Former Gov. Christie Whitman gave a spirited defense of the Bush administration's environmental policies at Princeton the other day. Speaking confidently as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, she said the facts have not been reaching the public.

The facts are clear enough. They do not support the administration. They support the critics Whitman claims are misinformed or, worse, deliberately blocking President Bush for old-fashioned political gain.

There are plenty of examples of the canyon between the Bush spin and the regulatory reality, from allowing snowmobiles to pollute the air at Yellowstone to instituting a forestry program that pretends to reduce fire danger but opens more land to eager loggers, who get wood at bargain rates.

The air pollution "initiative" that will hurt millions of Whitman's former constituents every day deserves special attention. Nothing illustrates the administration's real environmental agenda better than the move to gut the regulations limiting smog from old, dirty power plants, refineries and factories.

This is the smog that floats to New Jersey from the Midwest and South, the smog that endangers everyone's health but especially that of the more than 600,000 children and adults here who suffer from asthma and other chronic breathing problems.

Whitman told Princeton students that current regulations have not worked and have actually discouraged power companies from making repairs. But the U.S. Justice Department - and the state Attorney General's Office during Whitman's governorship - have said just the opposite.

They both sued some of the worst polluters for downplaying major power plant rehabilitation work so they could avoid installing expensive modern pollution controls as the law requires.

The lawsuits were starting to work. Two companies agreed to clean up, and others had reached agreements in principle - until George W. Bush took office and the government began quickly backing away from both the
suits and the law.

The president has proposed replacing the current regulations with more industry-friendly laws that those who speak for him claim will produce bigger cuts in airborne garbage.

The facts do not support that assertion either. The EPA's own presentation to industry in 2001 showed that existing law would be far stricter.

As for politics, it is not party loyalty that has Northeastern states suing the EPA over its transformation from clean air watchdog to industry lap dog. It is concern that citizens be able to breathe, a concern shared by all the governors, whatever their party affiliation.

Whitman knows that, too. After all, she used to claim to be a leader in that effort.