Some environmental groups have decided to refrain from publicly criticizing President Bush’s energy policy in the wake of last week’s deadly terrorist attacks on the nation’s financial district in New York City, its capital in Washington, D.C., and an airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania.

“I think that a lot of environmental groups feel the same. This is not the time for criticism. It’s time to rally around President Bush” and his administration as they “respond to the perpetrators of this heinous act,” said Elliott Negin, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington.

The NRDC is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Washington. Many the group’s employees “could see the plane going into the Pentagon” last Tuesday, he noted. NRDC employees also “had friends or relatives killed” in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, or know people who have friends or relatives who are missing, Negin said.

The NRDC will keep the gloves on with respect to energy until the Senate takes up the issue, he said. “That’s when it will be time to address the issue,” Negin told NGI.

The Sierra Club, which has been extremely critical of Bush’s energy initiatives, also pulled back somewhat, a spokeswoman for the group said. “That was true of last week,” but “that’s not a long term policy,” she noted. “Once the [energy] debate re-surfaces, we’ll be as engaged as anyone else.”

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