It would encourage important steps towards reducing what Mr. Bush has rightly described as the country's "addiction to oil" by decreasing the U.S. transportation sector's reliance on immense quantities of gas and diesel fuels much of which are imported from countries that are unstable at best, and dangerous at worst.
George Bush and Vladimir Putin agreed to work towards reducing their countries' nuclear arms , thus strengthening Mr Bush's plans for a missile-defence shield.
European Union countries wanted to know whether Bush would return to negotiations on sealing the 1997 Kyoto pact on reducing pollution blamed for climate change, an agreement he had called "unfair to America" during his election campaign.
U.S. officials have suggested the Bush administration is interested in spending more time on issues such as nuclear proliferation in Iran and reducing the threat Iraq's President Saddam Hussein poses.
The outcome might have been different had the administration paid attention to how the Senate was handled during the Reagan-Bush era, when three major arms control treaties were negotiated and ratified, including the 1991 accord reducing U.S. and Russian strategic forces by half.