Bush's balancing act

If you have watched the news in the last week, it is likely that the only two stories you heard about were the War on Terror and Sen. Tom Daschle's State of the Union-esque economic address. After all, what else is newsworthy? Not something insignificant like, say, the environment. Who cares that the EPA has devised a policy that many environmental observers believe equates to a roll back of the 1970 Clean Air Act? The nation is at war and the economy is in recession, so nothing else can possibly matter. Obviously, I am being sarcastic, but, unfortunately, many members of the news media tend to follow the theory that every policy that President Bush endorses instantly turns to gold.\nSince Sept. 11, the president has done a masterful job in waging the War on Terror. The only thing more effective than his pursuit of terrorists has been the work of his political spin doctors. Because criticizing the president has become somewhat taboo among much of the media, none of us knows that the president has pursued policies that could lead to the rollback of decades of environmental progress.\nThe rules that I speak of are known as "New Source Review" rules. The rules require many industries to upgrade their pollution control systems when plants undergo significant modifications. President Bush has decided to give industry significant leeway in meeting the rules that he believes are too costly to implement -- a view shared by the industries that might be affected by the requirements.\nWhen my brother told me he had heard about the president's proposed regulations on NPR News, I deduced that they must be insignificant because I had heard nothing about them. He insisted that there were major environmental ramifications at stake, so I decided to do some research. Finally, after much unfruitful research, I enlisted the help of others, and I found an article about the new regulations. \nIt turns out that fossil fuel pollution kills 60,000 Americans each year. That number is about 20 times more than the number of Americans who died Sept. 11. Now, I would never make the claim that the president should not exhaust every reasonable option to catch those who perpetrate terror, but we need to keep our eye on all topics of national interest. After all, just as we must not forget about those who lost their lives Sept. 11, we must also remember all of those who may have died from pollution coming from power plants.\nIn the last few months, the media has made a major mistake by giving President Bush a free pass on all of his non-war related policies. The media, which lambasted President Clinton for launching airstrikes against Iraq while Congress was debating his impeachment, should report on all of President Bush's actions just as vigorously as they report on happenings in Afghanistan. \nIf the news media does this, they will not only increase the public's awareness of the president's actions, but they will help the president in doing his job. If any president has unchecked power, he is likely to abuse it. But when a president's policies are closely scrutinized by the media, he must be constantly searching for the right decision. If President Bush can do this, he will be transformed from a president who is great at delegating during a time of war to simply a great president.