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Published on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
White House Puts the West on Fast Track for Oil, Gas Drilling
by Alan C. Miller, Tom Hamburger and Julie Cart

WASHINGTON — Placing a heavy emphasis on energy production in the American West, the Bush administration has moved aggressively to open up broad areas of largely unspoiled federal land to oil and gas exploration.

The administration has pressed for approval of new drilling permits across the Rocky Mountains and lifted protections on hundreds of thousands of acres with gas and oil reserves in Utah and Colorado. In the process, it has targeted a number of places prized for their scenery, abundant wildlife and clean water, natural assets increasingly valuable to the region's changing economy.

Soon after taking office in 2001, the Bush White House set up a little-known task force that acts as a complaint desk for industry, passing energy company concerns directly to federal land management employees in the field. Although the creation of White House task forces is commonplace, experts on the executive branch say it is unusual to have one primarily serving the interests of a single industry.

In addition, the Bureau of Land Management has been pushed to issue drilling permits at a record pace for three of the last four years, an increase of 70% since the Clinton administration.

Internal memos and interviews show senior administration officials have directed federal employees to be responsive to industry, commended offices that approved large numbers of drilling permits and chastised those that were slow.

The effort is so intense in the oil- and gas-rich Rockies that some Bureau of Land Management employees there have taken to calling the region "the OPEC states."

The administration says increased drilling is necessary to satisfy America's growing demand for power and to reduce reliance on foreign energy sources. Interior officials say they are proceeding with respect for the land and with input from communities that must cope with the effects of new production.

The acceleration of energy development, however, could transform some of the region's most treasured landscapes, places that call to mind the works of such painters as Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, who immortalized the Rocky Mountain region in the late 19th century.

At stake are areas such as New Mexico's Otero Mesa, a lonely stretch of low, knobby mountains incised with Native American petroglyphs that rise out of one of the nation's last Chihuahuan Desert grasslands. And there is Wyoming's Jack Morrow Hills with its towering, multi-hued buttes, undulating sand dunes and herds of rare desert elk, mule deer and pronghorn antelope. It is also the terminus of the longest wildlife migration route in the continental United States.

The push for oil and gas, which could lead to more than 1,000 wells in the Jack Morrow Hills area, would open the way for networks of roads, pipelines, well heads, generators and waste ponds.

It can take many years for environmental damage to appear. Wild herds don't disappear overnight. Officials of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department warned in a draft report last month that the proliferation of natural gas wells could have a negative effect on deer, elk and pronghorn antelope. The report went on to say that the protective measures by the BLM in Wyoming had been "inconsistently applied" and "frequently modified or waived."

Chris Sullivan, whose family has a ranch near an expanding natural gas field south of Pinedale, Wyo., said he used to see 700 or more antelope on his property during hunting season. "Last fall, I don't think we had 100," Sullivan said. "This summer we've had a handful."

Outlined during the 2000 campaign, the administration's course was set the following year with a national energy plan developed by a Cabinet-level group headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Citing executive privilege, the vice president has kept confidential the records of people who met with the group.

The evolving policy is being carried out by senior officials at the Department of Interior, a number of whom have past ties to the energy industry.

Drilling applications are skyrocketing, driven by record-high energy prices and new technology that allows the industry to exploit previously inaccessible supplies.

In a recent interview, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said the administration had streamlined some energy production processes, including speeding up oil and gas permits to ease a backlog.

"We have a larger and larger percentage of resources found on federal lands because we have tapped out the reserves now on privately owned lands," Norton said. Nevertheless, "we're really talking about very small areas in comparison to the vast areas of land that we manage."

But she said the BLM had not promoted energy production at the expense of recreation, conservation and wildlife protection.

Kathleen Clarke, director of the BLM, agreed.

"I absolutely reject the premise that the BLM ignores the bulk of its mission to promote a single use," she said. "When the agency issues oil and gas leases, it's carrying out its multiple-use mission no less than when it issues a special recreation permit."

But government memos, interviews with agency employees and budget documents show that the emphasis on oil and gas is transforming the BLM's historic mission to balance commerce, conservation and recreation on the 262 million acres it oversees.

The shift is stirring resentment not only with some longtime agency staff but among some hunters, ranchers and others who supported President Bush in 2000.

"All these farmers and ranchers are fit to be tied about what they consider their administration is doing," said Laurie Goodman, a lifelong Republican who served in the administration of Bush's father and as an aide to a Wyoming senator and who now works with Trout Unlimited, a fishing advocacy group.

Amid growing criticism of its energy policies, the Bush administration is scrambling to polish its environmental image, particularly in such states as New Mexico and Colorado, where the November presidential election could be close.

White House and Interior officials have been working to mend fences with hunting and fishing groups that expressed alarm about the effects of oil and gas policies on wildlife.

Industry executives say that if the administration has made any difference, it has been to restore a proper balance between development and environmental protection. And they say it is the market, not Washington, that is responsible for the upsurge in activity.

"The high rate of drilling in the Rockies is not done on marching orders from Bush-Cheney. But, in fact, is being driven by high prices," Keith O. Rattie, chairman of Questar Corp., said at a recent energy conference in Denver.

Industry experts say the Rocky Mountain region is one of the top six gas-producing areas in the world, with 41% of the potential gas reserves in the U.S., according to one survey. Nationally, 5% of America's oil and 11% of its natural gas are produced domestically from onshore public land.

Yet environmentalists and some current and former BLM officials contend that the administration is sacrificing some of the most spectacular natural spaces in the West for a short-term bump in supplies. Despite all the drilling, they say, foreign imports of oil and gas have not declined. They also say Bush's and Cheney's failure to emphasize energy conservation and alternative sources is leading to irreversible damage to federal lands, water, air and wildlife.

"Deer, elk, sage grouse, all the charismatic mega-fauna we have tried to protect, are no longer considered to be part of the natural heritage; they're considered impediments to oil and gas development," said Dennis J. Willis, an outdoor recreation planner for the BLM in Utah and a 28-year agency veteran, who made it clear he was speaking for himself and not the bureau. "It's like saying the Vatican and the Colosseum are impediments to urban renewal in Rome."

The concerns aren't only about wildlife.

