To: Road Walker who wrote (183792 ) 2/27/2004 9:10:48 AM From: Alighieri Read Replies (1) | Respond to Reading a part of the Suskind book in which bush (cheney) has just neutered Christine Whitman, the EPA chief. Goes something like this...for the first three months of the bush admin, Whitman is struggling to figure out what the admin policy is towards the environment...in january has to attend the first international meeting of the Kyoto world body, but she is unable to get a policy statement from bush...she goes to the meeting and basically repeats the campaign pledges made by bush before the election thinking that they are still good..."bush supports the reduction of greenhouse gases, understands the importance of global warming, wants to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, yada, yada, yada"...in february of 2001, Chuck Hagel writes a memo to the prez requesting a clarification of the administration clean air policies (O'Neil suspects that cheney has put Hagel up to this). In march, Whitman not having heard anything from bush on his environmental policy, in frustration finally requests a meeting with bush...which she gets. She goes in the oval office prepared with data, policy statements, etc... starts to talk and bush cuts her off immediately, tells her that he has made up his mind about things, and that Kyoto is dead, and that he will not support regulation of carbon dioxide because that will drive utilities away from coal and into natural gas (presumably more expensive)... after he is finished he gets up and ends the meeting. She never gets a chance to speak. On the way out, just outside the oval office, cheney is being told by a secretary that the response to Hagel's letter to the president is ready and she is handing it to him. Oh...one additional interesting tidbit...during the first meeting with O'Neil, this is in january, bush asks him to put together an environmental policy...this is the Treasury Secretary mind you...
