Bush leaving us with awful legacy

The Bush Administration will leave Washington this month as one of the most unpopular in the history of this country. It has given industry priority over human health and the environment and started a war that cost billions of dollars and destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The billions spent to wage this war and to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure could have been used to bring jobs, health care and education, improved infrastructure and brought green energy to the U.S.

The Bush Administration will also be remembered for: inept response to Hurricane Katrina; promulgation of the "Clear Sky Initiative," which fails to regulate mercury in air emissions from coal-fired power plants, contributing to 18,000 deaths a year in the U.S.; ignoring the science of global warming for years, and attempting to muzzle government scientists like James Hansen of NASA; the development (in secret) of the Federal Energy Policy, orchestrated by Vice President Cheney and written with input from major energy companies; firing federal attorneys based on their political persuasion, bringing morale of the Justice Department to unprecedented lows; pressuring the Justice Department to drop lawsuits initiated under Clinton's Administration against industrial polluters; alteration of scientific conclusions of the Department of the Interior in order to reduce protections for endangered species; and changing a Department of Interior report to Congress so that it would be more favorable to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

So, President Bush will be going home to Texas, apparently with a clear conscience and no regrets. That's extraordinary.

Michael Ander

Sleepy Hollow