Question:
The Bush administration is rescinding new standards for arsenic in drinking water and proposing to lift new requirements on mining interests as its latest challenges to environmental regulations issued during the final days of the Clinton presidency.

Answer: The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management was announcing Wednesday it would seek to undo regulations forcing more hard-rock miners in the West to post cleanup bonds.

The Environmental Protection Agency, also responding to complaints from mining interests, on Tuesday suspended standards aimed at reducing the levels of cancer-causing arsenic in some 3,000 municipal water systems, primarily in the Rocky Mountains.

Mining runoff has been identified as a major source of arsenic contamination in drinking water supplies.

''This outrageous act is just another example of how the polluters have taken over the government,'' said Erik D. Olson, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The actions follow President Bush's reversal last week of his campaign promise to begin treating carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant and contributor to global warming.