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Contact Jim: jdipeso@rep.org (253) 740-2066 / 2009 Archive / 2008 Archive / 2007 Archive / 2006 Archive / 2005 Archive
Beyond Bush: Getting Conservatives Back into the Game
January 15, 2009
Last week, at the stroke of a pen, President Bush protected more marine waters at one time than any other leader had ever done before.
Bush’s four marine monuments, including a preserve that he established in 2006, protect nearly 215 million acres, bigger than the combined size of all national parks, all national wildlife refuges, and the National Landscape Conservation System.
If only Bush did for the air and the land what he did for the sea.
Among the administration’s environmental errors of omission and commission, the biggest were energy and the closely related issue of climate change. The attacks of 9/11 were a singular opportunity to begin purging the dangerous dependence on oil out of our energy economy and accelerate the transition to cleaner, more secure forms of energy.
That opportunity passed untapped, and only recently, with the costs of oil dependence becoming impossible to ignore, did the Bush administration edge towards a more rational approach to energy.
Likewise with climate. The administration finally accepted the scientific case for human-caused climate change, but years were lost to dithering and narrow politics.
With Bush heading for a quiet retirement in Texas, several leading Republicans are prodding the party to change course by ditching its recalcitrant attitudes about environmental policy and getting into the game on climate and other issues.
Even Bush’s political maestro, Karl Rove, has warned that Republicans’ failure to embrace a positive green agenda risks long-term loss of support from young voters, who voted 2 to 1 for Barack Obama.
Up-and-coming Republicans who have taken on the climate issue, such as Governors Jon Huntsman of Utah and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, are pushing the GOP to come up with a strong climate approach that fits with Republican principles.
Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who used to be skeptical about climate change, is pushing a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has proposed a cap-and-trade system that starts with power plants, a way of making a very complex policy more manageable than would be the case with an economy-wide system.
While the details of the differing GOP climate policy approaches are important to examine and debate, the politics have special significance.
As Inglis said, Republicans should show how conservatives could contribute towards a climate solution that is better than what Democrats would come up with if left entirely to their command-and-control devices.
That’s the right attitude – for Republican leaders to rediscover their conservation heritage and, over time, make Bush's marine conservation legacy less a bright exception and more a standard approach to stewardship.
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