Editor's Note: With the Bush Administration's remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration's record on environmental issues. Following is the third of several entries that we'll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas. Below, Joe Feller discusses Bush Administration regulations on livestock grazing on public lands.

In 2003, the Bush administration developed new proposed regulations to govern livestock grazing on over 150 million acres of federal public land, According to the administration, the new regulations were designed to "improve working relationships" between the government and ranchers and to "protect the health of rangelands." In fact, the new regulations would have repealed some important environmental standards and rendered others unenforceable, removed opportunities for public notice and input, slanted analyses and appeals procedures to …

Editor's Note:  With the Bush Administration's remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration's record on environmental issues.   Following is the second of several entries that we'll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas.  Below, Dale Goble responds to Dan Tarlock's earlier post on the Bush Administration's record on biodiversity and endangered species protection.

It is also "interesting" that the FWS has proposed the listing of more species in the last couple of months than they have in their entire tenure up to that point. Many if not most of those species are not indigenous to the United States. This allows the Bush Administration to up their nominal listings without impinging upon actions within the United States. It has the additional …

Editor's Note:  With the Bush Administration's remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration's record on environmental issues.   Following is the first of several entries that we'll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas.  A. Dan Tarlock is first up.

The record of the Bush II Administration on biodiversity is one of almost unrelenting hostility to the idea and sustained efforts, continuing into the last days of the Administration to gut the Endangered Species Act. The one positive legacy is the establishment of federal marine reserves.

The “highlights” of its efforts to gut the Endangered Species Act include the reduction of habitat designation, the subordination of science to politics (which was even worse than first reported in 2006), and the recent regulation that …

Editor's Note:  With the Bush Administration's remaining time in office now measured in hours, we asked CPR Member Scholars to remind us of some of the less publicized moments of the Administration's record on environmental issues.   Following is the first of several entries that we'll run on CPRBlog before President Bush returns to Texas.  A. Dan Tarlock is first up.

The record of the Bush II Administration on biodiversity is one of almost unrelenting hostility to the idea and sustained efforts, continuing into the last days of the Administration to gut the Endangered Species Act. The one positive legacy is the establishment of federal marine reserves.

The “highlights” of its efforts to gut the Endangered Species Act include the reduction of habitat designation, the subordination of science to politics (which was even worse than first reported in 2006), and the recent regulation which …

Within the last 45 days, CPR Member Scholars have published two books focused on the question of federal preemption. The issue has arisen in two forms in recent years. During the Bush Administration, various regulatory agencies of the federal government – with leadership from Bush appointees – sought to use federal regulations to undercut citizens’ right to sue under state tort laws for damages resulting from industry irresponsibility. At the same time, Congress has inched slowly toward climate change legislation that could preempt – which is to say, undo – state and local action on climate change.  Of course, in the glaring absence of federal action, state and local measures are the only real action on climate change by U.S. governments to date. (Read more on regulatory preemption here, and more on climate change preemption here.

Both sets of preemption efforts have touched off significant legal and policy battles. On …

President Bush’s designation of 195,000 square miles of marine monuments last week drew praise from a wide constituency—including many environmentalists, who have so often been at odds with the Bush Administration over the past eight years.  Without a doubt, President Bush’s use of the Antiquities Act to preserve the Marianas, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll National Marine Monuments is a major victory for conservation, especially when considered in addition to his similar designation of the 140,000 square mile Papahanaumokuakea (Northern Hawaiian Islands) Marine Monument in 2006. 

When news of the Northern Hawaiian Islands designation broke, the LA Times reported that a private screening of a PBS documentary about the beauty of (and threats to) that archipelago of islands seemed to capture President Bush’s imagination.  To his credit, he followed through and acted to protect not only those areas but also …

If you’re a consumer of health and environmental news, you’ve almost certainly heard it said that “children are not just little adults.” The warning comes up a lot in the context of medical research, because children’s bodies metabolize some things differently than do adults. That’s particularly important because somewhere in the vicinity of 80 percent of drugs prescribed for children have never been adequately tested for pediatric use. Lacking viable alternatives, doctors have gotten in the habit of prescribing them off-label. But the lack of testing means that there’s a lot docs can’t know for sure – like, how effective and safe the drugs actually are, what the best dosage is, and more.

The warning comes up a lot in discussions of toxics, as well, because children are often more vulnerable to certain chemicals than adults – for most of the same reasons …

After years of study and analysis on the public health implications of regulating perchlorate in drinking water, EPA has come to the conclusion that … it needs to do more study and analysis.

In fact, that is the conclusion of two different EPA offices. Within a two-week span, EPA’s Office of Water and its Office of the Inspector General each issued a report suggesting that the agency should refrain from regulating the chemical until more research clarifies various uncertainties.

On December 30, EPA’s Inspector General released a report that faulted both EPA and the National Academy of Sciences for failing to use cumulative risk assessment techniques to derive the reference dose for perchlorate. The Office of the Inspector General hired a contractor to review EPA’s and NAS’s work, and provided this summary:

Based on our scientific analysis documented in our report, perchlorate is only …

Environmentalists are not usually accustomed to having industry allies in their efforts to address climate change.  However, behind the scenes large private insurance companies have long advocated for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and ultimately threaten these companies’ bottom line.

Recently, reinsurance giant Munich Re attributed significant human and financial losses in 2008 to climate change and increasingly severe weather events.  A deadly cocktail of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters caused nearly 220,000 human deaths, as well as financial losses totaling $200 billion.  These totals represent a 150-percent increase in financial losses from 2007. 

According to a press release by Munich Re on the impacts of climate change on the insurance industry, major catastrophic events in 2008 included:

• Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, which brought heavy rainfall and a storm surge that caused more than 3 meters of flooding and extended …