Abstract

Saving the Environment

The authors present ten initiatives they believe are needed to reverse the damage caused by the removal of environmental protections under U.S. president George W. Bush. The Bush Administration has banished many of our most important environmental protections to this limbo. The Clean Air Act is still on the books but is not being enforced. What we have not lost is love for the land--the same love that runs in a powerful undercurrent throughout US history. Here are ten steps to reverse the Bush initiatives and transform the nation. 1. Require auto makers to make cars, SUVs and light trucks that go farther on a gallon of gas. 2. Reindustrialize America by creating a twenty-first-century energy industry. 3. Install modern air-pollution control equipment in old power plants, refineries and factories. 4. Restore the Superfund tax. 5. Reinstate the environmental protections enjoyed by our national forests, rivers, wetlands, wildlife habitat and public lands as recently as January 21, 2001. 6. Restore rural America. 7. Retire Smokey Bear. 8. Restore our national patrimony of public lands. 9. Solve the sewage problem. 10. Rejoin the world.