Everyone knows about the links between the Dubya White House and the energy industry, but never have I seen the problem laid out so clearly as in Gregory Palast’s column, Smells Like Texas. The thing is, I’ve been to the Exxon refinery in Baytown, Texas that’s mentioned in the column, and it was a pollution emitting cesspool long before Dubya was President or even Governor of Texas. What’s sad is that Dubya did nothing as Governor to improve the situation, and furthermore wants to broaden Texas’ retrograde environmental policies to cover the entire United States. Eliminating the budget for the EPA’s civil enforcement group is particularly dastardly. I find it depressing that the Democratic leadership hasn’t been screaming about this from the rooftops, but I don’t find it surprising.