Word: bushing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...American role in world affairs, that of bystander, has been defined by the Bush Administration's reaction to two epochal events. But while it may be wise for the U.S. to refrain from meddling too much in Eastern Europe's current upheaval, the global environmental crisis cries out for presidential leadership. Michael Deland, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, admits that "this country is the most wasteful on the face of this earth...
Candidate Bush produced fine environmental rhetoric, but this commitment has gradually given way to mixed signals and throat clearing. Lack of federal leadership has led to regulatory chaos as states and municipalities, going it alone, have passed scores of differing environmental statutes. Other nations now find it easy to dismiss American calls for action. If the Bush Administration is to assert its promised international leadership, it must take action to reassure the world that it is serious about dealing with environmental threats...
Despite this trend, the Reagan Administration slashed aid to international family-planning programs, and President Bush has not restored it. He recently vetoed a $15 billion foreign aid package because he feared that a tiny $15 million targeted for the U.N. Population Fund might help support abortion services in China. Getting birth-control information and devices to the 2.5 billion people beyond the present reach of family-planning programs will require $8 billion annually, a $5 billion rise from current levels. In 1989 the U.S. contributed $245 million to such programs, less in real terms than in 1979. Unless America...
...potential to do enormous good in promoting international treaties to heal the planet. Agreements like the 1987 Montreal Protocol, governing the release of ozone-damaging gases, serve the important function of reassuring nations that protecting the environment will not put them at a competitive disadvantage. So far, though, the Bush Administration has squandered the momentum generated by the Montreal agreement. Administration negotiators outraged nations in Africa, a prime dumping ground for hazardous wastes, by opposing important safety provisions in an international agreement on the shipment of toxic refuse...
Those doubts were mirrored by the other members of a high-level U.S. mission that was searching for ways to assist Poland in building a free-market economy. Arriving in Warsaw two weeks ago, the delegation of Bush Administration officials, business executives, labor leaders and academics fanned out on scouting trips, touring farms, factories, coal mines and training centers and surveying the Polish telephone system...