For example, Friends of the Earth, the largest international network of environmental groups, ran full-page newspaper ads accusing Bush of putting the earth up for sale.

Eric Schaeffer, who quit last month as the chief of civil enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency gives a scathing indictment of the Bush administration in his letter of resignation, saying the EPA was "fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce."

The New York Times ran a column by former vice president Al Gore that minced no words, saying, "On the environment, this administration has consistently sold out America's future in return for short-term political gains."

So, is Bush really bedding the energy industry while leaving the environment out in the cold, or is that just tired political rhetoric from a defeated candidate and tree huggers, as many a White House spokesman would have us believe? The facts speak for themselves.

In February, Bush proposed his "Clear Skies" plan, which replaces regulations of power-plant pollutants with a "cap and trade" system that sets mandatory caps for emissions reductions but lets industry decide how to meet them.

Environmentalists say Clear Skies is so weak it would be preferable to stick with existing law. On the same day as the Clear Skies proposal, Bush also introduced his "new approach" to global warming.

Requirements for industry to report its carbon dioxide output were conspicuously absent, however, and industry compliance with the law was also voluntary. I wonder, if a law only asks voluntary cooperation, is it still a law?

In late March, Bush announced that the United States would be trashing the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement on stopping climate change, because of the cost to U.S. businesses on the reduction of emissions.

Documents released by the Energy Department in early April show that officials gave 11 environmental groups a meager 48 hours to submit proposals for consideration in Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy report, while industry lobbyists were given dozens of meetings over several months.

During the debacle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Congress, the White House remained in favor of drilling, despite evidence of inevitable damage to the environment and flat contradictions of many of Bush's arguments for drilling in the first place.

Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton went so far as to distribute an oil-industry produced video depicting ANWR as a frozen tundra, ripe for exploration.

In early April, a U.S. environmental group was leaked a memo to the White House from fuel giant ExxonMobil asking the United States to remove the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Robert Watson.

Indeed, after intense lobbying, government representatives voted last week to replace Watson, one of the most outspoken scientists on the issue of climate change, with engineer and scientist Rajendra Pachauri, whom environmentalists fear will not be as strong an advocate for change in global energy policies as Watson.

Perhaps we have all just been kidding ourselves if we ever believed that two oilmen could impartially regulate the country's environmental and energy policies. That's like electing Timothy Leary president and then being surprised when he wants to make LSD legal.

We're also kidding ourselves if we think that these votes are not being bought and sold right under our noses. For example, the senators who voted against a measure to raise fuel economy standards received an average of ,000 from the auto industry, more than three times the amount received by senators who supported it. And guess who received the most auto dollars of all? Bush.

Bush has shown that he is willing to enforce protections for the environment when there is political incentive. He stepped up to the plate and supported a ban on off-road vehicles in Florida's Big Cypress Park and approved an billion plan to restore the Everglades to give his brother Jeb some street credibility with the green voters who could ultimately decide Florida's gubernatorial election.

However, Bush is letting the off-road vehicles stay in Yellowstone National Park (apparently, keeping tourism money flowing into Wyoming takes precedence).

Norton has said the two cases are "like apples and oranges," and pointed out that snowmobiling in Yellowstone would be allowed only on snowed-over, paved roads, but her argument doesn't have a leg to stand on.

A 2000 study conducted by the Colorado School of Mines found "an unnatural level of pollution" above the snowmobile route in the Maroon Creek Valley in central Colorado. On windless days in Yellowstone, a haze of pollution is visible.

Park workers have experienced sore throats, runny noses and burning eyes because of pollution; now fresh air is being pumped into their enclosed kiosks and the National Park Service is providing respirators for workers.

Imagine -- even in a national park the air isn't clean enough for us to breathe! It's almost as ironic as wanting to drill for oil in a wildlife refuge!

What I don't understand is why the Bush administration is so committed to maintaining the status quo of dependence on the fossil fuel trinity of coal, oil and gas, with byproducts like environmental destruction and dependence upon unreliable foreign sources.

Some countries like Norway are already using alternative sources of energy such as hydroelectric power. A cleaner, more responsible future can be built upon renewable energy sources like solar power, wind and wave energy and crops grown for fuel.

The Sierra Club is encouraging the use of wind and solar power for 20 percent of the nation's energy by 2020, but Cheney is holding fast at 2.8 percent (by the by, he also wants billion in subsidies for the energy industry, including billion for oil and billion for coal).

Mr. President, you insult your constituents when you declare that "for (Laura and I), every day is Earth Day." You can't paint yourself green once a year and expect that after a while, we won't come to resent being lied to.

Don't allow the issue of the environment to sink deeper into the chasm of partisan politics. Recognize that economic growth and environmental stewardship both require change: change in our sources of energy, change in the American lifestyle, perhaps even change in your personal priorities.

Remember that your stay in the White House is fleeting (thank God), but your damage to the environment can last generations. Go hiking on a mountain overlooking Los Angeles like I did this summer and look at the cloud of smog that covers the city.

Come down to my place in Georgia and look at the millions of cars that are belching exhaust into the air every day and the pine forests that are being cleared to make room for more identical subdivisions, more identical shopping malls.