With President Bush's election in November, two broad themes quickly emerged for journalists who cover the environment and the stories they can expect to follow in 2005.

One involves the multi-faceted push that the administration -- claiming a mandate for the environmental policies of the president's first term -- has signaled it will make for an even broader enactment of his policies.

The second theme is closely aligned with the first.

Environmental groups will certainly oppose many administration initiatives, as they did in Bush's first term. But with the president's prospects now bolstered by larger Republican majorities in the Senate and House, many environmentalists also plan to focus increasingly on promoting their own proposals at the state and local level.

Below the federal level, environmentalists have scored enough electoral and legislative victories recently that they believe state and local arenas may offer more opportunities for success. That hope extends to some of the so-called "red states" that voted strongly for Bush in 2004.

Soon after the election, outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt provided an early indication that the Bush administration would pursue its environmental agenda with renewed vigor, saying it had been "validated and empowered by the people of this country."

An environmental mandate was a bold claim considering the tiny role that environment played in the presidential contest. Leavitt's assertion was disputed by environmentalists, who noted late-campaign polling had revealed Sen. John Kerry's environmental positions were favored by a bigger margin than he earned on any other listed issue.

Administration Targets Federal Changes

Nevertheless, Bush has a stronger hand now in Washington and is expected to push a number of initiatives, both legislatively and at the administrative level.

The items before Congress include the long-sought opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, revival of the president's hotly contested Clear Skies Initiative to overhaul the Clean Air Act, new energy legislation along the lines set by Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, and revisions to the up-for-renewal Endangered Species Act.

One anticipated area for administrative action involves more energy exploration on federal lands outside Alaska, particularly in the West.

New administration rules opening the door to increased logging on national forest lands, announced shortly before Christmas, will probably face a court challenge. If the legal challenge is rebuffed, the regulations could have significant repercussions in numerous locations.

Meanwhile, the complex arena where air-pollution and energy-related policymaking intersect promises to overflow with opportunities for coverage at both the federal and state-local levels.

In Washington, the administration is expected in early 2005 to release a long-awaited strategy (already drawing environmentalists' fire) for reducing mercury from power plants.

Utility pollution is at the heart of the Clear Skies debate, which has focused on contentions that Bush's previous proposals would be less demanding than current law.

Power plants are also a major source of particulate pollution. Late last year, federal officials identified the many areas around the country that violate the particulate standard, which sets maximum allowable levels for the air. During the coming year, the particulate standard will be up for a regular review by federal officials. New scientific evidence suggests that tiny particles may be more hazardous to health than the current standard reflects. Because of this research, officials could propose strengthening the standard, possibly setting the stage for a political fight of the kind that surrounded the last standard-strengthening under the Clinton administration.

At the same time, the national standard for ozone -- that include some of the same pollutants that add to particulate pollution -- will be revisited.

Environmentalists to Target Local Issues

Air quality is one of the areas where environmentalists hope to continue advancing their agenda at the state and local levels. A number of states have recently adopted laws addressing power plant pollution. This year, environmentalists hope Virginia will join them by enacting a measure of its own to set stricter emission limits for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. Environmentalists and their allies are also planning to push for more state measures requiring that certain percentages of utilities' electricity be produced by renewable means.

In Texas, for instance, plans are afoot to seek legislation that would strengthen both the renewable-generation requirement and the emission limits that were set in a 1999 utility deregulation law signed by Bush when he was governor.

Possibly adding impetus to such initiatives, major environmental and labor organizations have teamed with other groups to form a new coalition, the Apollo Alliance, which will support measures for cleaner energy production and energy independence for the United States.

Keeping Watch on Automobile Regulations

Automotive pollution will also be a fertile subject for debate and coverage in the coming year, with much attention focused on the wider impact of rules adopted by California.

One question to watch will be whether the Bush administration joins automakers in their lawsuit against regulations adopted last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration that requires that vehicles sold in California meet the nation's first emission standards aimed at reducing carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas blamed for global climate change.

