Today President Bush showed his love for the environment has he created the world’s largest marine sanctuary

President George W. Bush today created the world’s largest marine conservation area off the coast of the northern Hawaiian Islands in order to permanently protect the area’s pristine coral reefs and unique marine species. The President used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the area a national monument.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument encompasses nearly 140,000 square miles of U.S. waters, including 4,500 square miles of relatively undisturbed coral reef habitat that is home to more than 7,000 species. The monument will be managed by the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in close coordination with the State of Hawaii.

Bush has now shown he is concerned about nature and should win the hearts and minds of all environmentalists.

Oh wait a minute now. What is this? An article from December of 2000:

President Bill Clinton on Monday announced the creation of a vast “Yellowstone of the sea” – a reserve protecting an expanse of Hawaii’s pristine coral reefs larger than the states of Florida and Georgia.

“The world’s reefs are in peril. Pollution, damage from dynamite fishing, coral poachers, unwise coastal development, and global warming already have killed over 25 percent of the world’s reefs,” Clinton said in a speech at the National Geographic Society. He said the protections, to be designated in an executive order, would set a “new global standard” for protection of reefs and marine wildlife.

The order would establish the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve covering 131,000 square miles (339,260 sq km) along a 1,200 mile-long (1,930 km-long) island chain northwest of the main Hawaiian islands. The reserve would encompass about 70 percent of US coral reefs.

So Bush is riding on the coattails of Clinton now (or again)? This sure sounds like an election year tactic to me. “Yeah I ignore global warming but look what I created”. You can hear that now and no one will be the wiser unless they read about this.

Now in Bush’s defense, making it a monument as opposed to a reserve does impose some greater protections like the ability to ban fishing in that area. Of course for that to happen it would mean the law actually be enforced and that is a whole different ballgame.