Tony Snow had this to say about his boss and his environmental policies…

Mr. Bush had in fact been “keenly committed both to environmentalism and conservationism from the start.”

 Must be something in the Kool-Aide up there in the White House. As the NY Times points out in an editorial…

Mr. Bush made three big promises in this area in the 2000 campaign. One was to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. He reneged on that one almost immediately. The second was to finance the federal government’s core open space program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, at its annual authorized level of $900 million. He has shortchanged it badly every year and this year he is asking for $85 million.

The third promise was to put more money into the national parks. Here history may give Mr. Bush higher marks, thanks largely to the entreaties of Mr. Kempthorne, who pressed for and received a commitment of $258 million in new spending this year and a guarantee of $1 billion over 10 years. The parks have been starved for years (and not just by this administration), and people who care about them have every reason to be pleased by the prospect of a substantial increase in the budget.

The only hope that Bush has of turning around his record is laid out right there in the editorial. The proof will be in the way in which the promise is fulfilled…or not. That is the record that Bush has to run away from, his ability to actually fulfill a promise. Let’s hope that this will be the start of something new for this White House, but let’s not bet the bank on it…Not that they’ve left any money in the bank for us to bet on.

Source: T.R.? He’s No T.R. – New York Times