His White House tenure may be ebbing, but President Bush couldn't resist taking one final jab at environmental protections he has long bristled against.

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne wants to tweak the Endangered Species Act, the federal law that stands between many animals and total annhilation. The White House proposed "common-sense modifications" would basically free federal agencies of longstanding oversight procedures when they take actions that might harm endangered species.

Under existing ESA regulations, agencies must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to provide scientific review and oversight of wildlife protection measures. The Interior Department argues that eliminating this layer of review would "reduce the number of unnecessary consultations" and would result in "a process that is less time-consuming and a more effective use of our resources.”

From an ecological standpoint, when it comes to protecting species on the verge of being wiped off the face of the planet, you might wonder what would be a more effective use of public resources besides ensuring that the soundest technology and science are employed in the effort. Well, one thing the administration seems to spend a lot of time and resources on these days is preventing government from taking decisive action to stem climate change.

Squeezed by political and environmental tumult, the oil flows that buoy the country are now sputtering, and the public is paying for it dearly at the pump. “You can’t drill your way out” is becoming a popular cliché in Washington. Yet that hasn't stopped us from trying.

The Washington Post today examines a phenomenon that consumers barely contemplated until the current gas-price crisis hit: oil fields around the world are simply drying up. Geologically, experts worry that demand for oil is fast outstripping supply. Not to mention the political hazards of sucking the stuff out of conflict-ridden lands.

“... many oil experts warn that the world's production will hit a peak soon if it hasn't already. With the exception of Iraq's, most of the ‘easy oil’ in large reservoirs close to the surface is gone.”

The Bush-era Environmental Protection Agency has often been deeply disappointing. But the EPA is taking a smart step to protect our food and our farm workers.

In 2006, the EPA said it would cancel registration of the pesticide carbofuran, because it has nasty effects on people and is lethal to birds. But the manufacturer went to court to block that cancellation. Now, the agency proposes to revoke regulations that allow residues of this pesticide in food. This revocation will pretty much mean that carbofuran won't be able to be sold in the domestic market.

This pesticide is extremely deadly to birds. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that it has killed millions of wild birds since it first entered the market in 1967. It's also not so healthy for the farm workers who have to apply it and those who buy food or drink water contaminated with carbofuran residue.

On other occasions, we've criticized the EPA for not doing what it should. So it's our pleasant duty to tip our hat to the agency now for doing the right thing.

Global-warming activist extraordinaire Al Gore made a media splash last week with a grand plan to wean the country off polluting fossil fuels: a completely carbon-free electricity supply by 2018. Meanwhile, oil barron T. Boone Pickens called for a nationwide wind turbine system and clean vehicle fleet. The awe, confusion and ridicule such plans inspire may give them a somewhat fantastic sheen. But on-the-ground examples and government research suggest that getting from here to there might be easier than critics imagine--and hard in ways that idealists overlook.

Pickens's plan to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity from wind is actually in line with government forecasts. The Department of Energy says that getting 20 percent of the country's electricity from wind by 2030 is feasible, depending on cost trends and support for the manufacturing and infrastructure for building that capacity.

Still, Gore's 10-year plan for the electricity grid veers into the realm of zaniness: another federal study released last month projects that by 2025, solar could potentially provide only about 10 percent of the country's electricity, and that too depends on the development of an viable national solar infrastructure.

And as always, what's possible is not always practical, especially when you add money and people's backyards into the mix.

The little thresher shark who showed up in Zach's Bay last week is actually good news in a way.

To begin with, these animals, which typically have tails as long as their bodies, are not aggressive or interesting in munching on homo sapiens. As the photo that ran in the paper shows, this was a baby thresher, not at all threatening when you look at a lifeguard grasping the shark by its long tail, an image that looked a bit like someone walking a dog on a leash.

What we don't know about the thresher is almost as important as what we do. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not list any of the thresher species as either threatened or endangered. At the moment, not enough is really known about the threshers.

