Ever since Vice President Dick Cheney offered his flippant “personal virtue” line about conservation and was properly scolded for it, members of the Bush administration have been trying to show that they have something more than coal for hearts. They will soon have an opportunity in the Senate to make the public forget about the false start by agreeing to support environmentally sound efficiency standards.

Starting Thursday, when the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation hears a bill that would improve fuel-efficiency standards and close the loophole for SUVs and light trucks, the administration has a chance to show that it has listened to public reaction to its energy plan and is responding. The bill on the new fuel standards, introduced by Sens. Olympia Snowe and Dianne Feinstein and co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, takes a gradual approach to restarting a process begun in the early 1970s and essentially killed in the late 1980s of expecting auto manufacturers to make technological improvements to cut

pollution and allow vehicles to travel farther on a gallon of gas. Given the growing popularity of the gas-electric hybrid cars, there should be plenty of incentive for these improvements.

Also on the Senate’s agenda is the president’s energy bill, which the House bloated without sufficiently improving by spending a lot more for subsidies to coal, gas and oil industries ($27 billion compared with $5.9 billion for efficiency and renewables). The Senate can improve on this and negotiate with the Bush administration to rescue appliance-efficiency standards passed last summer that both the White House and the House want to roll back.

The environmental gains from improving efficiency are well-known – Maine paper mills, for instance, learned long ago that reusing chemicals in the paper-making process rather than sending them out with the effluent was not only good for the environment but saved a fair amount of money as well. But if there remains doubt about this strategy, senators might look to a story in yesterday’s business section of The New York Times, in which company after company found savings by acting environmentally smart.

Starbucks spent $200,000 to help Mexican farmers grow coffee beans without ripping out the rain forest first. Orders for the shaded crop have grown tenfold in the last three years. ITT Industries of Roanoke, Va., found it was being forced to switch from an ozone-destroying gas, sulfur hexafluoride, as part of its manufacturing but instead of lobbying for an exemption looked around for a substitute, found one in nitrogen and saved $500,000 annually in buying and handling costs.

The Times story contains several more anecdotes, but they all point in the same direction: With a little prodding, businesses can find environmental improvements that result in savings. This won’t happen every time, of course, but it won’t happen at all unless the companies are encouraged to look through incentives or, if necessary, regulation. The White House can join the Senate in the coming weeks to reform its shortsighted position on energy efficiency and develop a policy that is something more than an ill-considered remark.