In Wyoming's Powder River Basin, natural gas extraction involves pumping an estimated 60 million gallons of water from methane-laden coal beds to the surface each day. Much of the wastewater is contained in shallow ponds and, in a few cases, reused for livestock and crops. The quality of the pumped water varies widely, but some of it is high in saline and other contaminants.

Ranchers in the Powder River area and in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico have complained that drinking water from their wells has been fouled, that their cattle have died after drinking from contaminated ponds and that water tables are being depleted — all this during a severe drought.

Pulling natural gas from subterranean coal beds — and leasing lands to oil and gas companies in general — took off during the Clinton administration and has accelerated under Bush. BLM officials acknowledge that water-quality issues have been a major challenge, especially with gas extraction from coal beds.

Agency officials say the BLM is pursuing various steps to address the concerns. They say that in the Powder River Basin they are proposing to reduce the amount of wastewater discharged into streams. In the San Juan Basin, the BLM says, it makes companies reinject water that has been pumped out of the ground.

Changing Priorities

The rush to drill is just one of the shifting priorities under the Bush administration that critics say departs from a 40-year tradition of federal land stewardship.

Few decisions have angered critics more than the legal settlement Norton signed last year that effectively reversed the Clinton administration's policy of shielding 2.6 million acres in Utah and 600,000 acres in Colorado from development. The land was being protected by the Department of Interior under a "take care policy" to preserve its wilderness qualities pending an official decision by Congress and the White House.

Soon after the settlement, the BLM began leasing tens of thousands of acres of the area to oil and gas companies; some of the sites are visible from Dinosaur National Monument.

Norton's settlement reaches well beyond Utah and Colorado, effectively giving up BLM authority to evaluate and provide protection for any other lands proposed for wilderness consideration. Norton maintains that only Congress has the authority to provide such protection.

And Congress has exercised that authority rarely since Bush took office. He has signed legislation preserving 529,604 acres — far fewer than any American president since the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964.

In contrast, President Reagan signed legislation preserving 10.6 million acres in his two terms, and George H.W. Bush, the president's father, approved the protection of nearly 4 million acres during his single term. President Clinton ratified the designation of nearly 9.5 million acres during his two terms.

Interior officials said the administration had recently decided to support several bills that would create nearly 900,000 acres of new wilderness. They also said they supported designating another 1.4 million acres of wilderness in the Chugach National Forest in Alaska.

In addition, Norton said the administration had greatly increased funding for grants to states, private landowners and conservation groups to preserve open space and improve habitat.

However, the administration continues to lift restrictions on federal land.

Last month, the Department of Agriculture announced it was rolling back a Clinton administration rule prohibiting new roads on 58 million acres managed by the Forest Service. The ban had kept the remote lands off limits to industry. The BLM administers drilling permits on Forest Service and other federal land, but the Forest Service controls the surface.

The action gave states greater power to decide whether to permit logging, mining or energy exploration in the areas, administration officials said. Energy companies have expressed interest in prospecting for oil and gas in roadless areas ranging from the Badger-Two Medicine region of the Lewis and Clark National Forest near the Canadian border to a rugged section of the Los Padres National Forest near Santa Barbara.

Energy Connection

Critics attribute the administration's energy policies in the West to its long-held ties with the energy industry.

The president's father was a Texas oilman before entering politics, and the younger Bush started his own oil and gas company after college.

Before running for office in 2000, Cheney was chairman of Halliburton, one of the country's largest energy services firms.

With two energy veterans topping the ticket, the oil and gas industry gives more than 80% of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates, up from 63% in 1994.

The industry has given about $140 million to federal campaigns of all candidates and committees during that period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group. About 50 of the Bush campaign's premier fundraisers — nearly 10% — are energy executives. Each has raised $100,000 or more.

Upon assuming office, Bush appointed several senior officials with oil and gas industry connections who moved quickly to boost production.

Norton, a former Interior Department associate solicitor and Colorado state attorney general, was heavily supported by energy interests during an unsuccessful 1996 Colorado Senate bid. She had previously worked for the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative think tank that opposed wilderness protections and pushed to make public land more accessible for commercial development.

Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles is a former lobbyist for coal, oil and gas interests, including companies seeking greater access to Western energy deposits.

As a lawyer in Montana, Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca W. Watson represented natural gas interests, among other clients, before joining the department. She said she also represented ranchers in cases against energy companies.

In addition, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close Bush friend and his chief campaign fundraiser in 2000, is a former energy company executive.

The thrust to open Western lands for oil and gas began with the national energy policy group convened by Cheney. After meeting with industry representatives in 2001, the Cabinet-level group called for a streamlined review of federal "land status and … impediments to federal oil and gas leasing," and for changes "where opportunities exist" to promote energy development. It added that such changes should be consistent with "good environmental practice."

The White House wrote to Cabinet officers asking them to "identify ways your agency could expedite the review of permits or other authorizations for energy-related projects" and "accelerate the completion of such projects," according to a memo obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council through the Freedom of Information Act.

The instructions, in turn, were reinforced by the BLM. An agency directive ordered field offices "to take the necessary steps to work with local oil and gas operators" and other agencies to speed the processing of drilling applications.

In Wyoming, the state director gave an award to the Buffalo field office in 2002 for approving more drilling permits than all other BLM offices combined. The citation praised the local office for working "diligently" and "creatively" with industry to set the record.

Conversely, on Jan. 4, 2002, a Utah BLM official distributed a report critical of delays in approving drilling permits in the state.

"The leasing delays and [drilling approval] backlogs are created by the people responsible for performing the wilderness reviews" and environmental assessments, the report said. "Utah needs to ensure that existing staff understand that when an oil and gas lease parcel or when an application for permission to drill come in the door, that this work is their number-one priority."

A BLM spokeswoman said the memo was an "information bulletin" for the oil and gas team and not a directive.

However, some BLM staffers said environmental reviews suffered in the push to process drilling.

"All we do is issue permits for oil and gas," said a career BLM staff member in a Western office who spoke on the condition that he not be named. "We're told to follow new deadlines that are totally driven by industry. We're not given time to do adequate [environmental reviews] and to consider the consequences of our decisions."

