States Confront Climate Challenge As Bush Administration Continues Denial
First the White House refused to open an email containing a report on greenhouse gases from the Environmental Protection Agency. The administration’s hope, presumably, was that if they ignored the email for long enough it would cease to exist. This move forced the EPA to dilute the report, though it is still not palatable to the administration. Now the Defense Department has decided to join the latest fight against the environment by refusing to follow EPA orders to clean up carcinogenic chemicals and other toxic waste at three military bases which are listed by the EPA as among the most polluted sites in the country. And though the administration finally conceded a few weeks ago that climate change is real, seven years have passed since President Bush’s decision to opt out of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the United States is still struggling to enact any aggressive emissions reduction legislation on the federal level.
The good news: because of this gap in federal action, some states such as California, New Hampshire, and Florida have stepped up to the challenge and put their own policies in action to try to reduce GHG emissions. The bad news: the actions of states alone will not be enough. A report put out by the Pew Center asserts that federal policy is necessary to encourage the innovation that will lead to cleaner energy technology, to create a national mandate, and to involve the
It is obvious that the next administration will have a lot of work to catch the
Comments on this article
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the Science Progress Privacy Policy and agree to the Science Progress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
