Criticism of Bush's 'Clear Skies Initiative' little more than hot air

Criticism of Bush's
'Clear Skies Initiative'
little more than hot air

A trio of self-proclaimed clean air advocate groups says the Bush administration's new "Clear Skies Initiative," aimed at reducing pollution, is "a dirty Valentine to industry polluters that is bad for the parks and public health."

The Tennessee Environmental Council, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy claim that Bush's proposal is a gift to industry polluters.

Actually, the Bush proposal would:

• Cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent, from current emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million tons in 2010, and 3 million tons in 2018.
• Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides by 67 percent, from current emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million tons in 2008, and to 1.7 million tons in 2018.
• Cut mercury emissions by 69 percent — the first ever national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions will be cut from a current 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010, and 15 tons in 2018.

And those are just the high points.

Thanks to environmental alarmists, national polls show the majority of Americans believe the environment is getting worse instead of better. But Environmental Protection Agency statistics demonstrate those perceptions are false. In fact, aggregate emissions of the six major pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act have fallen by a staggering 64 percent since 1970.

Can the air be cleaner still? Of course. (But to huff and puff and claim the current administration is somehow embarked upon a vast conspiracy with business and industry to stunt forests and choke asthmatic children is ridiculous. But then much that environmental advocates have said about the imminent demise of the planet in the last quarter century or so has been on the fringe.

One of the most persistent bees in environmentalists' bonnets in the last 15 years has been the notion that air pollution was causing global warming, a phenomenon that would cause catastrophic flooding, failed crops and oven-hot temperatures.

But a study by researchers from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Santa Cruz, published in the respected journal Science, has found that global warming isn't such a hot idea after all. Indeed, the ice streams that were supposedly melting under the influence of rising global temperatures are actually expanding at the rate of 26.8 billion tons of ice a year.

The scientists say they believe the thickening ice streams are repeating a pattern that occurred from 1650 to 1850 when the Earth went through what is known as the Little Ice Age.

Someone please tell Al Gore.

This new Antarctica study demonstrates how prudent the Bush administration was last year when it announced it was not sending the 1997 Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification. Instead, the president decided to increase funding for scientific research into climate change.

Imagine that — collecting the facts before you set policy. Who knows, it might just catch on.