Mat Millenbach, a longtime BLM employee and former state director in Montana who left in 2002, said he became concerned when the Bush administration began referring to wildlife protections as "impediments" to leasing.

"Those restrictions were coined as a way to enact multiple use of public land — to preserve wildlife while allowing oil and gas development. It was never intended as an impediment," Millenbach said. "It was intended to allow development while preserving another important resource, wildlife."

BLM officials said the agency was not cutting corners on environmental reviews, or granting waivers to protections that would harm wildlife. A spokesman said the agency still had long delays in approving drilling permits, in part because it was committed to doing complete assessments.

Several officials told of receiving calls from the White House if they took too long. The calls came from the Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining that was formed in 2001.

Its purpose is to act "like an ombudsman" mainly for companies frustrated with the slow pace of the bureaucracy, according to James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who talked about the task force in a recent interview.

The task force has also met numerous times with environmental groups, he said, and has made calls to speed other energy projects such as transmission lines and a wind energy initiative. But most of the task force's efforts are aimed at oil and gas development.

Connaughton said that, while the task force most often represented the energy industry, it did not apply pressure on the BLM or other federal agencies.

He said that when the task force called a land management agency, the purpose was to obtain information in response to complaints and to encourage agency coordination and efficiency.

"We bill ourselves as outcome neutral," said Robert W. Middleton, the task force director.

But White House documents show dozens of cases in which the task force was contacted by oil and gas companies with specific complaints. Each time, Middleton or other members responded by asking Interior officials about the corporate concerns, requesting "an expedited response" and often making telephone calls requesting greater efficiency, records show.

After Middleton called in 2003 on behalf of one of the nation's largest energy companies, El Paso Corp., local Forest Service employees said they felt pressured to act.

El Paso officials had contacted Middleton's office after the Forest Service rejected their bid to probe for natural gas in New Mexico's Valle Vidal, a complex of mountain meadows teeming with wildlife that for years has served as a retreat for the adjacent Philmont Scout Ranch, the nation's largest Boy Scout training center.

This month, the Forest Service took the first steps toward approving El Paso's bid to explore for gas on 40,000 acres of the Valle Vidal.

Wayne Thornton, who helps oversee oil and gas leasing for the Forest Service's Southwest region, said there was no pressure from Washington to reverse protections that had been in place for 22 years.

But two employees of the Forest Service office in charge of the project, including its public affairs officer, Benjamin Romero, said they believed the task force leaned on the Forest Service to alter its stand on the Valle Vidal at El Paso's behest.

For some BLM field employees, getting a call from the White House has conveyed a powerful message.

A BLM archeologist said he was so stunned to hear from a White House official that he thought the call was a gag. "You guys must have the thing in Iraq taken care of if you have time to call somebody in a field office about a gas well," he initially responded.

But the caller said he was with the White House task force and asked about a pending application for a permit to drill. The archeologist paid attention.

"I know it's political. I know it's hot. It becomes a top priority because you don't want the bosses to jump down your throat," said the archeologist, speaking on the condition that he not be named. "I've worked for the federal government since the Reagan administration, and that's never happened before."

Experts on executive branch management said the creation of a White House advocate for a particular industry was unusual.

"Ombudsman offices have been set up at IRS and other agencies, but their role is to advocate broadly for citizens," said Paul Light, an expert on the executive branch at New York University. "I have never heard of an ombudsman created for just one industry, much less one set up in the White House."

Meanwhile, funding for the BLM's program that administers oil and gas exploration and development activities on public land has jumped 50% since the Bush administration took office.

In contrast, funding for wilderness management has increased only marginally, the budget for threatened and endangered species has grown 16% and funding for wildlife management has declined. Congress directed some of the additional funds to the oil and gas program to reduce the backlog of drilling applications.

The top-down pressure and bigger budget have produced results as industry is seeking drilling permits to capitalize on high energy prices. The BLM approved 4,421 permits to drill for gas and oil on federal land as of Aug. 4, topping last year's record high of 3,802. BLM officials say the total for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 will exceed 6,000.While drilling permits have increased dramatically, Interior officials point out that the BLM has approved 25% fewer leases per year on average than the Clinton administration. On the other hand, the agency is opening up more land per lease than it did under Clinton.

The amount of federal land under lease to oil and gas companies was over 38 million acres as of June and could rise substantially in the next few years. The administration is revising about 70 resource management plans, which are long-term blueprints for commercial, recreational and conservation use of public land. Some of the draft plans propose to open up more gas and oil development in sensitive areas, including Otero Mesa and the Jack Morrow Hills.

BLM officials said their proposed plans would limit the amount of oil and gas activity in those areas at times that would do the most harm to wildlife. And they say they are pushing energy companies to use new technologies to reduce environmental damage.

"This administration is committed to restoring balance to the multiple-use mandate, which means that oil and gas development has a place at the table," said Clarke, the BLM's director. She said the mandate covered all lands not formally protected as wilderness.

West's New Terrain

In the 2000 election, Bush carried every Rocky Mountain state except New Mexico. His views are shared by many residents of the West who resented the efforts of past administrations to put federal lands off limits not just to the energy industry but to chain saws and pickups.

But the West is changing.

In January, 100 Western economists wrote to Bush and Western governors warning against heavy reliance on extractive industries, including oil and gas drilling.

"Extractive industries and agriculture now play a smaller economic role because their ability to generate new jobs and higher incomes has declined," the economists wrote. "Across most of the West, a community's ability to retain and attract firms now drives its prosperity. But if a community's natural environment is degraded, it has greater difficulty retaining and attracting workers and firms."

While Wyoming officials can point to the state's billion-dollar-plus surplus, largely due to oil and gas industry royalty payments, Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, has expressed reservations about proposals to drill for oil and gas along the pronghorn antelope migration route south through Pinedale and toward the Jack Morrow Hills.

In Wyoming, wildlife-related activities account for $500 million, more than any other income source except oil and gas.

Norton, Clarke and other senior administration officials have crisscrossed the country to meet with hunters, fishermen and ranchers.

