Michael Grunwald, senior correspondent for
Time Magazine and noted critic of the Army Corps of Engineers, says yesterday's historic override of President Bush's water-bill veto isn't worth celebrating -- despite what many environmental activists think.
He was the toast of Congress earlier this year, but yesterday Bush was less popular.
Photo: whitehouse.gov
Hooray! The Everglades and coastal Louisana have been rescued! Activists and politicians alike are giddy over the news that Congress overwhelmingly overrode President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act yesterday. The override authorizes $5 billion worth of new Army Corps of Engineers projects for the dying Everglades and the devastated Louisiana coast, plus another $18 billion worth of new projects for the rest of the country. It was the first veto override of the Bush era, an unprecedented bipartisan rebuke to an anti-environmental White House. The Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Parks Conservation Association are celebrating. So are the elected officials of Florida and Louisiana, even Bush-friendly Republicans like Senators Mel Martinez and David Vitter.
You'd think I'd be fired up, too. I wrote a book about the plight of the Everglades. I wrote an angry Time Magazine cover story about the plight of coastal Louisiana. I hold no brief for the global warming denier in the White House.
But this time, Bush was right.