Green Republicans? You never know
Copyright 2000
The Seattle Times
December 7, 2000
Alexander Cockburn; Syndicated Columnist
THEY'D rather die than admit it, but environmental organizations thrive on disaster. They remember well enough what happened when Ronald Reagan installed James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. Hardly had Watt hung his elk head on his office wall before the big green outfits were churning out mailers painting doomsday scenarios of national parks handed over to the oil companies, the Rocky Mountains stripped for oil shale, the national forests clear-cut from end to end.
Then came the Clinton/Gore era. Since the mainstream green groups had anointed Gore as nature's savior, and had become so politically intertwined with the Democrats, they had no way to disengage and adopt a critical posture when the sellouts began. Thus it was that the big green groups let Clinton and Gore off the hook when the new administration put forward a plan to end "gridlock" and commence orderly logging in the ancient forests of California and the Pacific Northwest.
So now, with the shadow of a Republican administration across the White House, the green groups see a chance to recoup, using the sort of alarmism that served them so well in the Reagan-Watt years. Only days after the election on Nov. 7, e-mail alerts began to flicker across the Internet, warning that the incoming Congress will be the "most environmentally hostile ever."
But how can this be, if we are to believe the premise of the big green groups, backed by regular "dirty dozen lists" from the League of Conservation Voters, that Democrats are by definition kinder to nature than Republicans? Democrats gained seats in the House of Representatives and now split the Senate with the Republicans 50/50. By this measure the e-mails rushing across the Internet should be modestly optimistic instead of presaging doom.
In fact, one of the natural kingdom's greatest enemies in the U.S. Senate, Slade Gorton of Washington, has gone down to defeat. Another nature-raper, Rep. Don Young of Alaska, is being forced to vacate his chairmanship of the House Resources Committee. Indeed there are some causes for optimism. The model here is Richard Nixon, our greenest president, who oversaw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and smiled upon our greatest single piece of environmental legislation, the Endangered Species Act. Nixon was trying to divide the left, and worked to develop an environmental constituency. Bush, if he makes it to the White House, will be similarly eager to garner green support.
Bush will also be keen to undercut attacks on the question of his legitimacy as president, and a kinder, gentler policy on the environment would be one way to do it. The current betting is that his nominee as Secretary of the Interior will be the Republican governor of Montana, Mark Racicot, a Republican version of the present incumbent of the post, Bruce Babbitt.
Of course, there will be savage environmental struggles over the next four years. Oil shale leasing will be one battlefield. Salvage logging will be another. But if you received a hysterical mailer from one of the big green organizations, set it aside and give your support to one of the small groups that have been fighting doughtily through Clinton time. Why not, for example, send a check to Earth Island Institute in San Francisco, thus honoring its founder, the late David Brower.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair's new book, "Five Days that Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond," is forthcoming from Verso.