US History Series: The 43rd President's First Four Years, Revisited

Correction attached

During his election campaign, Mister Bush had promised he would help social aid organizations linked to religious groups.  He established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives soon after his inauguration.  Its goal was to help social agencies fight problems like homelessness and illegal drug use.

The Kyoto Protocol restricted the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that nations could release into the atmosphere.  The limitation was placed to reduce global warming, the increase in the average temperature of Earth's surface.  More than one hundred nations have approved the treaty.

Another environmental issue concerned exploring for oil and gas.  The president supported a measure for drilling in a protected wildlife area in the state of Alaska.  He said getting the resources from the state would reduce American dependence on foreign oil. Opponents disagreed.  They said the measure would destroy wildlife in some of America's most beautiful natural surroundings.  Congress did not approve the measure.

                              
Mister Bush limited use of the cells, however.  He said taxpayers' money could finance the research only if the embryos had already been destroyed. The president said more than sixty groups of these cells were available for research.  However, some scientists said these stem cells were in poor condition and could not be used for research.

                                                                                          
For example, the Enron Corporation, once the leading American energy company, failed in two thousand one. It was one of the largest corporate bankruptcy claims in American history. Some Enron investors lost all their money in the failure.  Retired employees lost monthly payments they needed to live on. Some top officials in the company had used dishonest accounting methods to hide financial problems from investors.   A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas, brought charges against former Enron chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Lay and other officers.

Correction: President Bush did not withdraw the United States from the Kyoto Protocol, as stated in this program; he rejected it. The U.S. signed the treaty in 1998, but it was never sent to the Senate for approval. (The Senate had gone on record by a 95-0 vote in 1997 to warn that it opposed terms like those in the treaty.)