A major stretch of the Alaskan wilderness rumbled yesterday with an announcement by the Bureau of Land Management that the government has made millions of acres in the Northeast National Petroleum Reserve available for oil and gas exploration. The move toward more leasing on the reserve, which--like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--is at the center of a tug of war over the country's natural resources, suggests that the global oil crunch is shifting political tides toward homegrown spigots.

While the initiative basically invites industry to feed on perhaps billions of barrels of untapped oil, the government handed environmentalists one victory--an agreement to shield some of the reserve's most sensitive and ecologically rich swaths, surrounding the Teshekpuk Lake, from leasing for another decade.

The Wilderness Society and other mainstream conservation groups saw that as a triumph, after waging a legal battle to make the government's development plans more protective of the local ecosystem.

But pro-drilling interests may have more to be giddy about: the government's announcement comes just as lawmakers are scrambling for new ways to sate the country's relentless energy appetite.

A report released last month by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli proves, in essence, that no amount of money will induce some developers to work with state government on cleaning up polluted urban lands. The report shows that under the old brownfields program, begun in 1994, developers cleaned up roughly 11 sites a year for reuse.

Under the new-and-improved brownfields act of 2003, developers cleaned up (wait for it) ... approximately 11 sites a year. The difference is that the earlier plan offered no incentives for cleaning up a property, while the new program promised tax credits for up to 22 percent of remediation and redevelopment costs, with no cap. DiNapoli's report estimated that the 260 applications in the pipeline could have cost the state $3 billion.

So, let's see, a voluntary program that cost taxpayers nothing was amended to give away about $3 billion in foregone taxes. But the costly program produced no better results than the free one. What could lawmakers have been thinking? It's pretty clear that the deterrent to cleanup is not money but yards and yards of red tape.

By plane, train and automobile, the economic anxiety just keeps on coming.

As oil prices hover at record highs, the GM empire has seen its stocks plunge and some premonitions of possible bankruptcy.

Airlines are also reeling from rising fuel costs, with deep job cuts slated for American Airlines, United and Continental.

So what's a jet-setting, sports-car-driving all-American high-end consumer to do this 4th of July weekend? Maybe start getting around like the rest of us -- the old-fashioned way.

Trains may be making a comeback as a cheaper, more eco-friendly means of transport. Some state and federal policy-makers, environmentalists and industry groups are pushing hard for an expansion of the country's railroad infrastructure. According to recent market research report, a major shift from auto to rail freight transport in the coming years could save hundreds of thousands of tons of air pollution emissions, especially in big cities like New York.

For individuals, that would lead to reduced fuel spending and more efficient commutes. A Sacramento Bee editorial today pushes Congress to look at railroads as one path out of the oil-dependency mire in a pending bill to reauthorize Amtrak.

While Long Island may typify the car-addicted American suburb, some locals seem to be cozying up to the idea. With a $4 sign glaring back at you from the pump, the line at Penn Station never looked so good.

President George W. Bush has rolled out his talking points for the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, where some of the world's most powerful nations will huddle on issues impacting the fate of practically every other country. The summit's agenda spans from the food crisis to alternative energy.

In his speech yesterday, Bush touched on a critical debate that the United States is frequently accused of hampering: forging international cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

While Bush vowed to further engage other countries on climate-change issues, at this point, there's virtually nowhere to go but up: The United States has distanced itself from much of the international community with its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, a first step toward globally addressing climate change. International pressure for some kind of consensus has mounted in recent years, as energy consumption leaps forward in India and China, and as environmental and political volatility surrounding climate change swells.

When it comes to demonstrating prudence on energy policy, the federal government has a knack for odd timing.

The Times reported today on the Bureau of Land Management's recent decision to halt new solar energy development projects while it assesses the risks and benefits of solar development. The agency, which manages more than 250 million acres nationwide--including prime real estate for thirsty solar panels--has decided to step back and "evaluate a number of alternative management strategies to determine which presents the best management approach... to adopt in terms of mitigating potential impacts and facilitating solar energy development while carrying out their respective missions."

