Bush's sudden greening leaves red faces

President Bush was not only ratifying Bill Clinton's edicts inlast week's run-up to Earth Day. Free market activists who considerthemselves allies were told to sit down and shut up about thegreening of the new president.

Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,found that out. He and other conservatives have tried to keep Bushfrom appeasing environmentalists, getting him to renege on hiscampaign promise to regulate industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.But Smith has lost favor at the White House. Bush politicalstrategist Karl Rove personally accused him of peddling falseinformation that carbon dioxide emissions control was advocated in anearly draft of Bush's first speech to Congress. Rove also chidedSmith's organization for bragging about changing the president'sposition.

Sniping at allies typifies how far off track the Bush White Househas been on the environment in contrast to its generally competentperformance. Lack of preparedness for the left's assault when Bushbegan to roll back Clinton's 11th-hour rulings was followed by lastweek's dash for the green bandwagon.

Having suspended tougher regulations on arsenic levels in waterwithout proper explanation, the president reversed course. Hecontinued even after Earth Day, this week ratifying Clinton's ban onsnowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Theappearance of retreat in the face of negative polls looked more likethe failed presidency of the senior George Bush than Ronald Reagan'ssuccessful tenure.

Last week's rush toward Earth Day peaked Thursday at the WhiteHouse Rose Garden in an event that bordered on parody. Flanked bySecretary of State Colin Powell and Environmental Protection Agencyadministrator Christie Whitman, the president announced he will signa dubious Clinton-drafted treaty banning toxic chemicals anddeclared: "Now a Republican administration will continue and completethe work of a Democratic administration. This is the wayenvironmental policy should work."

More than rhetoric disappointed Bush supporters. Approval ofClinton's regulation on reporting lead content that will burdenBush's small-business constituency was fiercely opposed by the SmallBusiness Administration in an April 9 memo to the EPA: "We cannotrecall in more than three decades of reviewing environmentalregulations a more egregious example of a total disregard of thescience."

Bush's OK of the Clinton edict barring development of wetlandsangered the National Association of Home Builders, which plans to goto court against it. Joining in that lawsuit will be the NationalFederation of Independent Business, an integral part of the Bushcoalition in last year's campaign.

Conservative business organizations and think tanks are not onlyunhappy with the substance of Bush's turnaround but feel they havebeen cut out of the process and cannot adequately express theirviews. In Congress, Republicans complain that the administration hasdevastated their strategy for coping with Clinton's leftoverregulations.

Green activists who never have a good word for Bush's policies arefinding entrance into the White House easier for them than for thepresident's friends. John Howard, a Democrat who advises Bush on theenvironment in Washington as he did in Austin, recently brought tothe White House an ardent supporter of the Kyoto global warmingaccord previously repudiated by the president: Eileen Claussen of thePew Center on Global Climate Change. Were they cooking up Bush'sforthcoming proposals on global warming?

Howard is the likely source of Bush's ecologically extreme embraceof regulating carbon dioxide industrial emissions in last autumn'scampaign speech at Saginaw, Mich. (not some anonymous interloper, assuggested by top Bush aides). Just how sincere the president is inhis disavowal of the speech was cast in doubt last weekend, whenWhitman told me on CNN that Bush reneged on carbon dioxide onlybecause opposition to it would endanger his proposed control of otherindustrial emissions.

Nobody has yet won or lost the presidency on the environment, butBush's performance exposes a political vulnerability. The assault onhis pro-economic growth positions generated polls showing troubleamong suburban swing voters, which in turn led to his abandonment offriends and appeasement of enemies.