Many people have been attacking Bush's environmental policies, without even understanding them much less caring about their meaning. Too many establishment faces are too interested in the status quo, they act as if the government were personally murdering them. If you open the papers lately, the headlines seem to reek of "Bush Plans to Weaken Clear Air Laws", and the alike. Weakening environmental laws is not the Presidents intention.

As they say, democracy is so messy and is a terrible system. Everybody wants a part of the action, retain their powers, and become more powerful. To do so, one of their most powerful weapons is propaganda, half-truths, and ideology. Most politicians believe their ideology, making it all the more powerful. Interest groups rarely provide their members, legislators and the population as a whole with the full story. Instead, they tell things through their ideological blinders. Your probably not going to see a IBM lobby bragging about how their products hurt the environment, and your certainly not going to hear that from the environmental lobby. Likewise, it's unlikely for an environmental interest group to talk about the negative consequences of the current new source review laws.

Many people stand to lose from change, most people by far prefer to stay the same. Any thing is going to come as a cost of something else, the laws of economics and conservation usually agree to that point. The reason people are so opposed to Bush Administration's changes to the clear air regulations is not because it will mean more pollution and less clear air, but because it will hurt certain group's stakes in the issues. Many of these people supporting these causes may be totally innocent of trying to misconstrue the issue on hand. Ideology puts on unbreakable blinders.

Interest groups are automatically not objective to the whole issue on hand. You may have excellent scientific credentials, but you are on a mission, your trying to get something out of the deal. Corporate interest groups, public interest groups, environmental groups all claim to be trying to do something that the public wants. They all are right. The aggregate public wants everything in moderation: a little economic growth, a little pollution, a little bit less taxes, etc. Obviously, too much of any such thing just isn't good as with the case of pollution. You don't want 60 new F-150 trucks in your backyard if you can't use them for anything or sell them.

Pollution is part of living. You turn on a light, your wasting a resource. Even reading this website is probably putting all kind of waste chemicals into the air from the power plant. Driving your car may even be worst. The current system of forcing companies to totally replace dangerous outmoded power plants with the latest technology, simply is not working to force people to upgrade them. The current system is futile.

The issue of modifying the Clean Air Act regulations is more of a political issue then it is an attack on the environment. People have their entrenched interests that they don't want change, so they making a problem, where one doesn't really exist.