Apparently, they'll be back after this break. Meanwhile, about 130 proposals for new projects are winding their way through the bureaucratic review process.

Understandably, alternative energy proponents are a bit stumped. Gas prices are rocketing skyward, climate change is casting the threat of catastrophe around the globe, and worldwide energy consumption is soaring. So, what better time for the White House to slow down the advancement of a burgeoning alternative energy source in the name of good management?

Not long ago in this space, we noted the good news that Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), then the deputy majority leader of the Senate, had put his name on a major bill designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Suddenly, Skelos is now the majority leader. But in the swirl of activity on Tuesday, as he gained that title and the Senate finished its work for now, the bill to fight global warming did not escape from committee for a vote on the Senate floor.

Don't get us wrong. We don't blame Skelos. If he was a tad distracted, that's perfectly understandable. Actually, we blame a senator who coincidentally had been considered a rival of Skelos for majority leader, Sen. George Maziarz (R-North Tonowanda). Those who followed the bill closely identified Maziarz as the person who nixed it.

But the bill makes good sense.

A biofuels boom, an exploding global food crisis. Those two simultaneous, not-so-coincidental phenomena are bursting the euphoric bubble of a major "green" energy sector.

Andy Kimbrell’s commentary on Friday about the food-versus-fuel dilemma raises troubling questions about the consequences of government-backed biofuel development. In recent months, ethanol’s green gloss has dulled in light of new research suggesting that farming our fuel does more harm than good.

To critics of the industry, the issue is fundamentally about displacement: fuel crops replace food crops and pristine land, while political and economic capital gravitate toward market hype at the expense of human needs.

Somehow, in the annual crush of last-minute wheel-spinning and deal-cutting, the New York State Legislature has managed to do something with far-reaching consequences for our future. It has passed legislation that will send a strong signal to the free market that it's time to invest in alternative energy, such as wind and solar, in the Empire State.

The concept is called net metering. Sounds pretty dry, but it's a big deal. What it means is this: Right now, if you own a home and you put some photovoltaic cells on your roof, enough to generate more electricity than you need at the moment, you can get a credit on your bill. Instead of drawing electricity from the grid, you are in essence making your electric meter run backwards.

The trouble is that this ability has been restricted to residences and farms. Large commercial customers haven't been able to get in on this. Now, with the new net-metering legislation, all classes of customers will be able to participate. And that will send a signal to manufacturers of photovoltaic equipment and wind power equipment, for example, that it's time to do more business in New York. It will also send a signal to large companies with a lot of flat roof space that they ought to invest in photovoltaic technology, because it can help them hold down their energy costs, which are a major drain on any firm's budget.

Two of our local lawmakers, Sen. Owen Johnson (R-West Babylon) and Assemb. Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) deserve our gratitude for their role in this great leap forward.

We'll admit it from the start: This post is as much about the image as it is about the news. No one should be surprised that environmental groups are happy that the Broadwater proposal for a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound is now dead in the water. No one should even be surprised that they're having a victory party on July 11 in Wading River, not all that far from the site where the terminal would have floated in the middle of the Sound.

What's a bit surprising is the image that went out with the invitation. It's a bit reminiscent of the sinking of the Titanic or the Battle of Midway. Very epic stuff. We thought you'd like to see it, whatever your views on Broadwater.

Image by Julie Clark: Positive Image, for L.I. Pine Barrens Society, courtesy of Citizens Campaign for the Environment

And speaking of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and driving less, it's great news that MacArthur Airport has designated a cell-phone lot, where folks meeting air passengers can park their cars gratis, and wait for a call from their arrivees. The lot is an environmentally friendly and efficient courtesy that plenty other airports around the country are offering, too, preventing the endless circling, waiting for a plane to land and friends or family members to emerge.