Watson, the assistant Interior secretary, touted a series of initiatives intended to protect wildlife at a recent summit of hunting and outdoor groups in upstate New York. Robert Model, the coalition's chairman and president of the Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt and one of the country's oldest hunting and conservation organizations, said afterward that the administration was "responding by making important moves toward addressing and mitigating the concerns of our community."

Bush has spoken at several events to the self-described "hook and bullet crowd." He appeared on a TV fishing show this month, did an interview with Field and Stream magazine and announced an expanded national wetlands program from a farm in Minnesota with the head of a hunting group.

Some Westerners remain more impressed with the effects they see on the land than with the administration's outreach.

"I can't understand all the rapid expansion of drilling and more drilling everywhere," said Courtney Skinner, 68, a lifelong Republican and former Bush voter who leads expeditions into the mountains of western Wyoming. "I think it's going to cost the West a terrible price — not only in our water, our air, our way of life. It's going to cost us the freedom that the West stands for."

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Battling over the nature of the West

Lying beneath some of the most scenic areas of the Rocky Mountains are vast pools of oil and natural gas. Higher energy prices and administration policies have rekindled conflicts between wilderness advocates and those who want greater access to energy resources. Here's a look at key areas of contention in five Western states.

MONTANA

Badger-Two Medicine: The area includes sacred ground for the Blackfeet Indians. Drilling leases were issued in the 1980s.

Rocky Mountain Front: Home to grizzly bears, wolves and elk, it is one of the wildest and most majestic stretches of the Rocky Mountains. At least three energy companies have expressed interest in drilling for oil and gas there.

WYOMING

Jack Morrow Hills: It features badlands, petroglyphs and a portion of the largest sand dune system in North America. A federal government plan could lead to more than 1,000 wells.

COLORADO

Vermillion Basin: An estimated 80% of it is roadless red rock desert badlands. It is also the site of 1,000-year-old petroglyphs. There are about 5,000 acres covered by oil and gas leases, and an energy company is seeking to lease roughly 7,000 acres more.

Roan Plateau: Peregrine falcons, bald eagles and other wildlife live on the plateau, which sits atop a huge natural gas field.

HD Mountains, San Juan National Forest: Elk, mountain lions and other wildlife inhabit the area, which is beloved by big-game hunters. Federal officials are considering allowing nearly 500 natural gas wells.

UTAH

Book Cliffs/Desolation Canyon/Fisher Towers: The region includes a 250-mile-long band of high cliffs, along with ancient burial grounds and rock art.

Canyonlands Basin: Spectacular red rock scenery lies next to Canyonlands National Park. Federal officials have approved plans to explore for oil nearby.

NEW MEXICO

Valle Vidal: The Forest Service recently reversed prior refusals to allow gas exploration in the Carson National Forest portion of Valle Vidal. It took initial steps to OK an El Paso Corp. plan to look for fuel deposits over 40,000 acres and drill as many as 500 wells.

Otero Mesa: In this Chihuahuan desert grassland area, the BLM has proposed opening a part of 1.2 million acres to drilling. The state government opposes the plan, favoring protection for much of the area.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Presidential protection

The most acreage passed by Congress under the Wilderness Act was set aside during the Johnson, Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations.

Years President Acreage
'63-'69 Johnson 9,932,471

'69-'74 Nixon 1,274,569

'74-'77 Ford 3,470,407

'77-'81 Carter 66,256,220

'81-'89 Reagan 10,622,143

'89-'93 Bush 3,937,695

'93-'01 Clinton 9,455,470

'01-present Bush 529,604






Sources: U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, Natural Resources Defense Council, Trout Unlimited, Bureau of Land Management, Census Bureau, ESRI, Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Wilderness.net

Graphics reporting by Julie Sheer and Cheryl Brownstein-Santiago

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)\

The policymakers

Upon assuming office, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both former oilmen, appointed numerous senior officials with oil and gas industry connections.

Don Evans

Commerce secretary

President Bush's close Texas friend and chief fundraiser in the 2000 campaign, Evans is a former oil and gas executive.

Gale A. Norton

Interior secretary

A former Interior Department solicitor and Colorado attorney general, Norton was heavily supported by energy interests during her unsuccessful 1996 Colorado Senate bid.

J. Steven Griles

Deputy Interior secretary

Griles is a former lobbyist for coal and natural gas interests, including several companies seeking greater access to Western energy deposits.

Rebecca W. Watson

Assistant secretary for land and minerals management

Watson has energy connections as well. As a lawyer in Montana, she represented oil and a natural gas company as well as ranchers who were at odds with energy firms.

Miller and Hamburger reported from Washington and Cart from Los Angeles. Staff writers Henry Weinstein in Utah and Kathleen Hennessey in Washington contributed to this report. Researchers Robin Cochran and Janet Lundblad also contributed.

May 19, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative



Surveillance State


Since September 11, a flood of federal legislation has reduced American freedom without increasing our security.

By James Bovard

Perhaps you’ve visited your local library to keep speed with the War on Terror: borrowed a few books on Islamic fundamentalism or did web research on biochemical weapons. Beware.

Last January, an FBI agent entered a branch of the St. Louis Public Library and requested a list of all the sign-up sheets showing names of people who used library computers on Dec. 28, 2002. Even though the FBI agent did not have a warrant or subpoena, the library quickly surrendered the list of all users. The FBI acted because someone phoned in a tip that they “smelled something strange” about a library patron of Middle Eastern descent.

Welcome to America under the Patriot Act. One person claims to “smell something,” and the feds can round up everyone’s records. From books you check out to credit card purchases, money transfers to medications, your activities are now subject to federal surveillance. Uncle Sam now has a blank check to search and pry—all in the name of security.

Last October, then House Majority Leader Dick Armey branded our own Justice Department “the biggest threat to personal liberty in the country.” And while that characterization of a Republican Justice Department makes many conservatives cringe, the DOJ has been working overtime to expand its power —and the biggest danger may be yet to come.

When John Ashcroft was in the U.S. Senate, he was a leader in the fight to protect Americans’ privacy. In an August 1997 op-ed, Ashcroft declared, “This is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records, read our medical records, or translate our international communications.” His early days as attorney general showed a keen appreciation for the Bill of Rights’ constraints. That changed on 9/11.

