We are starting to see the fruits of Bush’s Labor, using inaction to get his way. In other words, not enforcing the laws on the books in order to allow his corporate sponsors to not have to follow them. Sure it is against the law to dump mercury into the ocean, but only if we catch ya, and given that we are not even looking, go ahead.

Well the SCOTUS handed earth a victory today. From MSNBC

In a defeat for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a U.S. government agency has the power under the clean air law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming.

The nation’s highest court by a 5-4 vote said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “has offered no reasoned explanation” for its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide and other emissions from new cars and trucks that contribute to climate change.

-snip-

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.

Three questions
The court had three questions before it.

• Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
• Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
• Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?

The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a “laundry list” of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.

The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

 

The stroy says it best, "If the Bush administration decides to allow drilling in Bristol Bay, it will simply illustrate the level to which they will sink to satisfy Big Oil"

From the AP (bolds are mine)

President Bush is deciding whether to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling in federal waters off Alaska's Bristol Bay, home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world's largest sockeye salmon run.

Leasing in a portion of the area rich in oil and natural gas ended nearly two decades ago � while Bush's father was president � in the outcry after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

But with natural gas prices higher, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service proposed reopening up the North Aleutian Basin. That includes Bristol Bay and part of southeastern Bering Sea.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel confirmed Saturday the president was considering taking that step.

Environmentalists oppose drilling there because of the potential for oil spills and harm to wildlife. They have speculated in recent days that Bush might allow such drilling before Democrats regain control of Congress in January.

"If the Bush administration decides to allow drilling in Bristol Bay, it will simply illustrate the level to which they will sink to satisfy Big Oil," Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, said Saturday. "They are willing to risk a valuable, renewable resource like Bristol Bay's salmon fisheries for limited, shortsighted drilling plans."

Today in the rain soaked rose garden Bush said, "I am granting a full presidential pardon so they can live out their lives as safe as can be"

This is the nices thing Bush has ever done for anyone or anything, and the Washington Wire has this to tell…

President Bush today will pardon the White House Thanksgiving turkey, a ceremony repeated each year since the late 1940s. The reprieve likely will be a brief one. The birds, bred for their meaty breasts, quickly grow too heavy to move themselves around, and usually die before the next Thanksgiving. Last year�s winner and its understudy, also pardoned by Bush, were no exception. Billed as the �Happiest Turkey on Earth� at last year�s Disneyland Thanksgiving Day Parade, where it was honorary grand marshal, both �Marshmallow� and its sidekick �Yam� already have passed away, of natural causes, according to a spokeswoman for Disneyland.

Go read more, it is a real bring down…

Click for a larger view…

Well looks like they have been busted. The Coal Industry puts out a memo that they should cast doubt on Global Warming.

ThinkProgress has the details..

A secret memo by the coal industry details a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about global warming. The memo expresses fear that if the government addresses climate change — through a carbon tax or regulating greenhouse gasses — it will cut into their profits.

Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists.” (The memo also refers to people who believe in global warming science as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”)

But the coal-based utility leading the campaign ran up against a problem: there is no scientific community who agrees with them. The memo acknowledges almost everyone who disputes global warming science have no “involvement in climatology.” So they’ve decided to lavish funding on one climatologist who will do their bidding: Pat Michaels.

The memo describes how the coal-based utility contributed “$100,000 to Dr. Michaels this year.” It also “contacted all the [utilities] in the United States” asking for contributions to Michaels’ research and “obtained additional contributions.” Here are a few highlights from Michaels’ career:

– In 2003, Michaels famously “proved” that global warming was mostly hype by mixing up degrees and radians.

– In 2004, Michaels told Business Week, “We know how much the planet is going to warm. It is a small amount, and we can’t do anything about it.”

– This year, Michaels completely misrepresented a study by Curt Davis to falsely claim that Antartica has been gaining ice in recent years.

In 2003, A Harvard scientist told the Senate Republican Policy Committee that Michaels has “published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”

Funding Michaels is part of a larger propaganda campaign, involving several industries, described in the memo. Other activities include bankrolling a movie that attacks An Inconvenient Truth, deceptive advertisements by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and aggressive lobbying. Corporations meet regularly with Michaels and CEI to discuss strategy.

You can read the memo here. Desmog blog has more.

“The average temperatures of the first half of 2006 were the highest ever recorded for the continental United States, scientists announced today.” Almost 45 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced “moderate to extreme droughts” while “some areas, such as the Northeast of the country experienced record rainfalls and severe floods.”

