Bush would also cut power plant emissions of the three worst air pollutants - sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury - by setting emission targets, assigning permits for each ton of pollution, and allowing companies to trade them.

Bush, whose decision to ditch the Kyoto treaty soon after taking office drew international scorn, will announce the new environmental initiatives just three days before setting off for Asia for talks with Japanese and Chinese leaders, major players in the climate change debate.

"This new approach is based on the common sense idea that sustainable economic growth is the key to environmental progress - because it is growth that provides the resources for investment in clean technologies," Bush will tell the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration according to excerpts released this week.

But the proposals were unlikely to win over Bush's critics, who say his administration caters to the oil industry and refuses to do its share to curb emissions from gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels which contribute to global warming and acid rain.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration is using Valentines Day to give a sweetheart deal to the corporate polluters that funded his campaign," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, who singled out now-bankrupt Enron Corp., Bush's biggest campaign backer.

NEW EQUATION

According to the White House, Bush's global climate change plan calls for cutting so-called "greenhouse gas intensity" - the ratio of emissions to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth - by 18 percent over the next 10 years.

The White House said Bush's goal was to lower the rate of emissions from an estimated 183 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2002, to 151 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2012. The White House called this "a path to slow, stop and then, as the science justifies, reverse" emission growth.

Administration officials said these cuts would be comparable to those set in the Kyoto treaty, which Bush said would devastate the economy and put millions out of work.

But these cuts would depend on cooperation from companies, as well as on economic growth, both of which are uncertain.

To pay for these and other climate change-related initiatives, the White House said Bush's budget for fiscal 2003 would dedicate $4.5 billion, a $700 million increase. The budget includes the first year of funding for a five-year, $4.6 billion tax credit program for renewable energy sources.

But critics said Bush's approach would not solve the problem of global warming and, by linking emissions to economic growth, was tantamount to proposing continuous increases in U.S. emissions of heat-trapping gases.

According to the Sierra Club, emissions under the Bush plan would grow to 36 percent more than Kyoto levels by 2010 and 50 percent more than Kyoto target levels by 2020. And should the U.S. economy falter, the Sierra Club said, global warming protections would be dumped.

Bush will also take a market-based approach in his "Clear Skies" plan to cut power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, proposing a "cap-and-trade" system rather than mandatory enforcement actions.

Under Bush's plan, deadlines would be set for power plants to reach emission targets for the three pollutants, which have been linked to health problems and acid rain.

It would require each facility to have a permit for each ton of pollution emitted. These would be tradable, allowing companies to buy and sell them to each other to ensure that the government's emission targets are met. The goal is to make it profitable to not pollute.