Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
coastal regions was passed in 1972. The management of national forests was
reformed in 1976 to favor protection and discourage exploitation. A mining law,
taking into account the need to restore the environment in mining areas, was passed
in 1977. Some laws were recently revised (Clean Air Act of 1990), but in the eyes of
environmental activists no major breakthrough has been recorded since 1981, and
logging and mining companies, as well as polluting industries, have even benefited
from a certain degree of leniency on the part of federal authorities. Environmental
protection is more the responsibility of each state than of the federal administration.
Today the United States is lagging behind the EU member countries in terms of
environmental protection. The omnipotence of oil and coal lobbyists in Republican
administrations under the successive presidencies of Reagan (1981-88), George H.
Bush (1989-92) and George W. Bush (2001-08) led to an easing of protection
regulations. The blindness of the federal government went so far as to completely
deny, for as long as possible, the reality of global warming, as well as the
responsibility of humans in this phenomenon. The US has consistently refused to
sign the Kyoto Protocol (1995) for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This
negligence on the part of federal authorities is more or less compensated for locally
by state actions for environmental protection. Today, environmental protection
measures in the United States are very decentralized, which means that local
situations are increasingly inconsistent.
