Amending environmental laws to help business

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. First Cheney looked for a way around the law and aides. Because of Cheney;s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there were no threat to the fish. It was Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, that led Christine Todd Whitman to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. In April, the Supreme Court rejected two other policies closely associated with Cheney.

With Cheney's encouragement, the administration lifted the ban in 2002, and Hoffman followed up in 2005 by writing a proposal to fundamentally change the way national parks are managed. The Bush administration continues to press for expanded snowmobile access, despite numerous studies showing that the vehicles harm the parks' environment and polls showing majority support for the ban.