Bush's second-term stamp on environment

While Washington is the main focus of federal policy, what actually happens regarding environmental protection increasingly is happening elsewhere.

California, with more autos per capita than anyplace on the planet (and a Republican governor considerably "greener" than the president), is limiting the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Attorneys general from eight states have filed suit to force major utilities to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

Mr. Bush may have won a majority of the popular vote and most states in the Electoral College, but that does not mean that voters in "red" states rejected environmental protection. Montana voters said "no" to a kind of gold mining that uses cyanide. Coloradans approved a measure requiring major public utilities to get larger portions of their electricity from renewable sources. "When citizens had the chance to vote directly on protecting natural areas ... and other environment matters, sizable majorities voted in favor of them," says Ben Beach, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society.

Still, activists can read election returns as well as anybody, and, like Democrats, they're rethinking their priorities and their image. In a conference call with reporters this week, National Wildlife Federation president Larry Schweiger stressed the interests of "hunters and anglers" in environmental protection. In a nod to the "values" dimension of the recent election, organizers of the call included Episcopal Bishop William Gregg of eastern Oregon as one of the speakers urging continued protection of roadless areas in national forests.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of companies are working up their own "trading" plans to reduce emissions of carbon, mercury, and other pollutants - mainly because they need to do so in order to meet international standards, regardless of whether the Bush White House supports those standards.

For example, a year ago, the Chicago Climate Exchange began trading carbon dioxide emission reductions on a spot market basis. Member companies agreed to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 4 percent by 2006 from their 1998 to 2001 emission average. This would be a "cap" on their emissions and they could then trade the savings on the exchange. Next month, the Chicago exchange will begin trading on sulfur dioxide futures, and it expects to trade mercury emissions and even endangered species. The US sulfur market is already worth more than the US wheat market. "Americans always felt their air and water was free," says Richard Sandor, CEO and founder of the exchange. "But that's just not true anymore and we felt like we could apply that to markets."

• Staff writer Ron Scherer in New York contributed to this report.

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