Hey the Crazy Evangelicals always see everything as a sign from god, so what does this mean?

 A Elm tree uprooted itself and flung itself at the door step of the White House, could this tree be stopping ol’ George Bush from leaving the White House, or re-entering it? Could mother Earth be exacting her revenge on the President that has distroyed more of the enviroment than ever before. Or could it be a sign from god that she is not happy with him… If Bush acts like Bush, he will take the next 3 months off to recover and pray.

From ThinkProgress

The 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, and caused an unprecedented level of damage.

Now, in the second major global warming study released today, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has found:

Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor.

… The study contradicts recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also adds support to the premise that hurricane seasons will become more active as global temperatures rise.

Some background: Last year, sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic “were a record 1.7° F above the 1901-1970 average.”

Previous studies had suggested that the more intense hurricane activity was largely due to a 60-to-80-year natural cycle in sea-surface temperatures. But according to the study released today, less than .2° F of the rise was due to this natural cycle. Global warming, on the other hand, caused roughly half (about 0.8° F) of the rise, more than any other factor

Bush and his Republican backers have decided that they not only hate you, but want to allow companies to poison you too. The new policy that has been handed down from the Bush administration will make it almost imposable for the EPA to protect Americans from harmful pollutants spewed into the air by refineries and such. In short, Bush cares more about polluters of our air then the Americans that have to breath it. When called on, Bush, and his Republican backers choose money over Americans.

From the Washington Post. (bolds are mine)

A proposal to revise how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency’s regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be "detrimental to the environment."

The proposed rule, whose wording was disclosed yesterday by the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), would change the emissions standards for oil refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, chemical plants, steel mills and other plants that discharge thousands of pounds of airborne toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead.

Under current law, plants that emit 10 tons or more of a single toxin in a year, or 25 tons or more of a combination of toxins, must install "maximum achievable control technology" to cut those emissions by 95 percent or more. The draft proposal would lift that requirement from polluters that have reduced their emissions to below 25 tons a year, potentially allowing emissions to increase so long as they stay under the 25-ton limit.

An internal EPA memo summarizing the position of eight of the agency’s 10 regional offices, dated Dec. 13, contended the change could conceivably result in an increase in toxic emissions. Seven of the offices agreed that the proposal would allow polluters to "virtually avoid regulation and greatly complicate any enforcement."

Message the Bush Administration has for you,Breath now, because soon you will not be able too.

Proposed forest land sale by

From staff reports Source: CITIZEN-TIMES.com

 published February 25, 2006 6:00 am Democrat Heath Shuler, who is running for a seat in the U.S. House, called for incumbent U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor to condemn President Bush’s proposal to sell 300,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land.

Under the president’s proposal some 6,615 acres in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests in Western North Carolina could be sold to fund a program that distributes money to counties for rural schools.

“While I agree that funding our education system is crucial to our country’s future, selling off our precious public lands to temporarily cover a shortfall in education funding is a short-term solution to a long-term budget problem,” Shuler said in a letter to Taylor.

Taylor, a Republican, said in a statement Friday that the proposal hasn’t been presented to Congress.

“Once legislation is formally presented to Congress, I will meet with county commissioners and the public in every area where there is a proposal to sell U.S. Forest land, to determine what the wishes of the local people are,” Taylor said. “We will take a close look at each piece of property proposed for sale. After meeting with people in the areas that are impacted, I will make a decision.”

Well it looks like Oregon State University should have thought twice before it did something related to science, especially if that crazy science goes against the will of the failed Bush administration and the corrupt Republicans.

From The Oregonian

The federal government has abruptly suspended funding for Oregon State University research that concluded federally sponsored logging after the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon set back the recovery of forests.

The action came after a team of scientists from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service published their results last month in Science, the nation’s leading scientific journal.

It escalated the controversy surrounding the findings, which undercut Bush administration-backed arguments for logging after wildfires. The research, led by a 29-year-old graduate student, already had come under attack within OSU’s College of Forestry by professors who contend that logging and replanting speed recovery of burned forests.

Those professors tried but failed to persuade Science not to publish the one-page report.

Administrators at OSU and scientists elsewhere said they could not recall another instance of the federal government suspending funding for research after controversial results emerge.

Am I am the only one who finds this not only very disturbing, but I also think that this does very little to keep us competitive in the world. As the world moves forward, some of the finest collages in the world are forces to suspend science so as not to piss of the dumbest president in US history.