Better air vs. hot air

"According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the overall quality of our air has improved steadily on President Bush's watch. Specifically, concentrations of carbon monoxide have fallen by 15.5 percent, lead by 31.5 percent, nitrogen dioxide by 5 percent, sulfur dioxide by 11 percent, and particulate matter by more than 4 percent. The two pollutants that contribute to ozone formation, moreover, are at their lowest levels since 1970.

President Bush has advanced regulatory proposals to allow outmoded power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to modernize, and thereby cut their emissions of harmful pollutants, and to require the overseers of our national forests to use proven forest management techniques to limit the number and extent of the devastating fires that have ravaged millions of acres of forest in recent years.

President Bush also has implemented the first-ever snowmobile emission standards, which would have the same effect as taking 30 million cars off the road. In May, his administration tackled pollution from heavy construction equipment by approving a rule that will reduce the pollution from sulfur in diesel fuel by 99 percent.

As an impressive environmental record, that's not bad, right?

Au contraire. The League of Conservation Voters reviewed this record and concluded that President Bush "is well on his way to compiling the worst environmental record in the history of our nation." Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry concurred, assessing these actions as "Abysmal. Worst record in modern history.""

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