It wasn’t exactly a pep rally when six of eight living former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chiefs gathered recently to mark the agency’s 35th anniversary. Instead, all six blasted the Bush administration team for its failure to deal with global warming.
Remarkably, five of the six are Republicans.
Current EPA head Stephen Johnson sought to defend administration policy, but mounting scientific evidence argues otherwise. President Bush has been unwilling to acknowledge the harm climate change can cause, let alone press for anti-pollution efforts that might be helpful. His father was more willing to consider the issue during his presidency even though he didn’t have access to the same huge volume of scientific data that today’s president does.
Antarctic ice samples show that levels of carbon dioxide (the chief culprit in global warming) are higher now than they have been in 300,000 years.
No one can be sure why, but fresh data show that 2005 was the hottest year in a century.
With 5 percent of the human population, and the United States producing 25 percent of all human-caused gas emissions, the U.S. should lead efforts to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to the problem. Instead, the administration has blocked international efforts to craft new agreements to replace the Kyoto treaty when it expires in 2012.
“We need leadership and I don’t think we’re getting it,” said Russell Train, EPA chief under Presidents Nixon and Ford. “To sit back and just push it away and say we’ll deal with it sometime down the road is dishonest … and self-destructive.”
Lee Thomas, one of two EPA chiefs under President Reagan, added that “if the United States doesn’t deal with those kinds of issues in a leadership role, they’re not going to get dealt with.”
Even Christie Whitman, first of three EPA chiefs under this President Bush, clashed with current doctrine by saying people obviously are having “an enormous impact” on global warming. Similar concerns came from Bill Reilly, who captained the EPA under the first President Bush, and William Ruckelshaus, EPA chief under Nixon and again under President Reagan.
The sixth voice belonged to Carol Browner, who as President Clinton’s EPA chief had called global warming one of the agency’s top challenges.
The criticisms from five well-informed Republicans show that Bush isn’t just out of step with science, he’s out of step with experts in his own party.