If only it were so simple at the other area airports. LaGuardia doesn't have a cell phone lot yet. JFK claims to have one -- I even saw the sign for it at a recent pick-up expedition. But has anyone ever actually found it? I hear it's somewhere near the Belt, but I wasted just as much gas looking for it as I ultimately did driving around in circles, after I finally gave up.

If there's anything to like about the woe of $4 a gallon gas it's this: Americans drove 30 billion fewer miles from November 2007 through April 2008.

That's the biggest six-month decline since the last oil crisis in the 1970s. And it was accompanied by a severe drop in the sale of gas-hog SUVs and an uptick in mass transit ridership.

Okay, that's only a one percent decline in total miles driven. But April was the sixth month in a row that miles driven dropped. A billion miles here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real savings -- for our pocketbooks and the planet.

Is it just a blip?

The gas lines of the 1970s also caused motorists to drive less. But as soon as that artificially induced crisis passed, we went right back to unrestrained motoring -- and the auto industry went to pushing out higher and higher horsepower engines and then SUVs.

Motorists should keep doing what they're doing, even if gas sticker shock subsides. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The decision by Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) to co-sponsor a key climate change bill is very big news.

The Assembly has already passed a bill sponsored by Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst) that would require sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050: 80 percent below 1990 levels. Sen. Thomas Morahan (R-New City) is sponsoring a bill that's almost as ambitious: 80 percent below 2000 levels. It's in the Rules Committee, awaiting a decision on whether it gets to the Senate floor.

As deputy majority leader and head of the Long Island Senate delegation, Skelos has immense influence. His name on the bill improves its chances immensely. Of course, when you're talking about Albany you must always remember the immortal words of Joaquin Andujar, the lovably loopy St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, who famously said: "My favorite word in English is 'youneverknow.'" In Albany, indeed, youneverknow. But Skelos deserves a pat on the back for giving this bill a better chance. We hope he'll keep pushing to get the bill to the floor.

Up until now, the Town of Babylon has been focusing heavily on making sure that new homes get built to use as little energy as possible -- through adapting a green building code, for example, and taking steps to build a demonstration "zero energy" home in Wyandanch.

Now Supervisor Steve Bellone wants the town to get into the business of helping residents of existing homes to make their dwellings more energy-efficient. This $2 million initiative can't get started until the town amends its code to allow the program to use the solid waste management fund for this purpose. Once that's done, Babylon will make low-interest, 12-year loans for energy-saving improvements.

The more our towns work on changing their ordinances to make homes and workplaces greener, the better we'll be able to afford rising energy costs.

Photo: asaphouse.com

A new report on Long Island's recycling record shows that for a place that has historically typified the polished American suburb, many communities here aren't nearly as conscious when it comes to handling their trash.

While Long Islanders are producing more and more waste, other communities have moved to reduce their garbage in recent years, responding both to increased environmental awareness as well as basic demands for public services.

San Francisco's aggressive garbage control efforts have ramped up the city's recycling rate to 70 percent, with an ultimate goal of 75 percent of the city's total waste stream--leaving many other cities in the dust. In addition to streamlining its collection system, the city has tried to make recycling not just ecologically sound but also cool, with bells and whistles like biodiesel-powered garbage trucks.

Portland has gotten serious about trash as well in its residential and commercial waste reduction plan. The city's "pay-as-you-throw" program charges people according to the volume of waste they produce. Beyond upping recycling rates, Portland's plan also aims to reduce toxics and harmful emissions and in the long run, stop the growth of waste produced by the city.

Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who has served longer in the Senate than any other person in the nation's history, is a man of many facets.

In his youth, he was an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1944, he wrote a vivid and execrable denunciation of the effort to integrate the military. Two decades later, he filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd at his worst.

Fast forward now, past his change of heart about the KKK, to the floor of the Senate in the fall of 2002. As senator after senator voted for the Iraq invasion, Byrd gave a speech in opposition that became an instant classic. Byrd at his best.

