Editorial: Clearing the air, sans Bush

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are exploring measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in talks that likely are more symbolic than substantive. But the fact that these leaders bypassed the Bush administration should come as little surprise.

The entire global warming debate has been lost on the president and his administration - including the agency charged with keeping the air clean.

Four days before Blair and Schwarzenegger announced their alliance Monday, the Government Accountability Office released a report that said the Environmental Protection Agency is years behind in enforcing regulatory aspects of the 1990 Clean Air Act and that "major aspects of the program still have not been addressed."

The EPA also "lacks a comprehensive strategy" for addressing these unmet requirements, the GAO says, and "has not addressed health risks from air toxics to the extent or in the time frames envisioned in the Clean Air Act." The EPA has failed to update data - or in some cases failed to even conduct studies - on issues such as how significantly the particulate matter from burning diesel fuel contributes to cancer in humans.

Blair and Schwarzenegger said they are collaborating on research into cleaner fuels and also into the possibility of creating a system in which polluters can buy or sell the rights to emit greenhouse gases. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that the Bush administration has steadfastly opposed, includes a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions in nations that have signed it. Those nations can barter their rights with others to emit pollution. In this way, Blair and Schwarzenegger said the market would force industries to cap emissions.

Whether it would work, of course, is highly debatable. What is certain, however, is that the debate will go on without input from President Bush. The United States emits 25 percent of the planet's greenhouse gases, but evidently the president and his clean-air agency have more important issues to address.