U.S. History 1877-Present 14.2c: Bush and the Environment

seabirds covered in oil and well they needed cheering up. Both the public and

the birds. Bush actually did manage to get a decent amount of

environmentally friendly legislation passed, he even earned a reputation as the [Owl sat on a tree branch]

environmental president not the worst thing to be known for.

Yeah Nixon can vouch for that, one of the key pieces of legislation the [Picture of Nixon]

environmental president got passed was the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 like we

said birds covered in bubbling crude was just too sad plus there were other

animals that were affected. So Bush worked with Congress to actually try and [Guy watching TV looks upset]

do something about it. Well the Oil Pollution Act did a lot of

good stuff if forced oil companies to have a detailed cleanup plan in case of

spills it also required Big Oil to take more precaution against spills happening

in the first place or at least keep plenty of paper towels handy well the [Man stood in front of hunreds of paper tower packets]

The law hasn't stopped all oil spills we're looking at you Deepwater Horizon. But HW

and Congress definitely helped steer us in the right direction

and the oil act wasn't bush's only stab at helping the environment [Cows in a field]

turns out the Exxon Valdez catastrophe had softened the country's mood toward

environmental legislation in general. People were giving a big thumbs down not only

to oily water but to smoggy air as well so Bush introduced amendments to the [Man with a facemask on]

Clean Air Act that had originally been passed by Nixon in 1970. The Reagan

administration had not renewed the act but Bush decided that choking on the air

we breathe probably isn't a good thing and let's face it no one looks good in [Man wearing a gas mask in smoggy air]

a gas mask. Bush's amendments to the Clean Air Act focused on limiting smog

emissions and acid rain yes we had that. His bill included reformulated gasoline [Smoke coming out of an industrial chimney]

requirements that would reduce pollution and establish emission cap these caps [Smoke from chimneys is reduced and caps are put on them]

provided economic incentives for companies to you know go green.

Similar programs are still in use today so Bush's environmental legacy all is on

Bush also appointed the nation's first professional environmentalist as head of [Man hugging a tree]

the EPA which sounds about as crazy as hiring a plumber to fix your plumbing...