With jokes about President Bush’s anti-environmental policies getting center-stage attention on late-night talk shows, the White House has gone into spin mode, trying to put a green lustre on its moves. U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman on Friday said that critics had been too quick to denounce decisions on global warming and arsenic in drinking water. She claimed that “there’s a very good likelihood” that a review now underway might even result in a tougher standard for arsenic than the one approved by former President Clinton and dismissed by Bush over claims of unsound science. Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney popped up on political talk shows yesterday to defend the administration. He said, “We need to build 65 new power plants a year in this country for the next 20 years. My own view is that some of those ought to be nuclear and that’s the environmentally sound way to go.”
