Stanford in Government took Earth Day as an opportunity to spotlight President George W. Bush’s environmental policies ranging from the trans-Atlantic oil pipeline to the Kyoto Protocol. The group held a debate Friday to raise awareness about the politics behind the environment.

The panelists addressed the prompt, “Is President Bush a good or bad environmentalist?”

Experts from the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Institute for International Studies, or SIIS, offered perspectives on recent environmental legislation and the Bush administration’s track record.

Political Science Prof. David Victor, a senior fellow at SIIS, said Bush’s environmental policies have not been particularly original.

“The Bush record has continuity with previous administrations as far back as Reagan,” he said. “It’s probably the same as what a Kerry administration would have done - not the same as what they said they were going to do, but what they would have been able to do.”

The administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was a major point during the debate.

“The administration has lost some credibility domestically by not layout out their objectives and internationally by rejecting outright efforts to decrease emissions,” said Economics Prof. Larry Goulder, also a senior fellow at SIIS.

On this point, Victor reminded the audience that “the president does not act alone — we need to talk about the apparatus that makes these decisions, which includes both the president and Congress.”

Thomas Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former advisor to President Ronald Reagan, called for further analysis of the allocation of government funds.

“We could save millions of lives by spending a fraction of the Kyoto Protocol funds on Africa and Southeast Asia,” he said. “We should examine the cost-benefit analysis and look at how these policies affect human beings.”

Goulder encouraged the audience to be more critical of the way the media portrays environmental issues.

“An excellent direction for careers would be to study the media,” he said. “Looking at how it has changed as an institution will better equip the public to deal with the information it presents.”

Junior Adam Freedman attended the event in order to understand the complexities of the administration’s policies.

“When I read about the current administration’s environmental policies, I am usually appalled,” he said. “I thought that in academic debate, I’d actually get an accurate picture of the issues and feel less angry.”