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Teddy's on Rushmore; critics forgotten

by REP Executive Director Jim Scarantino
published in the Albuquerque Journal on February 10, 2000

 RE: "Land grab isn't lawful"

A familiar theme among the critics of President Clinton's actions to protect the remaining roadless areas in our National Forests is to decry a "federal land grab."

Excuse me, folks, but the federal lands in question are already owned by all of us as citizens of the United States. And, the so-called "executive order" they bemoan is really a directive from the President to the Secretary of the Interior to hold hearings around the country toward the aim of eventually fashioning a proposal about the Forest Service's future in the road-building business.

Is there really anyone out there who wants the Forest Service building more and more roads, when it has an $8 billion backlog and cannot take care of the 800,000-mile system it already has?

A century ago, one of America's most loved presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, issued executive orders left and right to protect millions upon millions of acres of public lands for posterity.

A century ago, the nation heard the same wails of "federal land grab" from people who were waging their own kind of war on the West. Roosevelt must have been doing something right. He is up on Mount Rushmore; no one can name even one of his critics.

Roosevelt's actions continue to enjoy broad popular support. Opponents of protecting our public federal lands are in a shrinking minority.

Just ask the Republican Party's own pollsters. A 1999 poll by Frank Luntz, who participated in authoring Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," found that 88 percent of Americans worry that many of the country's special places may be lost unless our government acts to protect them. He found that 89 percent of Americans believe a government trust fund should be used to protect wildlife habitat and forests.

Also, in 1999, Zogby International interviewed 1,000 likely GOP voters in Iowa, California, New Hampshire, New York and South Carolina. The poll found that half the GOP voters identified themselves as "environmentalists." GOP voters ranked the environment equally important as family values and more important than cutting taxes or restricting abortion.

The same strong support carries over to Clinton's proposal to protec the remaining roadless areas in our National Forests. A December '99 poll by the Republican polling firm, American Viewpoint, shows that the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt is alive and strong. By a 2-to-1 margin (62 to 31 percent), Republicans support the Clinton proposal to protect roadless areas.

Thanks to the enduring vision of Roosevelt, and the good sense of the American people, our public lands will survive the latest outbreak of hysteria, just as they did at the dawn of the 20th Century.