Foreign Policies Essay

Henry Furtado
George Mason University
Dr. Bill Gates
Environmental and Foreign Polices of Clinton, Bush and Obama
January 2012



Public Policy is related to the public interest because it affects all of us in some way.   But we are all not affected by the same policies in exactly the same way, nor is one’s intensity of feeling about an issue necessarily equal to that of others.   People may be interested in public policy because we care intensely about particular public problems and the policies intended to address them, such as ones dealing with the environment and our foreign policy posture as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks.   This paper will discuss the Environmental Policies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.   In addition, this paper will discuss the Foreign Policy of George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
The environment has always been of concern to most American citizens.   The opposition by environmentalist population over the transportation of oil through “the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, under the Nixon Administration, caused the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the National Environmental Policy Act.   Also further pressure from environmentalists caused the passage of the Clean Water Act.   This Act’s goal was to have the nation’s waters be drinkable, swimmable and fishable by 1985” seek not to eliminate all pollution, but rather the level of pollution that renders our waters unusable for these purposes” . On the history of these measures Bill Clinton’s administration did advocate strongly for environmental policy, though the true advocate was Vice President Al Gore.
During his eight years in office, Clinton initiated or supported dozens of major environmental initiatives, and fought repeatedly against attempts to undermine environmental protections.   “He regularly vetoed budget bills saddled by anti-environmental riders aimed at avoiding public scrutiny. He took his own back door approach to...