Her spokesman said the memo was a confidential correspondence between Whitman and the president, and that she would not be willing to discuss it. Bush's decision to reverse his campaign promise followed intense lobbying by coal and oil companies and congressional conservatives who opposed the proposal. Bush said his concerns about energy shortages and an Energy Department report that concluded that restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions would drive up electricity costs persuaded him to break his campaign pledge. Environmental groups, Democratic lawmakers and European Union officials called Bush's decision a major setback to prospects for a compromise on concluding a global warming treaty this summer. Talks on how to comply with a protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 that prescribes sharp cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide collapsed in The Hague last November.
Carbon dioxide is a gas that scientists say is a major factor in the planet's rising temperatures.
While some have hoped to resume those talks in Bonn this summer, Bush has said repeatedly that he opposes the Kyoto protocol on the grounds that it would damage the U.S. economy and not address serious pollution problems among poorer countries. The letter followed a meeting Thursday between Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, and EU ambassadors in Washington, in which she reportedly said that the process to reduce greenhouse gases established in Kyoto was dead. It is also an issue that is resonating here, at home. We need to appear engaged. Whitman first learned of the president's reversal on carbon dioxide emissions at a midmorning meeting with Bush at the White House, hours before he revealed his decision in a letter to four conservative senators.