Campaign promise abandoned by Bush

Less than two months into his administration, President Bush has caved in to energy interests — lavish contributors to his campaign and his party — to undercut his new Environmental Protection Agency chief and break a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

That promise was reiterated by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman as part of a multipollutant strategy to reduce global warming, and advocated by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he was chairman of Alcoa Inc.

But the energy industry last week reminded the White House which side of the bread its butter gets spread. Bush himself, as the Los Angeles Times has pointed out, has unleashed a pro-energy juggernaut, now magnified by the Western energy panic. The result, in effect, is that Bush appears paralyzed when it comes to progress on crucial environmental issues.

Environmentalists were predictably appalled by Bush's reversal.

Bush explained his reversal as a matter of common-sense concern over whether people "will not be able to heat and cool their homes" and uncertain science in the field of global warming.

Luckily for him, he hadn't repeated his father's mistake of saying of a campaign promise, "Read my lips."