Within days of the Twin Towers’ collapse, Ashcroft began strong-arming Congress to enact sweeping anti-terrorism legislation—and Americans seemed ready to trade a measure of liberty to restore their shaken security. The month of the attacks, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 78 percent willing to have Internet activity monitored. The administration took this as free rein, moving swiftly to enact the Patriot (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act. Some of its provisions were simply updates to existing law. As. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the only senator to vote against the act observed, “It made sense to stiffen penalties and lengthen or eliminate statutes of limitation for certain terrorist crimes.” But the Patriot Act goes far beyond “good government” amendments.

It empowers federal agents to cannibalize Americans’ e-mail with Carnivore wiretaps, allows federal agents to commandeer library records, and requires banks to surrender personal account information. It also authorizes federal agents to confiscate bulk cash from travelers who fail to fill out Customs Service forms disclosing how much money they are taking out of or into the U.S. and allows the attorney general to order long-term detentions if he has “reasonable grounds to believe that the alien is engaged in any activity that endangers the national security of the United States.” Last year alone, Ashcroft personally issued 170 emergency domestic spying warrants, permitting agents to carry out wiretaps and search homes and offices for up to 72 hours before requesting a search warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

When privacy-minded legislators question these new powers, the Justice Department stonewalls. House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) threatened to subpoena the DOJ last summer to get information to which his committee is specifically entitled. Justice eventually divulged a few fragments of information but has refused to reveal the number of secret searches, the number of libraries whose records have been seized, and how often Carnivore e-mail wiretaps have been used. Freedom has apparently become so fragile that citizens can no longer be permitted to know how often their government invades their privacy.

Some intrusive provisions of the Patriot Act were temporary—set to expire in 2005 absent Congressional reauthorization. But Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently proposed making the federal prying powers permanent.

The Wrong Response

The Patriot Act was rushed into law before any effort was made to understand why the feds failed to stop the 9/11 attacks. The government could have done a better job of tracking the terrorist suspects, but the feds had all the relevant information to detect and block the conspiracy to hijack four airplanes. The Joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee observed that the FBI’s negligence “contributed to the United States becoming, in effect, a sanctuary for radical terrorists.” Its investigation concluded, “It is at least a possibility that increased analysis, sharing and focus would have drawn greater attention to the growing potential for a major terrorist attack in the United States involving the aviation industry.”

But the administration rewarded failure by the FBI and intelligence agencies with bigger budgets, more power, and presidential commendations. There is nothing in the Patriot Act that can solve the problem of FBI agents who do not understand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or solve the shortage of CIA and National Security Agency employees who can read intercepted messages in the languages of prime terrorist threats. Neither does the legislation compensate for lackadaisical federal agents who failed to add promptly the names of al-Qaeda members to terrorism watch-lists or of analysts who ignored the cascading warnings of terrorists using stolen airplanes as flying bombs. The success of the 9/11 hijackers was due far more to a lack of government competence than to a shortfall in government power. Yet the Bush administration has successfully suppressed investigations and revelations of federal failures, thereby permitting Ashcroft and others to portray new government powers as the key to national safety.

The Justice Department isn’t the only agency taking aim at American liberties. The Department of Transportation has compiled secret “no fly” lists of passengers suspected of terrorist ties—or at least those critical of the administration. In one instance, two dozen members of a peace group, students chaperoned by a priest and nun, were detained en route to a teach-in thus missing their flight.

The Department of Defense is piling on with its Total Information Awareness program. TIA’s goal is to stockpile as much information as possible about everyone on Earth—thereby allowing government to protect everyone from everything. New York Times columnist William Safire warned, “Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend—all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as ‘a virtual, centralized grand database.’” Columnist Ted Rall noted that the feds will even scan “veterinary records. The TIA believes that knowing if and when Fluffy got spayed —and whether your son stopped torturing Fluffy after you put him on Ritalin—will help the military stop terrorists before they strike.”

Congress passed a law seeking to rein in TIA. The Pentagon, however, is barging forward, and the congressional provision specifies that if Bush formally certifies that TIA is necessary for national security, the law is null and void.

Coming Soon: Patriot II

In February, the Center for Public Integrity obtained and released an 86-page draft version of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act—quickly dubbed Patriot II. Notations on the Justice Department document—stamped “Confidential—Not for Distribution” on every page—showed that it had already been sent to Vice President Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo dismisses DSEA as a benign sequel, “filling in the holes” in the Patriot Act.

Section 101 of the proposed bill, titled “Individual Terrorists as Foreign Powers,” would revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to permit the U.S. government to label individuals who are suspected terrorists—including American citizens—as “foreign powers” for the purpose of conducting total surveillance of their activities. This alteration nullifies all Fourth Amendment rights of the target, allowing the government to tap phones, search computers, and read e-mail—even when there is no evidence that a citizen is violating any statute. If Section 101 becomes law, the more people the feds wrongfully accuse of being terrorists, the more power federal agents will receive.

Americans suspected of gathering information for a foreign power could be subject to FISA surveillance even though they were violating no law and the information gathered did not pertain to national security. The administration’s confidential explanation of proposed Section 102 notes, “Requiring the additional showing that the intelligence gathering violates the laws of the United States is both unnecessary and counterproductive, as such activities threaten the national security regardless of whether they are illegal.” But, as the ACLU noted, “This amendment would permit electronic surveillance of a local activist who was preparing a report on human rights for London-based Amnesty International, a ‘foreign political organization,’ even if the activist was not engaged in any violation of law.”

While some parts of the new bill would overturn federal court decisions, Section 106 is more visionary, seeking to negate principles established in the Nuremberg trials: that following orders is no excuse for violating the law. As proposed, it would permit federal agents illegally to wiretap and surveil and leak damaging personal information on Americans—as long as they are following orders from the president or the attorney general. The Senate COINTELPRO investigation revealed how President Johnson and top Nixon aides personally ordered federal agents to conduct illegal surveillance of political opponents and others, though neither the FBI nor LBJ was ever held accountable. This proposal is a further attempt to make federal agents legally untouchable and could encourage law-breaking at every level of the federal government.

