leaving office with an environmental record of neglect

Guest Opinion: Bush leaving office with environmental track record of neglect, pretense, manipulation…Tucson Citizen... Betsy Loyless …http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/all_headlines/94948…EXCERPTED…So it came as no surprise but with great disappointment that we began to hear that Mr. Bush was preparing a number of anti-environmental measures as he limps toward the door...We recently got the first salvo….President Bush's Interior Department announced plans to gut the Endangered Species Act, the law that saved the bald eagle, the whooping crane and so many other rare and special birds from extinction….This proposal would allow agencies to decide for themselves whether projects they permit - such as mining operations or the construction of federal highways - may harm endangered species….Some have called it a "self regulating" policy, a clever euphemism for one of the most destructive actions conceived in the Interior Department ….The Bush proposal eliminates the critical checks and balances this policy provides and effectively cuts wildlife experts out of the process of making scientific decisions that are critical to the fate of imperiled species….The Bush administration's approach to the Endangered Species Act has been the very definition of bad government: special interest politics with serious policy consequences….If we are now expected to support rash and hasty rulemaking in their final months, then I for one will have to add the words "brash" and "foolhardy" to their epitaph. …Betsy Loyless is senior vice president of the National Audubon Society -(www.audubon.org).

There is I must admit a personal desire to merely add – AMEN – to Ms. Lovless’ observations and let it go at that. I am I confess not one who felt that George W. Bush was an honest friend of our earth’s environment, quite the contrary. But for me that is not the key issue. I want to blame someone and most assuredly Bush is a most handy target and a very visible one. When I make the time to look in the mirror, what I see reflected back is that individual at a foundational level who is accountable and responsible. What have I done…? Actually I have done a few things, but not nearly enough.

When I recall those wise words …Think Globally, Act Locally … reportedly coined by David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth, as the slogan for FOE when it was founded in 1969, although others have stated it was originated by Rene Dubos as an advisor to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Regardless of who gets the credit I find the point is I/me/you/us are invited to clean up our own backyard before we wildly point our finger at others.

In 2001, your Governor PROMISED you as a result of rules her Az Dept of Environmental Quality promulgated that your – water – would be protected. Has it been…? Is the water you ingest today safer than the water you consumed in 2001…?

Like President Bush, our Governor, our Legislators, our State and County Environmental Health Agencies implemented their own form of “self-regulation” and guess what your opinion was not even considered, nor were you allowed to comment in most instances.

It is not just Washington D.C. where “cronyism” lurks behind every corner, it is alive and well at our Arizona State Capital on Washington Street in Phoenix, Arizona and it happens every day, day after day after day.

So as we prepare to fire whatever salvo you feel is appropriate at George W. Bush in the decline light of his presidency, we might choose to look and see what actions or failure to act our own State contributed to bastardizing thereby contributing to the continue contamination and pollution of our Arizona environment beginning with its – water and its – air…?

When “IT” is fixed, that individual looking back in the mirror reflects there is be no need or desire to point any finger at anyone including you or me…?