The Bush Administration’s Two Minds on the Environment

Everyone knows by now that the Bush Administration on Wednesday night denied California and its Republican governor permission to proceed with an ambitious plan to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and SUV’s.

The administration argued, misleadingly, that California’s plan was unnecessary because the same reductions would be achieved in the new energy bill (they won’t). And it argued, disingenuously, that state mandates are inferior to a national mandate (which of course is the one thing the administration does not want).