Dubya, Meet John Gotti

This AP story tells us that Bushco’s EPA is going to produce a “most wanted list” for “environmental fugitives accused of assaulting nature.”

Why does this sound to me like it’s akin to Vladimir Putin decrying assaults against freedom of the press in Russia (re., journalists who criticize him end up shot to death execution style or falling out of the windows of high-rise buildings)…

A top EPA enforcement official said the people on the list represent the "brazen universe of people that are evading the law." Many face years in prison and some charges could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

"They are charged with environmental crimes and they should be brought before the criminal justice system and have their day in court," said Pete Rosenberg, a director in the agency's criminal enforcement division.

…

But Walter D. James III, an environmental attorney based in Grapevine, Texas, says the EPA is critically understaffed to investigate environmental crimes. While the budget for the division has increased by $11 million since 2000, there are still only 185 criminal investigators. Congress authorized the EPA to hire 200 investigators in 1990.

James said that while the list could prompt the public to turn people in, he questioned whether it would deter others from committing environmental crimes.

"It's like telling John Gotti he is a bad man," James said. "Is that going to matter to John Gotti?"

Uh, no.

And it’s also not going to matter to Dubya (who, as noted here, has cut funding for enforcement of environmentally related laws, dumped as much of what he could in that area to the states, and gutted as many regulations as possible pertaining to endangered species; my guess is that some of them became extinct, but I don't have numbers on that at the moment).

And just for the record, the Natural Resources Defense Council compiled “a comprehensive account of his administration's actions on environmental matters” here (it goes up to 2005; I suppose that, after that point, the offenses became so egregious and so large of an amount that it wasn’t possible to capture them all, and here are some of his particularly repugnant “midnight rule” changes related to his assault on our planet).

Happily, though, after 1/20/09, Bushco will be an “extinct” species also, even though its foul legacy on the environment (and everything else) will live on.

Update 12/11/08: As BarbinMD says, "the long goodbye continues" (here)...

Update 12/12/08: Still not gone yet (this could take awhile)...