Yesterday, President Bush made comments in the Rose Garden concerning greenhouse gases and global warming. In his speech, one may have expected the President to announce a new landscaping project turning the Rose Garden into the Orchid Garden due to quickly rising global temperatures. Instead, Bush announced a new Executive Order which requires collaboration among EPA, the Departments of Energy, Transportation and Agriculture, OMB, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality in pursuing new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Lots of media outlets and environmental groups (and now Reg•Watch) have already focused on Bush's speech and E.O., and the White House has trumpeted them with its usual pomp and circumstance. But there is no real news here. The administration is merely announcing it is in the earliest stages of considering a regulatory plan on greenhouse gases. Bush had to take this course eventually because of a recent Supreme Court ruling. The inter-agency approach is the obvious tack to take on such a complex issue. The 20-in-10 plan is a months-old initiative, and Congress is not likely to pay much attention to it. The only new information here is Bush's decision to direct agencies to finish their regulatory action by the end of his administration. If Congress doesn't act by passing legislation (a possibility considering the disorganization of Democrats on energy thus far) it is possible Bush could leave a regulatory legacy — and a weak one at that. A regulation in the pipeline could also serve as a chip for bargaining with Congress in order to move legislation more inline with administration priorities. Of course, those regulations could easily change with the caprice of future administrations. Please wake Reg•Watch when someone in the legislative or executive branch takes real action on climate change.