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WASHINGTON — The Bush administration backed away from a proposal to ease salmonella testing requirements on meat for school lunches, saying it was overruling lower level Agriculture Department officials. 

The administration reversed course Thursday after the proposal made front-page news, provoking criticism from consumer groups already angered by President Bush’s withdrawal of a standard for the amount of arsenic allowable in drinking water – a standard issued by President Clinton. 

“It makes for a very tough morning when you open most newspapers in this country and find a front-page story that your administration is relaxing standards on the safety of school lunch programs,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who favors testing. “That’s a hard one to sell.” 

The proposed changes were on the Agriculture Department’s Web site on Wednesday, but were gone by Thursday morning. 

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the changes “were released prior to receiving an appropriate review.” 

Thus, the procedures, which require meat bought for government school lunch programs be tested to ensure it is salmonella-free, will remain. The bacteria usually cause only mild intestinal symptoms, but about 600 people die from it each year and children are especially vulnerable to serious infections. 

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said news reports of the proposed changes prompted Veneman to accelerate her decision-making process and her announcement. As of Wednesday, she had not made up her mind, he said. 

Fleischer denied that political considerations drove the decision. 

“The secretary made her decision based on the merits and based on protecting schoolchildren,” he said. 

Fleischer said the proposal announced by the agency on Wednesday originated in “the lower level of the Department of Agriculture.” 

Critics have increasingly been charging that in his early decisions, Bush has favored corporate interests. 

Last month, after heavy lobbying from the coal industry, Bush abandoned a campaign pledge to limit power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide. 

The American Meat Institute, an industry group, had attacked the salmonella testing rules as having “no basis in public health.” The industry pressed Veneman to overturn them, as did the American School Food Service Association. 

About 5 percent of the beef offered to USDA over the past year tested positive for salmonella and was rejected. 

Before last year, the government would buy meat from any plant that was federally inspected. 

Instead of salmonella tests, the Agriculture Department had proposed tightening the processing standards that slaughterhouses and processing plants would have to meet to continue selling ground beef, pork or turkey to the government.  

Plants would have been tested for general bacteria counts as an indicator of overall plant cleanliness. 

The new rules would have required slaughterhouses to put carcasses through at least two antimicrobial rinses.  

Beef also would be tested for deadly form of E. coli, as well as general bacteria levels. Plants with consistent problems were to be dropped as suppliers. 

Consumer groups immediately assailed the proposed changes Wednesday. 

“This decision means that neither federal inspectors nor the companies involved will test for a potentially deadly pathogen in meat going to millions of schoolchildren nationwide,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, who oversaw USDA’s food-safety programs during the Carter administration and now represents the Consumer Federation of America. 

Thursday, she praised the administration. 

“I have to thank the Bush administration for seeing the folly of their ways and reversing this decision,” she said