For some reason, the Bush administration has abandoned its attempt to relax air pollution standards for electric power plants.

No one was more surprised -- or relieved -- than environmental advocates when the Environmental Protection Agency quietly revealed it was no longer pursuing two industry-friendly regulations that arguably would compromise air quality around the country.

The abrupt reversal could be because many of the administration's other regulatory changes adversely affecting the environment have been struck down in the courts, or because its last-minute efforts to impose a slew of relaxed rules is attracting increased congressional scrutiny. Whatever the White House motivation, all who favor clean air are grateful beneficiaries.

The abandoned rules involved one that would have made it easier to put new power plants near national parks and another that weakened required measurements of power-plant emissions. The latter, which would have allowed hundreds of thousands of additional tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides to pollute the environment, was opposed even within the EPA by senior officials and agency attorneys. Still, easing pollution limits was one of the remaining goals of the 2001 Energy Task Force spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney and, until lately, was considered a done deal.

Environmentalists, who have spent the past four years battling administration attempts to loosen pollution requirements for the utility industry, were astonished that the victory came, as one put it, in "the most understated possible way" -- via an agency e-mail.

Now the administration should show similar restraint at other agencies.

First Published: January 2, 2009, 5:00 a.m.