Times change. Needs change. Situations change. A good organization has to be flexible and able to adapt to the changing times, needs and situations that it faces.

REP America came to be known as such in 1996, when lawyers told our Steering Committee that we could not incorporate our new organization as Republicans for Environmental Protection without first securing the written permission of the Republican National Committee and the Republican committees in every state in which we intended to operate: all fifty states. And even if we did succeed in that, any one of those entities could yank its permission from us if down the line we ever said, wrote or did anything that they didn’t appreciate. Our response to that news was: Phooey on that!

We still wanted to be able to call ourselves “Republicans for Environmental Protection,” at least informally, so we said: Okay, we’ll just incorporate as REP.

It turned out that there was already a REP Corp., so we needed to find a name that was different but still built around the acronym “REP.” REP America—with the sense it conveyed of being a national organization—was the perfect compromise for a start-up that had neither high-level Republican friends to protect us from the RNC nor financial resources to fight in court for the right to call ourselves, officially, “Republicans for Environmental Protection.”

So, for ten years, we have been REP America. We’ve worked hard to “brand” that name. We built both our web site (www.repamerica.org) and our emails (martha@repamerica.org) around it. We told our chapters that they must call themselves the (Name of State) Chapter of REP America. We even created a tag line to explain to the world what REP America was: “The national grassroots organization of Republicans for Environmental Protection.” Some of us—including me!—have come to be downright fond of the name REP America.

But that fondness can’t hide the fact that, even after a decade of assiduous branding, “REP America” still does not have instant name recognition among the public at large, or even among the Republican lawmakers with whom we deal. Newspaper reporters almost always convert “REP America” back into “Republicans for Environmental Protection,” because readers react with considerably more interest to that name than they do to our official name.

So now, after ten years, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to go back to using the name we originally wanted to use: Republicans for Environmental Protection. That is still, obviously, quite a mouthful, so when we want to shorten it, we will simply say REP.

We will retain REP America as our “official corporate name” and use it when we clearly want to refer to the nationwide legal entity we are building. But we will begin using that term less as we increase the frequency with which we refer to our organization as “Republicans for Environmental Protection.”

This will entail a bit of effort on our part... including changes to our verbal habits, logo, letterhead, emails, and web site. But the REP board and staff are convinced this is a wise move to make at this time.

As Republicans for Environmental Protection, we’ll have the instant name recognition that has eluded us as REP America. And with our increased visibility, resources and VIP friends within the GOP and national media, we no longer fear the wrath of the Republican National Committee.

So, with this Green Elephant, you’ll note the re-emergence of Republicans for Environmental Protection, or more simply, REP. Other changes will be announced as they occur.