Section 129, entitled “Strengthening Access to and Use of Information in National Security Investigations,” would empower federal agents to issue “national security letters” that compel businesses and other institutions to surrender confidential or proprietary information without a court order. Anyone hit with such a letter will be obliged to remain forever silent on the demand with disclosure punishable by up to five years in prison. The ACLU noted that this provision would “reduce judicial oversight of terrorism investigations by relegating the role of the judge to considering challenges to orders already issued, rather than ensuring such orders are drawn with due regard for the privacy and other interests of the target.” This turns the Fourth Amendment on its head by creating a presumption that the government is entitled to personal or confidential information unless the citizen or business can prove to a federal judge that the “national security letter” should not be enforced against them. But few Americans can afford the cost of litigating against the world’s largest law firm—the U.S. Justice Department —to preserve their privacy.

Secret mass arrests could be the result of Section 201. The provision notes, “Although existing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions … permit the government to protect information relating to detainees, defending this interpretation through litigation requires extensive Department of Justice resources, which would be better spent detecting and incapacitate [sic] terrorists.” In the wake of 9/11, the feds locked up over 1,200 “special interest” detainees and continually insisted that none of their names or details of their cases could be disclosed without endangering national survival, though federal courts denounced the secret arrests as “odious to democracy” or “profoundly undemocratic.” To save the Justice Department the bother of having to defend secret round-ups, the Bush administration now seeks to amend the federal statute book to imitate repressive dictatorships around the globe.

Section 312, “Appropriate Remedies with Respect to Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities,” would unleash local law enforcement to spy on Americans, nullifying almost all federal, state, and local court “consent decrees” that restrict the power of local and state police. The administration complains that such decrees result in police lacking “the ability to use the full range of investigative techniques that are lawful under the Constitution, and that are available to the FBI.” But, in every case, consent decrees were imposed after gross abuses of citizens’ rights by the police. The administration draft bill explanation declares, “All surviving decrees would have to be necessary to correct a current and ongoing violation of a Federal right, extend no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and be narrowly drawn and the least intrusive means to correct the violation.” Historically, the Supreme Court has required the federal government to use the “least intrusive means” to achieve some policy in cases involving the First Amendment, in order to prevent any unnecessary restriction of freedom of speech. The administration now demands the “least intrusive” restrictions on government intrusions.

Section 402 would permit U.S. attorneys to prosecute Americans for aiding terrorist organizations even if they made donations to organizations that the U.S. government did not publicly label as terrorist groups. Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin said, “Give a few dollars to a Muslim charity Ashcroft thinks is a terrorist organization and you could be on the next plane out of this country.” Robert Higgs of the Independent Institution warns that the feds “can categorize the most innocent action”—such as “signing a petition”—as an act of terrorism.

Users of Pretty Good Privacy and other common encryption software could face greater perils from Section 404, which creates “a new, separate crime of using encryption technology that could add five years or more to any sentence for crimes committed with a computer,” the ACLU notes. Encryption software is routinely included on new computers and is commonly used for business transactions. The Justice Department thus seeks to treat use of encryption software the same way that the federal government treats gun possession—something sinister enough to justify routinely doubling or tripling prison sentences for people who violate other federal statutes, regardless of whether the gun was actually used.

Critics label Section 501 of the bill the “citizenship death penalty.” Under existing law, an American must state his intent to relinquish his citizenship in order to lose it. Under this provision, intent “need not be manifested in words but can be inferred from conduct,” thus empowering the Justice Department to strip Americans of their citizenship if the feds accuse them of supporting terrorism—either domestic or international. The American Immigration Lawyers Association cautions that, under this provision, “targeted [U.S. citizens] potentially could find themselves consigned to indefinite detention as undocumented immigrants in their own country.”

Shortly after the text of Patriot II surfaced, the attorney general was asked at a press conference about this expansion of federal power. He refused to confirm plans formally to propose Patriot II but did declare, “Every day we are asking each other, what can we do to be more successful in securing the freedoms of America and sustaining the liberty, the tolerance, the human dignity that America represents, and how can we do a better job in defeating the threat of terrorism.”

Despite Ashcroft’s reassurances, resistance is building. Eighty-nine cities have passed resolutions condemning the Patriot Act, and a coalition is stretching across ideological lines to oppose it. Recently the ACLU drafted a letter to Congress and found 67 organizations from the conservative Gun Owners of America to the liberal La Raza eager to sign on. They accuse Patriot II of “new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers, many of which are not related to terrorism, that would severely dilute, if not undermine, basic constitutional rights.”

Three months after 9/11, Ashcroft announced, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this, your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and ... give ammunition to American’s enemies.” Ashcroft is wrong to portray any criticism of Bush administration civil liberties policies as aiding and abetting terrorism. America is overdue for a searching examination of the powers the Bush administration has seized and the powers it is seeking. ___________________________________________________

James Bovard is the author of the forthcoming Terrorism & Tyranny: How Bush’s Crusade is Sabotaging Freedom, Justice, and Peace.

May 19, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0903-04.htm

Published on Friday, September 3, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
Bush by Numbers: Four Years of Double Standards
by Graydon Carter

1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida.

104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defense in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.

101 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defense in the same period that mentioned missile defense

65 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defense in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.

73 Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses.

83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.

$1m Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.

1,700 Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.

79 Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.

3 Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" program.

140 Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.

14 Number of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.

$3m Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.

$0 Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.

$10m Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.

$50m Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.

$5m Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalized gambling.

7 Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.

George Bush: Military man

1972 Year that Bush walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas National Guard, Nearly two years before his six-year obligation was up.

$3,500 Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.

600-700 Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.

0 Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.

0 Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove ­ the main proponents of the war in Iraq ­served in combat (combined).

0 Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.

8 Number of members of the US Senate and House of Representatives who have a child serving in the military.

10 Number of days that the Pentagon spent investigating a soldier who had called the President "a joke" in a letter to the editor of a Newspaper.

46 Percentage increase in sales between 2001 and 2002 of GI Joe figures (children's toys).

Ambitious warrior

2 Number of Nations that George Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into office.

130 Approximate Number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognized by the United Nations) with a US military presence.

43 Percentage of the entire world's military spending that the US spends on defense (That was in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq.)

$401.3bn Proposed military budget for 2004.

