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W Watch: Keeping Tabs on George W. Bush

Global Warming? All Gone!

By Reed McManus

After rejecting the Kyoto treaty, the Bush administration has found another way to make greenhouse-gas emissions disappear: For the first time in six years, the EPA has omitted a section on climate change from its annual assessment of U.S. air pollution. The agency says that the overview is meant to track pollutants that directly affect humans, like carbon monoxide and particulate matter. But the report, "Latest Findings on National Air Quality: 2001 Status and Trends," still includes a section on ozone-layer depletion–an indirect worldwide pollution problem like global warming, but one that has been tackled successfully through the coordinated efforts of the United States and other countries (see "Ways and Means,"). It’s too bad the ozone victory, rather than the "out of sight, out of mind" approach, hasn’t guided the Bush administration.