Bush Earns Some Praise for Ocean Protection

This blog pounds on George W. Bush a lot. So, to be fair (and balanced!), here's one person who thinks he's done some good stuff for the oceans. Namely, he established three national marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean.

This opinion comes from Andrew Sharpless, the CEO for Oceana.

...it would be churlish not to give credit where it is due, and President Bush certainly deserves credit for acting when there was no political benefit to be gained; even his own vice president opposed creating the monument. When you add the roughly 335,000 square-mile-area in the Pacific that is now protected from virtually all fishing to the nearly 700,000 square miles he closed to bottom trawling, the most destructive kind of fishing gear, this president has given future generations an ocean gift nearly the size of Texas and Alaska combined.