The California climate rules could have a major impact on what types of vehicles are marketed nationwide, especially if other states move to adopt the emission limits.

A lawsuit by the attorneys general of several states, seeking cuts in utilities' emission of carbon dioxide, will also proceed.

Even in the absence of U.S. ratification of the Kyoto climate treaty, emission-trading plans for carbon dioxide are being developed by a number of companies with an eye on international requirements, and the trading concept could by embraced this year by state officials in Massachusetts and possibly neighboring states.

Setting the Stage for Local Environmental Initiatives

Meanwhile, a look around the country reveals some of the other issues that will also demand environmental reporters' attention this year.

In the heavily forested Pacific Northwest, the impact of the new national logging rules could be of particular importance, significantly altering the terms of the Northwest Forest Plan that was adopted after much dispute during the Clinton administration.

In the same region, changes in endangered species regulations, long a major factor in forest, river and other environmental policies, could have far-reaching effects.

In Oregon, reporters are already charting the impact of a 2004 property-rights law allowing landowner claims against the state's strict land-use rules, which has provided a powerful tool for protecting natural and agricultural landscapes.

Despite the property-rights law's adoption in one of the nation's most environmentally attuned states, environmentalists were encouraged by last year's passage in many other places of measures to preserve open space and expand public transit.

Advocates are expected to pursue more such initiatives in various locations this year, often as part of a broader effort to promote "smart growth" principles and to counter urban sprawl.

In Atlanta, for instance, where traffic, air-pollution and related concerns have fueled interest in smart-growth ideas, conservation-minded residents will be promoting a new proposal, announced near the end of 2004, for a major corridor incorporating transit, parks and trails.

Whether or not they're labeled with the smart-growth tag, issues unfolding this year in numerous places also relate ultimately to the impacts of growing human populations on natural systems.

In Texas, environmentalists have been in discussion with other interests about the need for legislative action this year to protect freshwater resources for the ecological health of streams and bays. Texas environmentalists also hope to help spur the adoption of new water-conservation measures.

In Maryland, state officials are expected to decide whether to introduce non-native oysters in an attempt to restore depleted native stocks.

That decision is looming against a backdrop of growing concern in some quarters that two decades of efforts to restore the beleaguered Chesapeake Bay system may be stalled.

In Florida, reporters will follow a number of growth-related issues including a possible legislative bid to strengthen the state's growth-management law and a drive to amend the state constitution to require that voters approve any changes to counties' growth plans.

Meanwhile, developers could revive a proposal, killed by legislators last year, to transport water from northern Florida to the more populous southeast and southwest coasts. A recent lawsuit alleges that federal officials approved widening part of the main highway between the Florida Keys and the mainland without proper environmental review.

Battles over water resources will also occupy reporters' attention in other regions.

In the drought-conscious Rocky Mountain region, state officials in seven states are facing an April 1 deadline, imposed in December by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to develop a water-sharing compact. If the states fail to reach agreement, federal rules could be introduced.

In the Great Lakes region, attention is expected to be focused on the adequacy of cleanup and restoration efforts, and new threats that could be posed by increased water diversions.

All in all, 2005 starts out as a year when it would be especially advisable for environmental reporters to pay attention to news in regions beyond their home turf.

California's perennial influence on other states, through things like its automotive regulations, is an obvious example of why that's always a good idea. But environmentalists' plans to place increased emphasis on what the state and local level make it even more pertinent this year.

Governmental initiatives in one state are often undertaken with an eye on what has already been done, or at least attempted, in other places.

In Texas, for example, some of the water-conservation ideas that environmentalists hope to promote this year have been informed by developments in California. And the Texas efforts to advance protection of freshwater resources in rivers ­ modeled to some extent on an earlier initiative for the Savannah River in the Southeast ­ are echoed in a push to protect streams in Colorado.