Savior of Iraq

1983 The year in which Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs as a gift.

2.5 Number of hours after Rumsfeld learnt that Osama bin Laden was a suspect in the 11 September attacks that he brought up reasons to "hit" Iraq.

237 Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by top Bush administration officials between 2002 and January 2004, according to the California Representative Henry Waxman.

10m Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets on 21 February 2003, in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the largest simultaneous protest in world history.

$2bn Estimated monthly cost of US military presence in Iraq projected by the White House in April 2003.

$4bn Actual monthly cost of the US military presence in Iraq according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in 2004.

$15m Amount of a contract awarded to an American firm to build a cement factory in Iraq.

$80,000 Amount an Iraqi firm spent (using Saddam's confiscated funds) to build the same factory, after delays prevented the American firm from starting it.

2000 Year that Cheney said his policy as CEO of Halliburton oil services company was "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq".

$4.7bn Total value of contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq and Afghanistan.

$680m Estimated value of Iraq reconstruction contracts awarded to Bechtel.

$2.8bnValue of Bechtel Corp contracts in Iraq.

$120bn Amount the war and its aftermath are projected to cost for the 2004 fiscal year.

35 Number of countries to which the United States suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

92 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.

60 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.

55 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.

80 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.

0 Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender in May 1945.

37 Death toll of US soldiers in Iraq in May 2003, the month combat operations "officially" ended.

0 Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has permitted to be photographed.

0 Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.

A soldier's best friend

40,000 Number of soldiers in Iraq seven months after start of the war still without Interceptor vests, designed to stop a round from an AK-47.

$60m Estimated cost of outfitting those 40,000 soldiers with Interceptor vests.

62 Percentage of gas masks that army investigators discovered did Not work properly in autumn 2002.

90 Percentage of detectors which give early warning of a biological weapons attack found to be defective.

87 Percentage of Humvees in Iraq not equipped with armour capable of stopping AK-47 rounds and protecting against roadside bombs and landmines at the end of 2003.

Making the country safer

$3.29 Average amount allocated per person Nationwide in the first round of homeland security grants.

$94.40 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in American Samoa.

$36 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in Wyoming, Vice-President Cheney's home state.

$17 Amount allocated per person in New York state.

$5.87 Amount allocated per person in New York City.

$77.92 Amount allocated per person in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, Bush's alma mater.

76 Percentage of 215 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors in early 2004 that had yet to receive a dime in federal homeland security assistance for their first-response units.

5 Number of major US airports at the beginning of 2004 that the Transportation Security Administration admitted were Not fully screening baggage electronically.

22,600 Number of planes carrying unscreened cargo that fly into New York each month.

5 Estimated Percentage of US air cargo that is screened, including cargo transported on passenger planes.

95 Percentage of foreign goods that arrive in the United States by sea.

2 Percentage of those goods subjected to thorough inspection.

$5.5bnEstimated cost to secure fully US ports over the Next decade.

$0 Amount Bush allocated for port security in 2003.

$46m Amount the Bush administration has budgeted for port security in 2005.

15,000 Number of major chemical facilities in the United States.

100 Number of US chemical plants where a terrorist act could endanger the lives of more than one million people.

0 Number of new drugs or vaccines against "priority pathogens" listed by the Centers for Disease Control that have been developed and introduced since 11 September 2001.

Giving a hand up to the advantaged

$10.9m Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet.

75 Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush's sweeping 2003 cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$42,000 Average savings members of Bush's cabinet received in 2003 as a result of cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

10 Number of fellow members from the Yale secret society Skull and Bones that Bush has named to important positions (including the Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. and SEC chief Bill Donaldson).

79 Number of Bush's initial 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration.

A man with a lot of friends

$113m Amount of total hard money the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign received, a record.

$11.5m Amount of hard money raised through the Pioneer program, the controversial fund-raising process created for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. (Participants pledged to raise at least $100,000 by bundling together checks of up to $1,000 from friends and family. Pioneers were assigned numbers, which were included on all checks, enabling the campaign to keep track of who raised how much.)

George Bush: Money manager

4.7m Number of bankruptcies that were declared during Bush's first three years in office.

2002 The worst year for major markets since the recession of the 1970s.

$489bn The US trade deficit in 2003, the worst in history for a single year.

$5.6tr Projected national surplus forecast by the end of the decade when Bush took office in 2001.

$7.22tr US national debt by mid-2004.

George Bush: Tax cutter

87 Percentage of American families in April 2004 who say they have felt no benefit from Bush's tax cuts.

39 Percentage of tax cuts that will go to the top 1 per cent of American families when fully phased in.

49 Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.

88 Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$30,858 Amount Bush himself saved in taxes in 2003.

Employment tsar

9.3m Number of US unemployed in April 2004.

2.3m Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first three Years of the Bush administration.

22m Number of jobs gained during Clinton's eight years in office.

Friend of the poor

34.6m Number of Americans living below the poverty line (1 in 8 of the population).

6.8m Number of people in the workforce but still classified as poor.

35m Number of Americans that the government defines as "food insecure," in other words, hungry.

$300m Amount cut from the federal program that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.

40 Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest 1 per cent of the population.

18 Percentage of wealth in Britain held by the richest 1e per cent of the population.

George Bush And his special friend

$60bn Loss to Enron stockholders, following the largest bankruptcy in US history.

$205m Amount Enron CEO Kenneth Lay earned from stock option profits over a four-year period.

$101m Amount Lay made from selling his Enron shares just before the company went bankrupt.

$59,339 Amount the Bush campaign reimbursed Enron for 14 trips on its corporate jet during the 2000 campaign.

30 Length of time in months between Enron's collapse and Lay (whom the President called "Kenny Boy") still not being charged with a crime.

George Bush: Lawman

15 Average number of minutes Bush spent reviewing capital punishment cases while governor of Texas.

46 Percentage of Republican federal judges when Bush came to office.

57 Percentage of Republican federal judges after three years of the Bush administration.

33 Percentage of the $15bn Bush pledged to fight Aids in Africa that must go to abstinence-only programs.

The Civil libertarian

680 Number of suspected al-Qa'ida members that the United States admits are detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

42 Number of nationalities of those detainees at Guantanamo.

22 Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled, and made to wear surgical masks, earmuffs, and blindfolds during their flight to Guantanamo.

