With less than three months left in the Bush administration, the battle over protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation is raging as if the president's legacy depended on it.
Which, actually, it does.
On one side is first lady Laura Bush, who according to the Washington Post has asked for two briefings on the issue from the White House staff, and has asked her aides to confer with scientists on how to preserve diverse ecosystems.
On the other side is Vice President Dick Cheney, who along with some officials in the Northern Mariana Islands argues that banning fishing and mineral exploration will hurt the region's economy.
"It's hard, but it should be," said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "These are big, consequential, national decisions that have international ramifications."
In August, President Bush told several federal agencies to begin working on a plan so that he could create two "marine conservation management areas" in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth between Japan and Guam. That move -- if it happens -- would greatly expand Bush's environmental legacy, adding vast territory to the 140,000 miles he designated for protection in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006.
It would also protect blue sharks like the one above from shark finning, the practice of removing the dorsal fin from sharks for such Asian delicacies as shark fin soup. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, hundreds of thousands of finned sharks are incidentally caught by fishermen chasing swordfish and tuna in the waters off Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: National Marine Fisheries Service / Associated Press
If you thought members of Congress were the only ones taking last-minute trips at taxpayer expense just before they leave office, think again.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, who spent about $280,000 to take 11 staffers on a two-week tour of Australia last April, is capping his short tenure at the EPA with an all-expense trip to Israel and Jordan. As the Washington Post's wry columnist Al Kamen put it, Johnson is "winding up an excellent 10-day jaunt to the apparently environmentally troubled Holy Land."
Kamen reports that Johnson, "determined to continue gathering these elusive facts until the very end," attended the Eco-Cities of the Mediterranean Forum on the Dead Sea. A spokesman told the Post that Johnson "spoke with Jordanian leaders about the importance of international environmental cooperation at the Russeifah landfill in Russeifah, Jordan."
As if that were not enough, Johnson (seen above in Washington, D.C., recently unveiling the EPA's new hydrogen fuel cell cars) also met with Israeli officials, Kamen reported, "to promote sharing of information...on water security and water quality monitoring."
Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin has questioned scientific evidence that the beluga whale population in the waters near Anchorage is declining. In fact last summer she urged the federal government not to list the whale as endangered, citing concerns of what a listing might do to the Cook Inlet economy.
But today the U.S. Government replied with a decisive counter, declaring the beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet an endangered species. The findings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration trigger a rigorous regimen to protect the whales, dwindled to an estimated 375 from their 1995 high of 653.
The decision by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service could trump a decision by the U.S. Interior Department to make oil leases available on Cook Inlet, where energy analysts see an estimated $1.38 billion worth of resources.
"In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering," said James Balsiger, NOAA's acting assistant administrator. The agency added that oil and gas exploration had hindered the whale's existence.
As the Associated Press noted, this is the second run-in Palin has had with the Bush administration over the Endangered Species Act. Earlier, the governor, now Republican vice presidential candidate, had asked the courts to overturn an Interior Department decision declaring polar bears threatened.
Fair warning: Strange things happen during the closing months of an administration.
With Congress out of town and much of the country's attention focused on the presidential race, administrations, whether run by Democrats or Republicans, have used the approaching moment when the lights go out to hurry last-minute policy changes through the federal bureaucracy.
It's happening now.
Bottom line: It's not a good time to look to President Bush to protect you from global warming if you are the walrus -- specifically, the Pacific walrus.
The president's top environment aides -- from the Interior Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency -- are blocking federal review of the possible impact of greenhouse gases on wildlife or their habitat.
They are doing so, according to the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, by ruling that "since no single source of greenhouse gases will by itself cause detectable climate change," there will be no official review of the gases' impact.
Bad news for endangered species -- like the pictured gang of Pacific walrus in Alaska -- threatened by global warming.
The final months of any administration are also a good time to keep an eye on that driest of Washington publications: the Federal Register.
