The Dems and Liberals claimed the title Progressive some time ago, but do they deserve the title? What progressive ideas have they pushed in the last 10, 20, 30 years? Liberals decided to call themselves Progressives because Conservatives did a great job of turning the word Liberal into a pejorative term.
Let’s examine what Dems and Libs have done that could be perceived as progressive. We’ll start with environmental issues. Liberals care about the environment more than us polluting, hunting, earth-hating conservatives, right? Let’s look at the real facts:
The following major environmental regulations were signed by Republican president:
The Clean Air Act
The Endangered Species Act
The Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA)
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
The Emergency Planning and Community Right to know Act (EPCRA)
Oil Pollution Act of 1990
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
Safe Drinking Water Act
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act
Pollution Prevention Act
The Dems? They passed these major regulations:The Clean Water Act (amendment to Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972)
CERCLA or Superfund (which Bill Clinton failed to reauthorize in 1996)
And…
That would be about it.
Who looks more progressive on the environmental front?
I’ll continue this later.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Progressive?
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7 comments:
I do think the reason why those acts were passed by Republican president is, the 70s was the time when green politics first started to gain huge momentum. The public was increasingly aware of the many environmental issues and pressure was mounting on the then administration.
If the Democrat was at helm, the same thing could happen. The same acts could have been passed due to public pressure. After the passing of those acts, there weren't many left to do except implementing and enforcing it.
So, I believe it is inaccurate to say the Republican is more progressive than the Democrats.
Furthermore, the current administration policies concerning the environment, like the cutting down trees in order to prevent forest fire for instance, are environmental unfriendly policies.
Not so with regard to thinning forests. Any honest ecologist would agree that a thinned forest is much healthier than an overgrown one.
Second, if public pressure led to the passage of environmental acts and not the President signing them, why then did Bill Clinton not reauthorize Superfund? Why did he not Amend the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts? He did have Al Gore as his VP and he was supposed to be a big environmentalist.
I disagree with your premise that any President would've done the same thing. The amount of significant pro-environment legislation when compared side-by-side refutes that thinking. Nixon, Ford, Reagan and GHW Bush passed these laws while Johnson, Carter and Clinton did not.
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/lawintro.htm
At the end of the page, there is a wider list of laws that were passed by the Congress up until 1990, regardless of whom was the majority. Maybe there a complete list somewhere but it does seem that lot of it were passed in the 70s, the environmental movement first woke up.
Also, Congress is important in getting the bill through the floor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USHouseBalanceOverTime.png
That is the composition of the Hose. You may see that the Democrats held the majority throughout the time when these environmental laws were passed.
Anyway, how about reversal of environmental laws? A lot of it happens under Bush, like the relaxation of mercury emission standard, or the pullout from Kyoto.
Furthermore, why a lot of environmental organizations are against Bush if the claim that Republicans are more progressive on the environment than the Democrat.
One of the few environmentalist Republicans that I see is McCain. I don't really see any other now.
Perhaps, with regard to the Congress and the environmental laws, we could get a denifite answer if we know which representative said aye and nay.
I agree that Congress has alot to do with the process and indeed it was a Democratic House and Senate at that time. However, the President signs the bill into law or has the option to veto it.
With regard to Kyoto, the Kyoto Protocol was designed with numerous flaws that would hamper the US in many respects. Perhaps you recall that Clinton put to congress and the vote was 95-0 against.
Go here http://www.aei-brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=12 to read a much better synopsis of Bush and environmental issues. The mercury emissions issue was not a relaxed standard, it was put in place to encourage cleaner technology. With the previous regulations, plants were required to use the "best available treatment technology" every time they upgraded, so what did the owners of these plants do? They continued to run out of date, dirty technology.
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