So Bush claims to honor state's rights? :: Ultimate MMORPG Gaming Community & Trading Zone

lauren000
RealPoor Guru

Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 3510
Location: colorado springs

Posted: 02/16/05 - 15:21 Post subject: So Bush claims to honor state's rights?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8909

Quote:

The States' Rights Principle

Gene Karpinski is Executive Director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), the national advocacy office of the state PIRGs.

Civil War-era satirist Ambrose Bierce defined politics as a "strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." For the Bush administration, principles are politics -- they shift and conform to best serve the interests of the powerful corporations responsible for putting President Bush in office. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the administration's application of the principle of states' rights to environmental and consumer protection. Before his inauguration, President Bush told a group of governors, "While I believe there's a role for the federal government, it's not to impose its will on states and local communities." Less than two years later, the record shows that the Bush administration trumpets states' rights when strong federal law displeases its campaign contributors but quickly and conveniently abandons this principle when the interests of its corporate cronies are threatened by state governments acting to safeguard the environment and consumers.

The Bush administration's nomination of Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency pays homage to the notion of devolution of federal power to state and local governments. In announcing Leavitt's nomination, President Bush said that Leavitt "respects the ability of state and local governments to meet [environmental] standards, [and] rejects the old ways of command and control from above."

This was an important qualification for any EPA nominee, as many of the Bush administration's environmental policies rely on discarding critical federal environmental protections under the patina of "local control" of resources. The administration's so-called "Healthy Forests" initiative, for example, purports to increase local authority over forest management while simultaneously steamrolling the National Environmental Policy Act and public review of any logging projects started under the guise of fighting forest fires. The Bush administration also recently ordered public land managers in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to look for ways to skirt federal environmental protections in order to expedite local oil and gas drilling projects -- just one part of the administration's overall campaign to relax federal control over road-building, logging, drilling and other development on America's publicly-owned lands.

Even in the realm of environmental policy-making, the Bush administration's ideological commitment to states' rights only goes so far as its wealthy donors will allow, and many of the Bush administration's corporate contributors don't fare well at the state level. In December 2002, the Bush administration responded to the demands of large energy companies and finalized changes to the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program that will impede or even preclude the ability of states and municipalities to implement air pollution programs that are stronger than federal requirements. Now, the Bush administration is quietly rewriting federal rules to limit states' control over oil drilling off their coasts, directly contradicting the expressed will of local communities in California, Florida and other coastal states. Representative Lois Capps of California and 90 other members of Congress have called the proposed revisions a "pernicious assault on states' rights."

When it comes to consumer protection, the Bush administration has long since thrown states' rights out the window. Under pressure from large banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has already ruled that tough state laws to curb usurious mortgage lending practices, such as the one passed in Georgia in 2002, do not apply to nationally-chartered banks. Now, belying a campaign promise to strengthen privacy protections, the Bush administration is calling on Congress to preempt states from implementing strong privacy laws such as the one signed into law in California on August 27.

When states go "too far" to protect the environment and consumers, the Bush administration and its industry allies call for federal preemption of state law. When its campaign contributors complain that federal law is too stringent, the Bush administration holds up the venerated principle of states' rights. The administration is simply forum-shopping for the best venue in which to advance the self-serving agenda of the oil industry, the timber industry, electric utilities, large banks and other special interests. This isn't just politics -- it's hypocrisy.

I think that's more flip flopping than John Kerry did in his entire career.

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wellspoken
RealPoor Master of Posts

Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 7137

Posted: 02/16/05 - 17:57 Post subject:

lol

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Ikkan
RealPoor Guru

Joined: 06 Sep 2003
Posts: 3086

Posted: 02/16/05 - 23:42 Post subject:

that article is hillarious. Lauren, god could you be any more retarded?

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Paco
RealPoor Jedi

Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 12940
Location: Jacksonville, FL

Posted: 02/17/05 - 08:24 Post subject:

Ikkan wrote:

Lauren, god could you be any more retarded?

You'd think not..but then it posts and BAM, a new level of retardedness.

Sadly, it doesn't understand that nobody cares, minus abusing it's posts.

It rubs the lotion on it's face.

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