The Environment under the Bush Administration

George W. Bush's environmental record began with promises as a presidential candidate to clean up power plants and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a speech on September 29, 2000 in Saginaw, Michigan, Bush pledged to commit two billion dollars to the funding of clean coal technology research. In the same speech, he also promised to work with Congress, environmental groups, and the energy industry to require a reduction of the emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide into the environment within a "reasonable period of time." He would later reverse his position on that specific campaign pledge in March of 2001 in a letter to Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, stating that carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and that restricting carbon dioxide emissions would lead to higher energy prices.

In 2001, Bush appointed Philip A. Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, to the White House Council on Environmental Equality. Cooney is now known to have edited government climate reports in order to minimize the findings of scientific sources tying greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.

Kyoto Protocol

In March of 2001, shortly after Bush took office, the Bush administration announced that it would not implement the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush administration claimed that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the United States, and argued that the treaty did not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations. Bush stated that human activity had not been proven to be the cause of environmental issues and cited concerns about the treaty's impact on the U.S. economy; he also pointed out that China and India had not signed on.

The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of 2014, there were 192 parties to the treaty. 

In June of 2005, State Department papers showed the Bush administration thanking oil company Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, including the U.S. stance on Kyoto. Input from the business lobby group Global Climate Coalition was also a factor.

Controversial Acts and Policies

Logging

In late November of 2002, the Bush Administration released proposed rule changes that would lead to increased logging of federal forests for commercial or recreational activities. This could occur by giving local forest managers the ability to open up the forests to development without requiring environmental impact assessments and without specific standards to maintain local fish and wildlife populations. The proposed changes would affect roughly 192,000,000 acres (780,000 km2) of U.S. forests and grasslands. Administration officials claimed the changes were appropriate because existing rules, which were approved by the Clinton administration two months before Bush took office, were unclear.

The Clear Skies Act of 2003

Initially announced by President Bush in 2002, the Clear Skies Initiative was aimed at amending the Clean Air Act to further reduce air pollution and expand the emissions trading programs to include new pollutants such as mercury. The goal of the initiative was to reduce the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury emissions of power plants over the course of 15 years, while saving consumers millions of dollars.

Fuel Economy

In July 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to delay the release of an annual report on fuel economy. The report shows that automakers have taken advantage of loopholes in U.S. fuel economy regulations to manufacture vehicles that are less fuel-efficient than they were in the late 1980s. Fuel-efficiency had on average dropped 6%, from 22.1 miles per gallon to 20.8 mpg. Evidence suggests that the administration's decision to delay the report's release was because of its potential to affect Congress's upcoming final vote on an energy bill six years in the making, which turned a blind eye to fuel economy regulations.

Stance on Global Warming

In May of 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) allegedly blocked release of a report that suggested global warming had been a contributor to the frequency and strength of hurricanes in recent years. In February, NOAA (part of the Department of Commerce) set up a seven-member panel of climate scientists to compile the report.

Throughout his presidency, President Bush consistently noted global warming as a serious problem but asserted there is a "debate over whether it's manmade or naturally caused." He also maintained that regardless of that debate, his administration was working on plans to make America less dependent on foreign oil for both economic and national security reasons. In his 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush renewed his pledge to work toward diminished reliance on foreign oil by reducing fossil fuel consumption and increasing alternative fuel production.