I saw some headlines yesterday about Bush departing the G8 summit this week, with many news items noting, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
I assumed it was some kind of sarcastic paraphrase, with international news outlets poking fun at the Bush administration. According to some accounts, it was actually a direct quote.
George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan.
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
According to the same report, an official who witnessed the scene said, “Everyone was very surprised that he was making a joke about America’s record on pollution.”
UK’s Independent added: “His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the president from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.” (In England, a “two-fingered salute” is not a peace sign.) What’s more, the reports have been picked up by U.S. outlets, including the NYT and the LAT.
I’m actually not sure what’s more humiliating — our pollution, Bush bragging about our pollution, or Bush “punching the air while grinning widely” in front of world leaders after a discussion on global warming.
When the LAT asked the White House for a comment, a spokesperson said, “I don’t have anything on this for you.” That’s not especially surprising.
And, of course, the timing of these reports couldn’t be much better.
Because, while Bush is boasting to world leaders about pollution, he’s also making clear that he’ll let his successor tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare — a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.
The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources, or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has opted to postpone action instead, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
To defer compliance with the Supreme Court’s demand, the White House has walked a tortured policy path, editing its officials’ congressional testimony, refusing to read documents prepared by career employees and approved by top appointees, requesting changes in computer models to lower estimates of the benefits of curbing carbon dioxide, and pushing narrowly drafted legislation on fuel-economy standards that officials said was meant to sap public interest in wider regulatory action.
The decision to solicit further comment overrides the EPA’s written recommendation from December. Officials said a few senior White House officials were unwilling to allow the EPA to state officially that global warming harms human welfare. Doing so would legally trigger sweeping regulatory requirements under the 45-year-old Clean Air Act, one of the pillars of U.S. environmental protection, and would cost utilities, automakers and others billions of dollars while also bringing economic benefits, EPA’s analyses found.
One of the participants in the interagency debate told the WaPo, “They argued that this increase in regulation should be on the next president’s record.”
By one count, the president has publicly vowed to “solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations” in upwards of 400 times.
And in each instance, he didn’t mean a word of it.