Alcoa, Tenn. ? Heavy storms and high winds blocked President Bush’s Earth Day plan to get his hands dirty fixing trails. He missed Great Smoky Mountains National Park but still delivered his plea for better stewardship of the environment.

Bush plugged his “Clear Skies” air pollution plan, bogged down in Congress because of Democrats’ insistence that it must address global warming. He also praised the popular but polluted national park’s thriving program of more than 2,000 volunteers.

“Had I been there, I would have reminded people today is … a day in which we recommit ourselves to being good stewards of our land,” he said, flanked by members of Congress and his Cabinet. “We didn’t create this Earth, but we have an obligation to protect it.”

Bad weather in the Southeast led Bush to make his comments during a quick stop by Air Force One at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base. A threat of hail and thunderstorms kept him from helping with trail restoration in the Smokies’ picturesque Cades Cove area.

The Smokies is one of the most polluted parks in the nation, due mainly to industrial soot and smog that collects in the mountains, creating vista-reducing haze, stunting plants with acid rain, and threatening the health of asthmatic visitors.

Rewriting the Clean Air Act has been Bush’s top environmental priority, and his plan would give power plants, factories and refineries more time to reduce their air pollution. It would cut nitrogen oxides, a big factor in smog; sulfur dioxide, blamed for acid rain; and mercury, a toxic chemical that contaminates water.

Smokestack industries would trade pollution rights within government caps aimed at reducing the three pollutants by 70 percent by 2018.

People waiting on President Bush's arrival at Cades Cove, Tenn., begin to exit the site Friday after the Earth Day event was canceled due to thunderstorms in the area.

Last month, a Senate committee rejected the bill. Opponents want limits on carbon dioxide, the chief “greenhouse” gas scientists blame for global warming but one Bush opposes regulating.

Often at odds with environmentalists, Bush celebrated their holiday by claiming a solid environmental record. For instance, he said “we’re on our way” to meeting the promise he made last Earth Day to restore or protect up to 3 million acres of wetlands.

But Julie Sibbing, a wetlands expert with National Wildlife Federation, said the Bush administration had ignored how many swamps, bogs and other wetlands had been destroyed.

“They’re claiming we’ve already achieved a net gain of wetlands, when their own scientists have pointed out we don’t have enough data to know whether we’re gaining or losing,” Sibbing said.