Politics or sound policy?

The Clinton Administration's environmental policy did much to meet the demands of environmental activist groups at the national level. The administration's environmental highlights included: 1. supporting and signing the Kyoto treaty on carbon dioxide, 2. designating 10 new national monuments in the West, and 3. issuing thousands of pages of environmentally oriented "midnight regulations" at the very end of the administration. Conducting and acting upon serious benefit-cost analyses could save far more lives at far smaller cost. Instead, the Clinton administration focused narrowly on policy results immediately at hand and on pleasing its environmental activist constituents.