Fine...
Here's a quick google rip 'n paste; first site I landed on. It's just about water, not the rest of it. I'm telling ya, this is gonna be easy.
Sewage treatment. From its inception, the Clean Water Act has required municipalities to treat raw sewage, removing dangerous viruses and parasites before discharging it into the nation's waters. However, since his first day in office, President Bush has blocked policies and laws that protect America's waters from sewage contamination, endangering all life that uses the resulting spoiled waters.
On Inauguration Day, the EPA issued a moratorium on proposed rules for controlling discharges of raw sewage from sewage collection systems.
In November 2003, the Bush administration proposed to allow treatment facilities to "blend" wastewater, diverting raw sewage and other pollutants directly into streams, rivers, and lakes during rain storms. Currently, such bypasses are allowed only to prevent loss of life, personal injury, or severe property damage. The new policy would grant wide latitude to federal and state officials to determine when the diversions could take place, potentially introducing more disease-carrying microbes directly into water bodies used for drinking water and recreation.
Polluted runoff. Within six months of entering office, President Bush reversed a Clinton administration decision that required states to speed up their efforts to clean up "non-point" sources of pollution (e.g., pesticides and fertilizers, oil, sediments, debris, and other harmful effluents in run-off from farms, logging projects and city streets). Instead, on July 16, 2001, the EPA announced that it was going to "redesign and improve" the program extensively. No new rule has been issued, although additional actions have weakened Clean Water Act protections that the American people have relied on for 30 years.
Loss of wetlands. The nation's isolated waters-wetlands, streams, and ponds-are vital for flood control, filtering pollutants from our waters, and providing habitat for wildlife, as well as for commercial fishing and shellfishing, among many other uses. The Bush administration has jeopardized this vital resource.
Going far beyond a Supreme Court ruling that overturned protections for certain isolated waters used by migratory birds, the administration announced in January 2003 its intent to eliminate Clean Water Act protections for all isolated waters. Up to 20 million acres of the nation's wetlands would have lost federal protection from industrial pollution or unlawful development as a result of the new guidelines. The administration ignored a report by EPA's own staff warning that the changes would have "profound and far-reaching impacts" and "serious effects on the progress made during the last 30 years to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters." Only after receiving 133,000 comments opposing the effort to narrow the Clean Water Act's protection of wetlands did the Bush administration abandon this effort.
However, the administration has not withdrawn a directive issued in January 2003 by the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers (the Corp) that, if fully implemented, could result in withdrawing federal protection from as many as 20 million acres of wetlands. Furthermore, the Corp announced in October 2001 a shift in policy from protecting natural wetlands to merely mitigating harm to wetlands once it occurs.
Increasing stress on water resources. Energy and real estate development have put heavy stress on America's water resources. Increased development will only further tax our waters if it goes unchecked, with greater threats from pollution and more rapid loss of wetlands and habitat for endangered species, yet the Bush administration has consistently sought to favor energy, development and corporate profits over the environment.
In early February 2004, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that allowing massive destruction of fish and other aquatic organisms in cooling systems, and then attempting to replace them in the ecosystem, does not fulfill the Clean Water Act requirement to mitigate environmental damage. Yet by mid-February, the EPA issued a rule allowing existing plants to continue using the most environmentally damaging type of cooling system, known as once-through cooling, which kills thousands of fish. The EPA decision was dictated by White House political staff who rejected recommendations from EPA professionals in favor of a cost-benefit method preferred by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
The Bush administration has developed proposed changes to rules implementing the Coastal Zone Management Act that would undermine coastal states' ability to block offshore oil drilling. These rules are being rewritten at the urging of Vice President Cheney's energy task force, which was sympathetic to complaints by the oil industry that coastal states have slowed or stopped drilling plans because the companies did not comport with state policies to protect coastal and marine life.
The Bush administration sought to open 36 sites off of the coast of California to oil drilling despite the objections of state officials-an effort ultimately rejected by the courts.
Under the Bush administration, the Corps has permitted rampant development to begin destroying the western Everglades-despite what the restoration of the eastern Everglades has taught us about the value of these wetlands and the cost of correcting mistakes which are easily avoided. The Corps has ignored its own environmental impact statements, which point to rapid wetland losses in the last few years. In a striking example of such neglect, the Corps' own analysis shows that it has permitted more than 3,800 acres of wetland drainage and filling since 1998, a significant increase in destruction.
The Bush administration has refused to protect federal water rights needed to support endangered species like Pacific Salmon (see "The Bush Record on Endangered Species"), wilderness areas and national wildlife refuges.
Mountaintop removal and industrial waste. A longstanding Clean Water Act provision prohibits the Corps from allowing industrial wastes to bury and destroy U.S. waters. Waste dumping from coal mining alone has buried at least 700 perennial and intermittent streams in Appalachia. The Bush administration, driven by a desire to legalize discharges from mountaintop-removal mining of coal, redefined "fill" to allow industries to discharge these wastes into streambeds. The rule change, which also permits dumping of hardrock mining waste, construction and demolition debris, and other solid industrial wastes into streams, puts virtually all the nation's waters at risk by allowing the Corps to issue permits to dump any kind of industrial waste into streams and wetlands in any part of the country.
Factory farms. Of all the challenges to clean water, one of the greatest that our nation faces is from so-called "non-point source pollution"-polluted runoff from everything from farms to city streets. Of this challenge, the greatest single component is polluted run-off from the agricultural industry. The Bush administration issued new rules to shield factory farms-giant livestock farms that can house millions of animals-from responsibility for polluting our waters, allowing them to write their own pollution control plans that are withheld not only from the public but also from the states and even from the EPA itself. Keeping the public even more in the dark, the Bush administration failed to require that factory farms monitor groundwater for potential contamination by animal waste. Factory farms generate about 500 million pounds of waste each year. The disposal practice of over-applying manure on land creates contaminated run-off that poses a threat to waterways and drinking water sources. Major livestock producing states generally experience 20 to 30 serious water pollution problems per year involving spills from waste storage lagoons or contaminated runoff.
Letting polluters off the hook. The administration's pattern of under-enforcement of current water protection laws exacerbates the damage done by Bush's weak Clean Water Act policies.
A recent internal EPA study found that about a quarter of the nation's largest industrial plants and water treatment facilities seriously violate Clean Water Act standards at any one time, yet only a small fraction of them face formal enforcement actions. These discharges can cripple fisheries, taint fishing holes, and increase the risks of illnesses ranging from skin rash to lead and mercury poisoning. Between 1999 and 2001, formal enforcement actions by the EPA under the Clean Water Act declined by 45 percent.
In late March 2004, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) released a detailed study revealing that "more than 60 percent of all major facilities in the United States exceeded their Clean Water Act permit limits on discharges into waterways at least once between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2003." More than 430 major facilities exceeded permit limits during at least 10 of the 18 months studied, and 35 major polluters exceeded limits during every reporting period. To date, no action has been taken against the polluters that USPIRG identified.
Due to a lack of funding from the administration, the EPA is postponing an overhaul to its Permit Compliance System, the database which tracks clean water permits, self-monitoring data, and enforcement and inspections for more than 64,000 facilities across the country. EPA's Inspector General has criticized the Agency for devoting insufficient funds to this database. This delay occurs at a time when, according to the EPA's own data, 25 percent of industrial facilities engage in ongoing violations of their permit requirements.
Now, your turn.
