The Bush administration has some good news for whiney chokers: all that carbon dioxide those industrial plants emit? Not a pollutant after all. Quietly announced heading into the holiday weekend, the Environmental Protection Agency's new stance ignores earlier research and allows big business (especially those that finance political campaigns) to up their emissions.

Melissa Carey of Environmental Defense says denying carbon dioxide is the major cause of global warming is like "refusing to say smoking causes lung cancer." Critics think the administration's new turn is the playing out of instructions from political consultant Frank Luntz. In a leaked memo, Luntz wrote that the public's attitudes toward global warming would change if they thought their leaders had settled the "scientific issues" on the matter. "Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue." The White House has been trying to dismiss scientific evidence on environmental issues since its 2001 refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocols.

» Scott Saxon