Bush's Warming Trend

When he first ran for president, George W. Bush liked to ask why people in Washington, D.C., put partisanship and special interests over the public good. When he got there, though, he broke his pledge to limit power plants' global-warming emissions. Former Environmental Protection Agency administrators, including the Seattle area's Bill Ruckelshaus, reminded us this week that clear thinking and D.C. can still go together. Speaking on a panel, six former EPA chiefs said the administration must act more forcefully on global warming. Like Ruckelshaus, five of the six are Republicans. That makes the administration's stance against limits on carbon dioxide emissions more perplexing. Perhaps the administration's decision to politicize what should be a bipartisan issue has something to do with serving the special interests that donated so generously to put Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in D.C. But the president still could and should put the public good first.