32 Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

24 Number of prisoners in mid-2003 being monitored by psychiatrists in Guantanamo's new mental ward.

A health-conscious president

43.6m Number of Americans without health insurance by the end of 2002 (more than 15 per cent of the population).

2.4m Number of Americans who lost their health insurance during Bush's first year in office.

Environmentalist

$44m Amount the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and the Republican National Committee received in contributions from the fossil fuel, chemical, timber, and mining industries.

200 Number of regulation rollbacks downgrading or weakening environmental laws in Bush's first three years in office.

31 Number of Bush administration appointees who are alumni of the energy industry (includes four cabinet secretaries, the six most powerful White House officials, and more than 20 other high-level appointees).

50 Approximate number of policy changes and regulation rollbacks injurious to the environment that have been announced by the Bush administration on Fridays after 5pm, a time that makes it all but impossible for news organizations to relay the information to the widest possible audience.

50 Percentage decline in Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against polluters under Bush's watch.

34 Percentage decline in criminal penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

50 Percentage decline in civil penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

$6.1m Amount the EPA historically valued each human life when conducting economic analyses of proposed regulations.

$3.7m Amount the EPA valued each human life when conducting analyses of proposed regulations during the Bush administration.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned global warming, clean air, clean water, pollution or environment in his 2004 State of the Union speech. His father was the last president to go through an entire State of the Union address without mentioning the environment.

1 Number of paragraphs devoted to global warming in the EPA's 600-page "Draft Report on the Environment" presented in 2003.

68 Number of days after taking office that Bush decided Not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases by roughly 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was to cut its level by 7 per cent.

1 The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

25 Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.

53 Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

14 Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).

408 Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.

5 Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.

62 Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.

0 Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.

6 Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.

2 Percentage of the world's population that is British.

2 Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.

5 Percentage of the world's population that is American.

25 Percentage of the world's oil used by America.

63 Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.

24,000 Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.

300 Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.

750,000 Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.

$3.8bn Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.

$0m Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.

270 Estimated number of court decisions citing federal Negligence in endangered-species protection that remained unheeded during the first year of the Bush administration.

100 Percentage of those decisions that Bush then decided to allow the government to ignore indefinitely.

68.4 Average Number of species added to the Endangered and Threatened Species list each year between 1991 and 2000.

0 Number of endangered species voluntarily added by the Bush administration since taking office.

50 Percentage of screened workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from long-term health problems, almost half of whom don't have health insurance.

78 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from lung ailments.

88 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who Now suffer from ear, nose, or throat problems.

22 Asbestos levels at Ground Zero were 22 times higher than the levels in Libby, Montana, where the W R Grace mine produced one of the worst Superfund disasters in US history.

Image booster for the US

2,500 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further the image of the US abroad in 1991.

1,200 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further US image abroad in 2004.

4 Rank of the United States among countries considered to be the greatest threats to world peace according to a 2003 Pew Global Attitudes study (Israel, Iran, and North Korea were considered more dangerous; Iraq was considered less dangerous).

$66bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 1949.

$23.8bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 2002.

85 Percentage of Indonesians who had an unfavorable image of the United States in 2003.

Second-party endorsements

90 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2001.

67 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2002.

54 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 30 September, 2003.

50 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 15 October 2003.

49 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president in May 2004.

More like the French than he would care to admit

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2003, the second-longest vacation of any president in US history. (Record holder Richard Nixon.)

13 Number of vacation days the average American receives each Year.

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2001, the month he received a 6 August Presidential Daily Briefing headed "Osama bin Laden Determined to Strike US Targets."

500 Number of days Bush has spent all or part of his time away from the White House at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his parents' retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, or Camp David as of 1 April 2004.

No fool when it comes to the press

11 Number of press conferences during his first three Years in office in which Bush referred to questions as being "trick" ones.

Factors in his favor

3 Number of companies that control the US voting technology market.

52 Percentage of votes cast during the 2002 midterm elections that were recorded by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting-technology firm, a big Republican donor.

29 Percentage of votes that will be cast via computer voting machines that don't produce a paper record.

17On 17 November 2001, The Economist printed a correction for having said George Bush was properly elected in 2000.

$113m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, the most in American electoral history.

$185m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign, to the end of March 2004.

$200m Amount that the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign expects to raise by November 2004.

268 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Pioneer status (by raising $100,000 each) as of March 2004.

187 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Ranger status (by raising $200,000 each) as of March 2004.

$64.2mThe Amount Pioneers and Rangers had raised for Bush-Cheney as of March 2004.

85 Percentage of Americans who can't Name the Chief Justice of the United States.

69 Percentage of Americans who believed the White House's claims in September 2003 that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September attacks.

34 Percentage of Americans who believed in June 2003 that Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" had been found.

22 Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.

85 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map.

30 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

75 Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

53 Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

11 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.

30 Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."

Another factor in his favor

70m Estimated number of Americans who describe themselves as Evangelicals who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and who interpret the Bible as the direct word of God.

23m Number of Evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2000.

50m Number of voters in total who voted for Bush in 2000.

46 Percentage of voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians.

5 Number of states that do not use the word "evolution" in public school science courses.

This is an edited extract from "What We've Lost", by Graydon Carter, published by Little Brown on 9 September

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For a former college drop-out from Ontario and, briefly, a lineman stringing up telegraph wires on the railways of Canada, Graydon Carter, 55, has risen to impressive heights. The editor of Vanity Fair since 1992 ­ after succeeding Tina Brown ­ he is one of America's celebrity editors with clout, glamour and a nice line in suits.

It is hard to imagine Carter doing physical work of any kind, beyond exercising his thumb on his silver Zippo lighter. His labor is restricted to rejigging headlines in his magazine ­ he is a self-confessed failure at delegation of duties ­ and swanning to Manhattan parties. Martini in hand, he cuts an almost princely and dandyish figure, with billowing shirts and similarly billowing silver hair.

The spotlight on his activities has never burned brighter. In recent months he has transformed the regular editor's letter at the front of the magazine into less of a chat about its coming contents ­ the spreads of Annie Leibowitz and rants of Christopher Hitchens ­ and more a full-bore diatribe against the world of George Bush.

© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd