May 2001:               suggested link LIFESAVERS FOR PRESIDENT BUSH An announcement from the Friends of the Earth "Friends of the Earth Netherlands calls on US to stick to its climate promises"

Links on Bush and the Environment:
Friends of the Earth (Europe)

LIFESAVERS FOR PRESIDENT BUSH

An announcement from
the Friends of the Earth
Amsterdam, 19 April 2001

"This afternoon thirty Friends of the Earth activists dressed in yellow oilskins
hung lifesavers on the fence surrounding the American consulate in Amsterdam.
One of the lifesavers has Bush's name on it and is accompanied by a letter. In the
letter Friends of the Earth calls on President Bush to stick to the Kyoto Protocol.
The lifesaver is a symbol for what will happen if nothing is done to stop climate
change. [...]

The message to Bush is being sent on the eve of a New York meeting between
key environmental ministers and the chair of the international climate negotiations,
Mr. Pronk. The meeting is in preparation of the climate talks in July in Bonn.
Friends of the Earth wants to see an agreement that will actually lead to the
five percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as agreed in Kyoto in 1997."

From ENN.com [Envirnomental News Network]

Payback time for Bush— at the expense of environment
Tuesday, April 24, 2001By Margot Higgins

"During the 2000 campaign for U.S. president, George W. Bush raised
more money than any other candidate in history. Donors to the Bush campaign
and the Republican National Party contributed $314 million, 80 percent of
which came from corporations or individuals employed by them. [...] Now,
environmentalists claim, the president is returning the favor at the expense of
clean air, clean water and the protection of public land.

One blatant example is a proposal, backed by President Bush, to drill for
oil in the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The oil and gas industry made its largest contribution to a presidential campaign,
and more than 75 percent of the money went to the Republican Party, according
to conservation groups.

The Bush administration's recent abandonment of a plan to lower the amount
of arsenic in U.S. drinking water appears suspect in light of a $5 million campaign
contribution from the mining industry, environmentalists also note. "A lot of
the waste dumped from mining operations contains arsenic," said Deanna White,
deputy political director of the Sierra Club, "and Bush is letting them off the hook.""

From Opensecrets.org

The Bush Administration: Corporate Connections

"Comedian Jon Stewart once joked that watching President George W. Bush
pick his White House staff was like watching "the old band get back together."
It's true that many of Bush's choices for the cabinet and top White House posts
come from former Republican administrations, going all the way back to Gerald Ford.
But what's notable about this administration is not only the bona fide government
credentials that the staff sports—it's also the corporate connections they bring into
the White House.

George Bush, of course, is a Texas oilman, although not a very successful one.
His company, Arbusto, merged with Spectrum 7 in 1984 as it was on the verge
of bankruptcy. Spectrum was bought out by Harken Energy in 1986, giving Bush
a seat on Harken's board, some stock options and a $120,000 consulting contract.
As the first president to have an MBA, Bush has surrounded himself with people
with similar (and more successful) corporate backgrounds. Vice President Dick
Cheney was, until last year, the CEO of Halliburton, the world's largest oil field
services company. Halliburton, through its European subsidiaries, sold spare parts
to Iraq's oil industry, despite U.N. sanctions."

From Boycottbush.net

New website targets Bush bankrollers

"www.boycottbush.net has been set up to allow individuals to influence the global
politics of climate change. In March, President George Bush abandoned the USA's
commitment to the Kyoto climate agreement, attracting worldwide condemnation.
Now this new website, set up by UK-based campaign organisation ECRA, seeks
to show that by targeting the companies that bankrolled Bush to victory in November,
individuals can force his hand at climate talks in Bonn this July.

This site lists the top twenty corporate donors to the Republican Party with consumer
brands, while at the same time noting more ethical alternatives. "These companies have
bought access at the highest level," says Rob Harrison of ECRA. "Now let them use it
to tell Bush he is wrong on this one."

Top twenty Republican donors
with global consumer brands
1 Philip Morris - $4,554,732
2 BP (ARCO) - $1,865,458
3 Amway - $1,729,500
4 News Corp - $1,204,950
5 Enron - $1,146,615
6 Citigroup – $1,079,225
7 MCI Worldcom - $1,074,608
8 Federal Express (FDX Corp) - $1,057,550
9 Pfizer - $1,051,225
10 Chevron Texaco - $862,056 11 Bristol-Myers Squibb - $848,556
12 Revlon Group/ MacAndrews & Forbes - $761,000
13 Limited Inc - $750,000
14 Glaxo-Wellcome - $702,795
15 Walt Disney - $663,625
16 Anheuser-Busch - $663,025
17 Archer Daniels Midland - $660,000
18 Microsoft - $644,816
19 Coca Cola - $610,875
20 Schering-Plough - $600,685

What's Bush up to?

"It was March 29th when the Bush Administration shocked the world with
its announcement that the US was to abandon plans to implement the Kyoto
agreement, signed by President Clinton in 1997. In an astounding step backwards,
the US energy plan is apparently to focus on the further exploitation of US natural
gas reserves and attempts to reverse the Clinton Administration's banning of oil
exploration in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge.

Responding to international criticism surrounding the increased carbon emissions
resulting from such a plan, Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been leading
the debate on energy issues, has set up a committee to look into the further utilisation
of nuclear power. In an interview for US television, Cheney argued that the US
needed to build 65 new power stations per year for the next twenty years,
some of which should be nuclear, which he believes to be the 'environmentally
sound way to go'. This is a reversal of twenty years of energy policy thinking for the US,
which has not licensed any new nuclear power stations since the Three Mile Island
accident in 1979."