That's where new regulations show up. It's an often nearly opaque window on rules that have a way of establishing new education, health, or, in another case, environmental, policy without giving Congress a say.
Quietly revealing just such a change with a little-noticed press release, the Bureau of Land Management announced last week that it was sending to the Federal Register notice of a proposed rule reversal:
Until now, two congressional committees have been able to set aside designated public land and keep it free from mining and oil and gas exploration.
But the Interior Department agency said it was planning to rescind the rule.
President Bush achieved one of the key foreign policy goals of his second term today: He signed legislation paving the way to a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India.
That may sound uncontroversial. But it turns upside down three decades of U.S. efforts to restrict nuclear work in India after it exploded a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, the legislation opens up the prospect of American access to a multibillion-dollar nuclear business in India.
Bush's success in squeezing the legislation out of Congress in its final days reflected, once again, the ability of a lame-duck president with approval ratings below 30% and facing a hostile House and Senate to nonetheless achieve some top priorities.
Maybe what happens in Nevada should stay in Nevada.
The president was stuck in Washington, making last-minute calls in the effort to win congressional approval for a $700-billion financial rescue plan. So Vice President Dick Cheney was tapped to go to Reno in his place and address the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy.
President Bush created the conference in 2007 via executive order, and charged it with drafting a plan to guide future wildlife conservation efforts to protect "the nation's hunting heritage."
Bush, introducing Cheney via video, explained why he was still in Washington and added, "In my place I have sent my favorite hunter."
Cheney, alluding to the 2006 accident in which he accidentally shot his hunting partner and lawyer friend Harry Whittington in the face with pellets, told the crowd he'd taken a lot of grief over the incident over the years, "most of it from the president. The president says to me, 'Here I am at 30% in the polls and you shot the only trial lawyer in Texas who supports me.' "
Then Cheney launched into his rendition of why Bush will be remembered as a great conservationist. The vice president said the White House is even now expanding its efforts in conservation.
Over the next five years, even after Bush has left the White House, Cheney said the administration will have put into place tax incentives that could add 7 million acres to the Conservation Reserve and restore 4 million acres of wetlands.
On the subject of pork-barrel spending, President Bush was adamant at the start of the year: It had to end.
He threatened vetoes. He said there would be no more dark-of-night legislation hiding the "earmarks."
He told the Conservative Political Action Conference in February:
Last month I issued an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not actually voted on by the United States Congress. This executive order will extend beyond my presidency. It will stay in effect unless revoked by a future president. What that means is any president who wants to return to the old ways of unaccountable and wasteful spending will get to do so publicly. And if that happens, that president will have some explaining to do.
Until, of course, the projects show up in a bill the president really, really wants.
So, here's a classic Washington lesson:
There is no bill Bush wants more right now than the $700-billion credit-market-economy-stabilizing-bailout-rescue-whatever-you-want-to-call-it-as-long-as-you-vote-for-it bill pending before the House.
What's in it?
Let's take a peek, courtesy of our Los Angeles Times colleague Richard Simon:
-- Legislation that, for insurance purposes, equates mental and physical illnesses. It's a priority of Rep.Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.). He voted against the bill on Monday.
-- A tax benefit for bicycle commuting. That's favored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). He voted against the bill on Monday.
-- Extension of the solar tax credit. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) has said she wants to make Arizona the "Silicon Valley of solar energy." She voted against the bill on Monday.
-- Extension of the research and development tax credit that is important to the high-tech industry, and to Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), whose state is home to Microsoft. He voted against the bill on Monday.
-- Extension of a measure that allows residents of states without state income taxes -- Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming and Tennessee -- to deduct sales taxes from their federal income tax liability.
-- Extension and expansion of tax breaks to promote energy conservation and renewable energy. Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), co-chair of the House Renewable Energy and Efficiency Caucus, favors it. He voted against the bill on Monday.
And don't forget tax breaks for Hollywood studios, to encourage them to film in the United States, and for manufacturers of wooden toy arrows.
