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Party's environmental moves examined

by John Bartlit, Ph.D., a REP member in New Mexico
published in the Los Alamos Monitor on August 29, 2006

Among the array of principles that help us live wisely, only one applies in all cases. That one is, principles do not apply one at a time.

The issues, and views on them, that grow in our democracy are but conflicts among sound principles. If not, the simple affair is not a weighty issue.

A most intriguing case in point is the politics of the environment. A long and winding trail brings us to where the Grand Old Party seems to look less favorably on the environment than the average American.

History poses the great puzzle. Which principles explain why the Republican Party stands as it does? I see no correlation, or at least conflicting correlations, between the party's traditions and its official stand on the environment.

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant (R) signed the bill making Yellowstone the world's first national park.

Teddy Roosevelt (R) is one of four U.S. presidents set in stone on Mt. Rushmore, each for a revered part in shaping our nation. He personified the outdoors. With a stroke of his pen, he doubled the acreage of land reserves (now national forests).

Richard Nixon (R) signed all of our nation's initial laws guarding the air, water and land against waste.

Beyond such singular figures, what about principles?

Republicans are the conservative party. Who can say that conservation is not conservative? Conservative is the way of rural folks, who treasure the tried and true. Waste not, want not. Don't eat the seed corn. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Sound and durable principles all.

Of course, Republicans believe as well in other firm principles. Republicans do not like government control, and for good reason. Government control cannot meet any public need swiftly and flawlessly.

Slightly varied people cannot smartly write and apply a set of rules for slightly varied situations.

Republicans prefer self-responsibility to government control. Yet self-responsibility alone cannot meet any need with fairness among competitors. The contest of industry becomes football with no rules or personally fancied rules.

Before long the players will lobby, in business terms, for a "level playing field." In plain talk: "Please set rules."

The conflicts in the issue are simply the choices in our lone bag of prevailing principles.

Profit margins and jobs concern everyone. Companies speak in vagaries, "rules may put us out of business."

Indeed, companies go out of business all the time, for a host of reasons, with or without the environment among them. A change in anything always lowers profits for someone and boosts profits for a rival. On an individual level, any shifting, whether good or bad for a group, lowers the long-term prospects for some job holders.

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but the need to clean up reduces someone's job security.

At the same time, the need to clean up builds profits and jobs in the cleanup business. And in new technology companies that invent and sell cleaner, less wasteful systems and products. And in businesses that depend on having enough clean air, water, and land available.

Republicans believe invention is the key to economic success. New needs boost up the keenest and swiftest innovators. And it happens visibly faster when rules clarify new needs.

In sum, Republicans have no more nor less reason in principle than anyone else to scrimp on the environment. Why then do the politics look as they do?

The reasons no doubt start from twists in history and the tilt of chance. Once chance has its say, all camps build fervor. Yea, team! Fight. Win.

Congress today is run largely by bugle calls to partisanship.

Yet, wiser forces are afoot as well. I have written before about a group called Republicans for Environmental Protection, or REP America, which continues to grow nationally in numbers and success.

Unlike many a "Center for Lofty Stuff and Such," the name accurately describes the organization. Greens on the right speak out once again.

Better to rest the bugle and deal with the conflicts in the common set of values we all hold. The winners would be the environment, the economy, and the nation.