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U.S. global environmental policy during the Bush administration was widely considered to have fallen short of both global and national needs. Among other actions, critics faulted the administration's disparagement of scientific consensus on climate change and its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, its ideological opposition to multilateral population assistance, its failure to exercise leadership on global sustainability initiatives, and a diversity of foreign policy decisions that have cost the United States much needed political support in critical regions of the world. This paper reviews some of the most important of these policy actions and looks ahead to the challenges Barack Obama will face as the 44th U.S. president. In particular, the paper examines the unique opportunities in 2009 and over the next several years for policy reassessment in energy use and climate change, population and development assistance, and sustainable development initiatives. It also considers the key policy actors who will likely play significant roles in the design, adoption, and implementation of a new generation of policies that can better address existing and emerging global environmental and resource problems. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]