The Environment: Green Bush.(environmental regulations introduced by Pres Bush)(Brief Article)

After being hammered for taking a second look at some of the many environmental regulations cranked out by Bill Clinton during his final weeks in office, the Bush administration began trying to improve its image by issuing new regulations of its own.

In late April, Bush chose to support an expensive paperwork exercise for small users of lead, and a new efficiency standard that will boost the cost of a new washing machine by nearly 60 percent. EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman has recently suggested that her agency will tighten the standards for arsenic in water, although probably not as much as Clinton proposed.

Such backsliding may win Bush's environmental record some faint media praise for being "mixed" rather than "bad." But it also threatens to disillusion parts of his base. For example, the lead reporting rule will adversely affect many small businesses, and an overly strict arsenic standard may greatly increase residential water rates in many rural ...