Anyone who spends any time at all reading the stuff I write each week knows I am conservative when it comes to politics.

Even though we live in the greatest nation in the world, I think there is room for improvement.

I generally believe government should be smaller and more responsive - less is better.

I also believe government has become too far-reaching in its scope, touching our lives in ways the founders never intended.

I believe the states and the private sector are better equipped to handle lots of things the federal government currently handles.

I believe taxes could be a lot lower if we were somehow able to streamline government.

Since I believe these things, I generally support W because I think he believes these things, too.

But he's starting to make me wonder.

I know he's conservative, there's no question about that. I know he wants to shrink government, too.

But lately I'm beginning to wonder how much of his decision-making is based on conservative ideology and how much is based on making his corporate buddies happy.

There have been a number of policy decisions recently that have even raised eyebrows attached to the foreheads of people like me.

Here are a few:

• Currently the W administration is moving to kill a regulation that prohibits awarding federal contracts to companies that have violated the law. The action is being taken because of "information that the rule is not in the best interests of industry or government the way it was written." And the federal government "wants to be responsive to the needs of the contracting community, and is therefore continuing a dialogue about the rule."

The rule in question was approved by Bill and went into effect Jan. 19. It says that federal contracts should be awarded only to companies that abide by federal law. Bidders were checked for compliance.

See, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

But the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers didn't like it. They filed suit to stop it. They said the law was unfair, burdensome and "contained insufficient guidelines to prevent arbitrary implementation."

Now, enter the other side of the argument.

'President Bush's decision to allow chronic lawbreakers to receive our tax dollars is simply irresponsible,' said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. 'President Bush's action threatens our air and water, endangers America's workers and undermines the very protections that keep our environment clean and our workers safe.'

Linda Chavez-Thompson, an AFL-CIO executive vice president, said taxpayers will be 'outraged' to learn 'their tax dollars will be going to fund lucrative federal contracts for companies that routinely violate environmental, civil rights, worker protection, consumer and other important laws.'

Maybe a bit overstated, but they make salient points.

• Thomas Sansonetti, a former Interior Department official who has lobbied over the past few years for mining interests, is President Bush's choice to serve as the assistant attorney general for the environment and national resources.

According to Scripps Howard News Service, last year, Sansonetti appeared before a Senate committee to testify in support of a measure to expand mining opportunities on federal lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Companies are limited to leasing 46,000 acres of federal coal land in any one state and 100,000 acres nationwide. The legislation supported by Sansonetti would have increased those limits to 75,000 acres in any state and 150,000 acres nationwide.

• J. Steve Griles, who has lobbied for coal and gas firms, recently was chosen by Bush to serve as deputy secretary at Interior.

• Interior Secretary Gale Norton, whose nomination was actively opposed by environmentalists, once worked for a Denver law firm that counted mining companies among its clients.

'Almost all of his appointments have generated concern and this is no exception,' said a spokesman for one environmental group. 'Bush is placing corporate demands over the health and safety of Americans.'

Pope and Chavez-Thompson are pretty much ballistic over this, too.

Then there were the regulations on arsenic in tap water that W pulled back.

And the Kyoto treaty on C02 in the atmosphere that he pulled away from.

These things have the environmentalists saying that W is simultaneously poisoning and suffocating our children.

Of course that is alarmist nonsense, but it plays well on the evening news.

I also understand that the government regulation pendulum sometimes swings too far and regulations become too stringent. If X parts per million are safe, sometimes we regulate to .3X parts per million. Erring on the side of caution, so to speak.

I also understand that regulations make it more costly to do business. So W wants to make it easier for businesses to operate and make sure they aren't overregulated.

That's OK, but I think he needs to be careful.

While I certainly would not consider myself an environmentalist, even I have a hard time understanding some of Bush's decisions regarding environmental issues.

The environment - like defense and civil rights - is an area where I think the federal government needs to be involved.

We, as a nation, have made great strides in the past 20 years where the environment is concerned. I don't think anyone wants to see an erosion of that progress, even if it costs us.

Whether W is beholden to corporate interests or not, some of his environmental decisions make him look like he is.

It wouldn't hurt W to be a little less conservative on environmental issues.

I don't think his policies will send us all to an early grave like some people on the left, but I do think he needs to stop giving his political adversaries so much ammunition. [[In-content Ad]]