For Bush, It's Not Easy Being Green

By Andrew Goldstein

For a while, it seemed Bush didn't care what environmentalists thought of him. His Vice President dismissed conservation as "a personal virtue," and his press secretary said Americans should not curtail energy use because "the American way of life is a blessed one." But perhaps because polls now show that nearly three times as many Americans say they trust the Democrats in Congress than say they trust the President to protect the environment, Bush recently has tried to clean up his rhetoric, if not his policies.

Last week Bush introduced a new "Clean Skies" initiative that he said "will constitute the most significant step America has ever taken--has ever taken--to cut power-plant emissions." But environmentalists didn't bite. "His claim is ludicrous," says Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. "What he's really proposing is a massive relaxation of the Clean Air Act." Sources tell TIME that Christie Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, fought for tougher restrictions but was rebuffed. The EPA's own numbers say the Clean Air Act left alone will reduce power-plant emissions nearly twice as fast as Bush's new proposals.

Bush also tried to appease international critics still angry over his decision to reject the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty aimed at reducing global warming and endorsed by most of the rest of the world. Bush proposed a system that would be voluntary for corporations and would tie emissions reduction to economic output. He says his plan would prevent more than 500 million metric tons of heat-trapping gases from going into the atmosphere over the next 10 years--"the equivalent of taking 70 million cars off the road." But according to Bush's own economic-growth figures, his plan would actually translate into a nearly 14% increase in global-warming pollution over the next decade. For greens, the rhetoric is wearing thin fast.

--By Andrew Goldstein