Now fast forward again, past his enthusiastic endorsement of an African-American, Sen. Barack Obama, for president, to the vote Monday on whether to allow debate on a landmark bill to fight global warming by imposing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Only 14 senators, led by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has called global warming a "hoax," voted against allowing debate. One of them was Byrd. There was no connection, of course, between his vote, the vast stores of coal in West Virginia, and the coal industry's pitched battle against the bill. But there's also coal under the feet of West Virginia's Democratic junior senator, Jay Rockefeller, and he voted to allow debate. Byrd at his most predictable.

No matter what it does, the Bush administration has not been able to get on the right side of the polar bears and their friends.

On May 14, prodded by litigation by environmentalists, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that he would list ursus maritimus as a threatened species. Just two days later, three environmental groups filed legal papers claiming that Kempthorne had gotten it wrong.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council argue that Kempthorne should have listed the polar bear as an "endangered" species, a more serious classification of danger than "threatened." They also say he failed to designate critical habitat for the bears. And they really don't like the "special rule" that the secretary is adopting, which waives a lot of the protections that the Endangered Species Act provides.

It's too bad that this administration can't do the right thing for this species without having to be sued.

The Hauppauge Public Library is seeking a permanent home, after seven years in rented space. So, following a fruitless search for suitable and affordable private sites, the library's leaders turned to the Town of Islip. The goal is for the library to buy one acre of land at Hidden Pond Park. The town would use those funds to fix up existing parks or buy better parkland elsewhere. But some environmentalists oppose this deal and the state legislation that would allow it. You can read our editorial about it in the paper on Tuesday.

This editorial page prides itself on being green, and we agree in principle that municipalities ought not to sell parkland frivolously for non-park purposes. That's why the local community and the State Legislature both have to approve whenever a transfer is proposed. But this one acre is not exactly pristine forest land. It's a thin band of trees, with a road right down the middle, a sump on one side and the parking lot for an ice rink on the other.

But don't take our word for it. Look at this aerial photo of the site. The parcel in question, a tad less than an acre, is framed in black. Judge for yourself whether a library here would really hurt the park.

For the polar bear and its friends, it was one of those classic good-news-bad-news days.

The big bad news, of course, is that the Arctic ice continues to melt, which makes life increasingly tenuous for ursus maritimus. The good news is that the Bush administration, well past deadline and acting under court order, finally noticed the melting and got around to listing the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. But--sorry, more bad news, bears--the administration handled it oddly.

Even though the Department of the Interior acknowledged the melting of polar ice as a key threat to the species, the listing seems to say that federal agencies don't have to take into account the impact of global warming on the bears. Huh?

Believe it or not, there are other issues in this presidential race besides the preaching style of a retired pastor from Chicago. Take climate change.

A new poll from Harris Interactive, commissioned by the Presidential Climate Action Project, shows that most Americans would prefer that their new president do something about hot air, instead of simply emitting it.

The poll shows that 66 percent of adults consider it important that the new president develop policies that deal with global warming, and 63 percent say the president should take strong action, soon after the inauguration. But fully 55 percent of the respondents weren't exactly sure which of the three still-standing presidential candidates would best deal with it. That's pretty solid evidence that the candidates all need to talk more about the little matter of saving the planet, and spend a lot less time on gotcha issues that mean nothing.

If the polar bear is not an endangered species, what species is?

Ursus maritimus needs polar ice to survive. As the ice melts, due to global warming, this species will die off. So, in 2005 environmentalists petitioned the Interior Department to list the species under the Endangered Species Act. But the government has not exactly been moving at warp speed to get it done. In fact, it has already missed its deadline under the law. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted last year that two-thirds of the polar bears in the world, including all of them in the United States, would be extinct by 2050.

Now, in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken has ordered that the government make a final decision on listing the polar bear by May 15. Maybe now the government will stop moving at glacial speed and obey the law.