Return to The Green Elephant Index

Eye on Washington

Voice of the People

Sixty percent of American adults believe that "environmental protection is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high, and continuing environmental improvements must be made, regardless of cost."

Did this statement come from some liberal magazine? A biased Democrat pollster?

Nope!

This is the finding of a nationwide GOP poll first reported in August at the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference in Indianapolis.

Conducted for the GOP by Public Opinion Strategies, the poll shows public concern for the environment rising again. The 60% figure is up from a low of 52% in 1992.

What could have led to an 8-point surge in concern for an issue that Americans once seemed to be taking for granted?

We think it’s the same thing that led to REP's founding back in 1995: the anti-environmental agenda of some so-called "conservative" leaders in Congress.

Add to this a previous GOP poll showing that 55% of Republican voters don’t trust their own party to do the right thing for the environment, and it’s clear that our GOP has a major problem on its hands.

Congressional Road Show

A group of eastern Republican congressmen spent a week of their August recess touring western states as guests of the Western States Coalition, an industry-funded group trying to change federal land use policies to facilitate industrial development of our public lands. Industry sponsors reportedly spent $300,000 showing their VIP guests around.

Accompanying Speaker Gingrich were representatives Dick Armey and Tom Delay (both TX), Charles Bass (NH), Sue Kelly (NY), John Peterson (PA), George Radanovich (CA), Ralph Regula (OH), and Billy Tauzin (LA). Local hosts were Helen Chenoweth and Michael Crapo (both ID), Rick Hill (MT), Barbara Cubin (WY) and Jim Hansen (UT).

According to the August 28, 1997, Deseret News, the visitors were briefed on grazing, mining, property rights and the Endangered Species Act. Among the places they visited was Kennecott Copper’s vast open-pit mine in Bingham, Utah, where they witnessed the detonation of 45,000 pounds of explosives and listened to a Kennecott executive complain that the newly-proposed federal clean air standards would "devastate extractive industries and hit every individual and business in the nation in the pocketbook with no benefits to justify the pain."

While at the Kennecott mine, Gingrich declared that the GOP’s main problem is that the media is "biased against our party" and "fails to educate the public about the pitfalls of too-strict environmental legislation."

During the tour, leaders admitted that its purpose was to bolster their support base with western Republicans. "Politically, it’s important because the Republican strength is in the West and the South," said Tom Delay. "It’s part of letting them know we understand their issues and that they are very important to us."

The group also met for about an hour with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other conservationists in Wyoming.

If your representative was on that trip, you might want to remind him or her that federal lands belong to all Americans, not to western counties and extractive industries. You might also point out that one of the most fiscally-responsible things Congress could do is replace the outdated 1872 Mining Act with legislation that reflects the American people’s desire for conservation of our natural public lands and earns a fair return on our investment if those lands must be exploited by industry.

Betraying Roosevelt and Bush

In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt resisted great pressure from special interests and established the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, now the largest intact temperate rainforest on earth. Spectacularly beautiful, its mountains and forests are home to the world’s densest concentrations of bald eagles and grizzly bears. Tongass streams are very productive for wild salmon, trout, and steelhead.

The Tongass has been heavily logged for fifty years. Taxpayers subsidized vast clear-cuts; giant trees were sold for $1 apiece and shipped to Japan with the bark still on. Finally, in 1990, many Republicans in Congress honored TR's legacy by cosponsoring the Tongass Timber Reform Act, thereby protecting the last scattered fragments of old-growth trees. The TTRA was signed into law by President George Bush.

Since then, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, has repeatedly attempted to get around the TTRA and give away protected lands to special interests for accelerated clear-cutting.

Murkowski is trying again in the 105th Congress. One of his latest bills, S. 660, would give up to 500,000 acres of the Tongass and other important areas to the University of Alaska for clear-cutting and other damaging uses. A second proposal, the ANCSA—New Corporations provisions of S. 967, would reopen long-settled Alaska land claims under the guise of Native interests and provide industrial clear-cutters new access to protected lands.

REP is one of scores of environmental and sportsmen's organizations that are encouraging Congress to reject S. 660 and S. 967. As of this writing, these bills are still pending in the Senate.

The Heat’s On

Politicians in both parties, egged on by industries with lots of campaign cash to distribute, are openly hostile toward a proposed treaty that would bind the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The global treaty will be considered at a conference in Japan in December.

Most reputable scientists are convinced that emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and other sources are altering our climate at an artificially rapid rate, threatening coastal flooding, crop and habitat losses, and the spread of tropical diseases. Insurance companies are worried about greater property damage from more erratic, destructive weather.

Utilities, oil companies, auto makers and other industries are predicting that greenhouse gas limits will be the crack of economic doom—a performance that’s depressingly similar to forecasts issued a few years ago about better air pollution controls.

But greenhouse gas limits could actually be a good way to save money and create more jobs by improving America’s energy efficiency and encouraging the development of renewable energy technologies.

Timber-Road Subsidies Still Riding High

In July, it failed by two votes in the House. In the Senate two months later, it failed in a tie—which "environmental" Vice President Al Gore could have broken had he been present to serve in his official capacity as President of the Senate.

Yes, we’re talking about another futile attempt to eliminate those taxpayer-soaking timber-road subsidies.

Nevada Senator Richard Bryan (a Democrat, unfortunately) tried to do in the Senate what John Porter (R-IL) and Joseph Kennedy (D-MA) were unable to do in the House: get the timber companies’ fingers out of taxpayers pockets once and for all.

REP is pleased to report that six GOP senators voted yes to the Bryan Amendment. They are:

John Chafee (RI)
Alfonse D’Amato (NY)
Mike DeWine (OH)
Judd Gregg (NH)
William Roth (DE)
Fred Thompson (TN)

If your senator is in this group, please thank him for adhering to the conservative notion that successful industries should pay their own way without drawing welfare from hardworking American taxpayers.

If your GOP senator is not on this list, you might want to ask him or her how anyone can claim to be a "conservative" and still force taxpayers to subsidize extractive industries.

It’s worth noting that all but one of our GOP senators received campaign contributions from the timber industry in the first half of 1997. According to U.S. PIRG, these GOP senators topped the list:

Gordon Smith (OR) $91,999
Slade Gorton (WA) $60,529
Mike DeWine (OH) $59,500
Paul Coverdell (GA) $57,000
Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX) $50,500
Dirk Kempthorne (ID) $49,500

The only Republican senator who took no money whatsoever from the timber industry during that six-month period was John Chafee.

REP applauds Senators Chafee, D’Amato, DeWine, Gregg, Roth and Thompson for standing up for the American taxpayers. Maybe in 1998, an election year, more members of the Senate will show the same kind of character and courage.

And on the ESA Front...

REP has written to all Senators, urging them to resist the pressure to support the Kempthorne ESA bill, S. 1180, for reasons that we reported in the Spring ‘97 Green Elephant.

We’ve also asked GOP House Members to support H.R. 2351, the Endangered Species Recovery Act, which corrects the original ESA’s flaws without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

As this issue goes to press, only two GOP representatives, Connie Morella (MD) and Christopher Shays (CT) are co-signers on H.R. 2351. We hope there will soon be many more.