In other words, plenty of pork.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto acknowledged the president's many statements decrying hidden earmarks. But, he said, such purity is just not possible during a crisis:
I think it's probably impossible to have that kind of standard on every single bill, but remember that we are facing a crisis and the core of this bill is critically important for our economy. We keep saying it. We don't want to take extra days to deal with this.
Suddenly, pork is politically kosher.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House
Tough news for Vice President Dick Cheney from the federal court in Washington.
No, it has nothing to do with his signature issues -- anti-terrorism intelligence and energy.
This one deals with potential recreational pursuits back home in Wyoming. He is, after all, about to retire.
Well before the surge of interest in snowmobiles, President Richard M. Nixon and then President Jimmy Carter imposed limits on the use of off-road vehicles in the national parks.
In its last days in office, the Bill Clinton administration moved to phase out snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, but the Bush administration reversed that decision and instead moved to expand their access.
The Grand Teton mountains tower above Jackson Hole, where Cheney maintains a secluded home deep in a heavily forested spread.
Sullivan ruled that the park services "failed to articulate why a plan that will admittedly worsen air quality complies" with federal conservation rules.
The plan developed by the Bush administration "is arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by the record, and contrary to law," said Sullivan, who was nominated to the federal court by President Clinton, after serving in District of Columbia superior and appeals courts to which he was named by Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
He ruled that "in contravention" of the 1916 Organic Act that created the National Park Service, the snowmobile plan:
... clearly elevates use over conservation of park resources and values and fails to articulate why the Plan’s 'major adverse impacts' are 'necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of the park.'
Congress returns next week after an August recess filled with political conventions and the sights and sounds of Republican rebels extolling the virtues of offshore oil drilling from a darkened House floor.
They're in town for a three-week session before adjourning to go back home to campaign. All 435 members of Congress and a third of the Senate are up for reelection Nov. 4.
With gas still pumping at around $4 a gallon, President Bush predicted today that if Democrats don't lift the ban on offshore oil drilling during the upcoming session, they will lose. In his weekly radio address, Bush said:
This Congress has earned a reputation as one of the least productive in history. Throughout this year, Democratic leaders have ignored the public's demand for relief from high energy prices. This is their final chance to take action before the November elections. If members of Congress do not support he American people at the gas pump, then they should not expect the American people to support them at the ballot box.
Bush also called on congressional leaders to expand access to oil shale -- "a domestic resource that could produce the equivalent of more than a century's worth of imports at current levels." And he urged tax credits for alternative sources of energy such as wind and solar.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has signaled that she would consider allowing limited expansion of offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive energy package. In the Democratic radio response, Rep. John Larson of Connecticut put it this way:
We will consider responsibly opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling while demanding that big oil companies use the leases they have already been issued or return them to the public.
And, like the White House, Democrats said they want alternatives. "We need to address our future energy needs with a federal renewable electricity standard consisting of alternative forms of energy, including natural gas, solar power, wind, biomass and geothermal power and fuel cells."
Fortunately, Hurricane Gustav lacked the punch that forecasters had feared.
True, water overtopped levees, and some homes were damaged. But it looks as if oil refineries were largely spared. People too.
This morning, at a Cabinet meeting, President Bush said early signs were encouraging and that it was "a little early right now to come up with a solid assessment" of the damage Gustav did to the country's energy infrastructure.
But that didn't stop him from lobbying Congress to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling. Without mentioning opponent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by name -- nor the merry band of Republican rebels who spent weeks debating the issue in the dark without the benefit of C-SPAN cameras or even lights -- Bush said:
I know the Congress has been on recess for a while, but this issue hasn't gone away. And this storm should not cause the members of Congress to say, 'Well, we don't need to address our energy independence.' It ought to cause the Congress to step up their need to address our dependence on foreign oil. And one place to do so is to give us a chance to explore in environmentally friendly ways on the outer continental shelf.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
