The Bush ranch house in Crawford, Texas, balances beauty with state-of-the-art energy
efficiency. Designed by Austin environmental architect David Heymann, and built by members
of a religious community from nearby Elm Mott, George W. and Laura Bush's dream home
is built of a BTU-efficient, honey-toned native limestone quarried from the nearby Edwards
Limestone Formation.
The passive-solar house is positioned to absorb winter sunlight,
warming the interior walkways and walls. Underground water, which remains a constant 55
degrees year-round, is piped through a heat exchange system that keeps the interior warm
in winter and cool in summer. A graywater reclamation system treats and reuses waste
water. Rain gutters feed a cistern hooked to a sprinkler system for watering the fruit
orchard and grass. Clearly, Bush goes home from the White House to a green house.
Yet the Bush administration's 63-member energy advisory team has
62 members with ties to oil, nuclear, or coal interests. His national energy policy places
nuclear power, increased oil and natural gas drilling, and "clean coal" as its
cornerstone. The Bush budget takes a definitive step away from developing renewable energy
resources. According to the Pew Research Center, 54 percent of Americans distrust
Bush's "muscular energy" environmental agenda. In May, 22 religious leaders
were arrested at the Department of Energy protesting Bush's plan to drill for oil in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Bush ranch is the kind of place we'd all like to live. Too bad
his environmental policies are moving the rest of the country in exactly the opposite
direction.
CLEAN WATER. Bush has put on hold Clinton regulations that would have lowered arsenic
in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb. The Bush budget eliminates the
National Water Quality Assessment program and drastically cuts funds for hydrology
research.
CARBON DIOXIDE. On the campaign trail, Bush vowed to establish mandatory reductions on
carbon and sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury emissions from power plants, thus
reducing smog, acid rain, and global warming. After taking office, he reneged on this
promise.
AIR QUALITY. The Bush budget cuts $20 million from the National Ambient Air Quality
Standards project, $3 million from programs to reduce air toxics and acid rain, and $3.3
million from clean air research projects.
GLOBAL WARMING. The Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto environmental
agreements, which would have 38 industrialized countries cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(The United States produces 25 percent of the destructive gases.)
SOLAR POWER. Bush's budget cut the Department of Energy's solar research
funding by 54 percent.
ENERGY POLICY. The Bush administration's energy policy rejects conservation as a
national value and guts renewable energy programs, and instead promotes more production of
nuclear power, oil, natural gas, and coal.
FUEL EFFICIENCY. Bush has effectively frozen the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)
standards by sending them to a National Academy of Sciences panel for review—nine of
the 13 panel members have publicly criticized the standards.
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