I DON'T CARE THAT REPUBLICANS HATE THE ENVIRONMENT-- BUT WHY DO THEY WANT TO DESTROY IT FOR THE REST OF HUMANITY? IS IT LIKE A SICKNESS?

Have you, like Bush's first Envronmental Protection Agency head, Christie Todd Whitman, ever gotten the idea that the overwhelming preponderence of thought inside the upper reaches of the Bush Regime was utter hostility towards protecting the environment? If you didn't, you haven't been paying close enough attention. One thing is sure: when Regime heavyweights are asked to make a choice between environmental concerns and the concerns of its big donors, the donors never regreted writing those big checks-- even after the Supreme Court came down on the side of the environment.

One lesson of the Bush years has been clear and loud: lobbying pays. And  the Bush Regime was going to let no potholes, ditches and "insignificant swamps" get in the way of profits.

After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams.

The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway.

But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups complained were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected.

Pollution can safely proceed. Do you think the Bushes have requested tickets for the concert?