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An Outlandish Proposal

One of the best sources of insight as to what a candidate might do if elected to office is a look at the people whom he or she chooses as advisors on a given subject.

In the last Green Elephant, we noted that Governor George W. Bush has several highly-respected Republican conservationists on his advisory panel, including his father’s own director of the National Park Service, Jim Ridenour, who is also a REP member. Such information is welcome and highly comforting.

However, there are others advising the governor whose points of view we find far less comforting. One of those is Gale Norton, founder of the greenscam organization known as CREA (“Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates”), whose honorary board includes such dubious “environmental advocates” as Larry Craig, Frank Murkowski and Helen Chenoweth. Another advisor is Terry Anderson, director of the hard-right Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.

Anderson’s ties to Governor Bush took on new significance in November when he published a document entitled “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands” in the Cato Institute’s Policy Analysis (issue #363).

If Anderson’s proposal were to be implemented, every inch of federal land—from Independence Hall to the Grand Tetons to Everglades National Park—would be privatized and sold off to anyone for any purpose. It would allow foreign corporations or governments to purchase and commercialize Yellowstone National Park, Gettysburg National Military Park, the Washington Monument and all our other national parks, monuments, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas. The rim of the Grand Canyon could become a strip mall. There would no longer be any national public lands in the United States. They would all be put up for sale to the highest bidder.

The proposal would even allow the sale of all our military lands, which we doubt most conservative Republicans would find acceptable.

Copies of Mr. Anderson’s outlandish proposal began circulating as soon as it was published. On Dec. 17, Republicans for Environmental Protection sent a copy of it to the Bush campaign headquarters, to make sure that he had seen it. In a letter, we urged him to reassure the American people that he does not share his advisor’s attitude about the ultimate fate of our military lands and natural treasures.

As of mid-January, there had been no response.