Hazy reasoning behind clean air
Last month, The Washington Post reported that President George W. Bush had personally intervened to weaken new regulations to control smog just as they were about to be announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In response, advocates of tighter standards predictably charged that the president had overturned a scientific judgement. Carol Browner, who headed the EPA under President Bill Clinton, put the matter starkly, telling the Post that the Clean Air Act creates "a moral and ethical commitment that we're going to let the science tell us what to do'.