air," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "His suspension of mining rules is the latest in a recent string of assaults on the environment and is a gift to the polluting mining industry."
To nullify such criticism, the president should articulate a clear vision on the environment. He might consider the words of Dombeck in his letter of resignation: "Please remember that the decisions you make through your tenure have implications that last many generations."
Bush will pick LAWYERS are sometimes known for their insufferable self-importance, and President Bush in the early days of his administration has given them their well-deserved comeuppance.
judges without
ABA’s advice
The issue: President Bush has
decided to end the American Bar
Association's role in evaluating
candidates for the federal bench.To their collective chagrin, Bush has announced that he will decide whom to nominate for the federal bench without consulting first with the American Bar Association. For a half century, a special ABA committee has been given a sneak preview of presidents' judicial preferences and provided its evaluation. No other private organization has been similarly sanctified in regard to any other presidential appointments.
An inquiry about whether such consultation exists with the governor at the state level brought a chuckle from an official of the Hawaii State Bar Association; the state bar has never had the chutzpah to even ask for such a role.
The argument might be made that such consultation is warranted because of the federal judiciary's importance as a separate branch of government. That might be a compelling reason if the ABA were a politically neutral organization. It is not. In recent years, it has taken liberal positions on such issues as abortion, capital punishment, affirmative action and product liability.
The ABA might have rendered its own verdict when it gave a mixed rating to Robert H. Bork, a federal appeals judge and former Yale law professor whom Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987. Four members of the ABA committee denounced Bork as unqualified, and he subsequently went down in a liberal blaze on the Senate floor, adding the term "borked" to the nation's political lexicon.
From now on, the ABA can stand in line with other special-interest groups and the general public to give their opinions on judicial nominees as they emerge from the White House. It will be refreshing for a president to treat lawyers as ordinary citizens.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, President
John Flanagan, publisher and editor in chief 529-4748; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (USPS 249460) is published daily by
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