Bush Cuts Into Green Laws By Stealth

The White House is quickly but quietly undermining environmental protection laws with dozens of small administrative changes in favour of landowners and corporations, according to a report yesterday.

While the US rejection of the Kyoto treaty on global warming focused world attention on President Bush's environmental policies, many of the administrative changes have gone almost unnoticed, although they may have just as much impact.

Last week, the environmental protection agency (EPA) announced it would review how many US streams and marshes it would continue to protect. Small isolated streams and ponds which dry up in hot weather - up to 60% of the formerly protected habitat - might be excluded.

There has been no final decision yet, but Tim Searchinger of the Environmental Defence Fund, said the fact that the EPA was reviewing the policy at all did not augur well. "They've led us up to the top of the mountain but they haven't said whether we're here for the view or they're going to push us off the edge," he said.

The EPA announcement did not ignite a national debate because it did not involve a formal change in the law. It merely addressed a "reinterpretation" of guidelines.

A survey by the Knight Ridder newspaper group dug up more than 50 such administrative tweaks and policy changes in the first two years of the Bush administration, the overwhelming majority of them in favour of industry.

"The list of rollbacks is endless," Andrea Durbin, Greenpeace's campaign director, said, calling the cumulative changes in policy "an assault on the environment".

The oil and gas industry donated $17m (£10.6m) to the Republican party in last year's congressional elections, while President Bush's election campaign was underpinned by nearly $2m from oil and gas companies.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a watchdog based in Washington, the party also received $3.2m from the logging industry in the 2002 campaign. It, too, has won a loosening of regulations.

The thinning of forests, intended to cut the threat of fires, can - according to a recent administrative change - be carried out with environmental impact reviews, which would, for example, examine the impact of logging on endangered species.

In November, the EPA allowed more than 17,000 old coal-fired power stations, oil refineries and factories to expand or renovate without installing pollution filters, as had previously been required.

The EPA has also redefined what could be legally emptied into rivers and lakes, to include waste from mines. A federal judge called the redefinition "an obvious perversity" of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

According to the Knight Ridder survey, the Bush administration is cleaning up 31% fewer seriously contaminated sites than President Clinton's administration, while polluters are paying 64% less in fines each month.

Mining and drilling for oil has also risen rapidly on federal land in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Montana. In a deal with the President's brother, Jeb Bush, the Florida governor, the administration bought oil companies out of their options to drill off the Florida coast, but it is still in favour of drilling off the coast of California.

Another possible change under consideration is a blanket exemption from environmental laws for US armed forces, a potentially significant move as there are sprawling US bases across the country.

The environmental impact of a bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques triggered a wave of protests that led to the closing of one range and possibly Roosevelt Roads, the nearby base. "The military is one of the country's biggest polluters," Ms Durbin said.

The White House did not return calls for comment, but Scott McClellan, a spokesman, told Knight Ridder that the administration had embraced "a new way of thinking that is results-oriented".

"It's based on working in a cooperative way," he said. "Environmental protection and economic growth can go hand in hand."