He's not the quickest calf in the pasture, so it took George W. Bush, and his White House handlers, a few months to grasp a basic rule of modern American electoral politics: Don't look bad on the environment. After thirty-one years of Earth Days, the environment has become a mom-and-apple-pie issue; 68 percent of Americans say they support the goals of the green movement. Thus it was no surprise to see Bush's poll numbers sliding, even among Republicans, as his Administration abandoned lower limits on arsenic in drinking water, the Kyoto Protocols on climate change and a host of other urgent measures.

Desperate to show that he favored clean air and water after all, Bush announced in the week before Earth Day a flurry of his own environmental initiatives. Most were more symbolic than substantive, but one--his promise to sign the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty in Stockholm on May 23--could promote real environmental progress. The POPs treaty, as it's known, would limit or ban a "dirty dozen" of the world's most toxic chemicals, including DDT, PCBs and the carcinogenic form of dioxin. True, Bush's endorsement of the treaty was made easier by the acquiescence of the chemical industry, whose longstanding resistance softened after negotiators inserted sufficient wiggle room into the final text. The treaty still calls for a dioxin phaseout, for example, but only "wherever feasible"--a loophole corporate lawyers can exploit for years to come.

Nevertheless, Bush has a problem. The EPA is preparing to release a major study of dioxin's health effects that, if uncensored, will surely increase pressure for dioxin's rapid phaseout. Meanwhile, the chemical, paper and other dioxin-related industries are pressing his Administration to block the study's release. If Bush heeds their call, he shields industry from costly new regulations but reinforces his antigreen reputation. And there's a final irony here for Bush: Not only was the dioxin study begun by his father's EPA; it was initiated at the behest of the very corporations now trying to bury it.

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