Word: raine
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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George Bush was under fire as "the environmentalist" President in campaign pledge only. But last week he managed to confound his critics. He broke a decade-long impasse by proposing major steps to reduce acid rain, smog caused by auto exhaust and toxic chemicals discharged into the air. In a political tour de force, he managed to draw at least grudging acceptance from almost all sides. Environmentalists were pleased that the plan met their minimum goals. Industry grumbled about heavy costs: $14 billion to $19 billion annually by the end of the year 2000. But utility executives sighed with relief...
More important, the plan might actually lead to more breathable air. It calls for a 50% slash in acid-rain-producing sulfur-dioxide emissions by the turn of the century, a 40% tightening of emissions standards for hydrocarbons from automobile tail pipes, a 75% cut in cancer-causing toxic chemicals poured into the atmosphere over an unspecified period, and in its most visionary -- perhaps pie-in-the-sky -- aspect, a fleet of cars that run on fuels cleaner than gasoline (probably methanol, though ethanol or compressed natural gas could also be used). Some 500,000 such cars would...
...political genius of Bush's something-for-everybody plan is that it meets environmentalists' objectives by giving industry unprecedented freedom to choose how to cut emissions. On acid rain, it calls for a reduction by the year 2000 of 10 million tons, or 50%, in the amount of sulfur dioxide spewed into the air, mostly by coal-burning electric utilities. Says an Administration official: "Ten million was clearly a litmus test with the 'enviros...
Hollywood's zeal mirrors an explosion in environmental activism throughout the world. Stories about the burning rain forest, global warming and the Exxon Valdez spill have left people feeling a loss of ecological innocence. "It's an issue you can't escape -- even if you live in Beverly Hills," says Josh Baran, a Los Angeles public relations consultant...
...goes on for veteran good-earthers. Cheers' Ted Danson, president of the American Oceans Campaign, lobbies Congress to help save the oceans. Barbra Streisand offers a $250,000 donation to the Environmental Defense Fund. Robert Redford, who is planning a film with Steven Spielberg about the damaging of a rain forest, speaks on global warming at a Senate hearing. "It's important to raise the environment to the same level as national security," Redford says. "If we poison our planet, what is there left to defend...