I'm surprised you missed this little article Charles!!!
You're starting to slip on us as designated purveyor of obscrue newsworthy snippets..... <VBG>
washingtonpost.com
GOP Group Forms to Promote Free-Market
Environmentalism
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 15, 1998; Page A06
In an effort to defuse an issue that has dogged the party in recent campaigns, GOP
activists have created a group aimed at promoting free-market solutions to
environmental problems.
The Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates (CREA), which held a
$100,000 fund-raiser in Washington on Wednesday night, plans on touting GOP
politicians' accomplishments with "Teddy Roosevelt awards" and issue ads during
heated electoral contests.
"We're not shying away, we're not changing the subject," declared Colorado
Attorney General Gale A. Norton, a vocal property rights advocate and protege of
Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt. "Republicans will not be surrendering the
environmental issue to Al Gore in the year 2000."
Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, a close ally of House Speaker
Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and a co-chair of the group, said CREA aims to transform the
political debate over the environment by arguing the GOP is not opposed to
environmental protection but simply prefers different approaches to achieving
conservation. He noted that Republicans were traditionally on the defensive when it
came to welfare reform, until lawmakers such as Gingrich started saying they wanted
to help the poor by eliminating federal subsidies.
"What we want to do is have a clean environment. That does not necessarily mean
command economic controls," Norquist said, adding that Republicans will argue
Democrats have blocked Superfund cleanup initiatives at the behest of trial lawyers.
"One of us wants to clean up the environment and the other one wants to make their
friends rich. Which one do you want to play with?"
But the nascent group already has sparked criticism from both moderate
Republicans and traditional environmental advocates, who noted that the committee
includes some of their worst foes. Two-thirds of the senators on the list have ratings
of zero from the League of Conservation Voters, including Majority Leader Trent
Lott (R-Miss.), Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho) and Wayne Allard (R-Colo.).
"The Republican leaders are not responding to the pressure they're feeling on the
environmental agenda by changing their policy, they're responding to pressure on
the environmental agenda by getting political," said Deb Callahan, who heads the
league, adding that her group is considering targeting some of CREA's backers in
the fall campaign.
Rep. Sherwood L. Bohlert (R-N.Y.), who provides campaign funds to
pro-environment Republicans through the TR Fund political action committee, said
he chose not to join the coalition after analyzing its host committee.
"I looked at the lineup and I decided not to participate," he said. "You need to do
more than establish an organization with a good-sounding name."
Backers of the group, however, say they are deliberately rejecting traditional,
federally based approaches to protecting the environment in favor of local and
private-sector solutions. At the coalition's fund-raiser, Gingrich highlighted two
pending bills -- one affecting the Quincy Library National Forest and another aimed
at revitalizing the Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge -- as examples where local groups have
forged a consensus but angered national environmentalists. Several environmental
groups have criticized the Quincy bill for allowing logging in old-growth forests and
have attacked the Salton Sea bill for using millions of dollars in land and
conservation funding and for waiving provisions of the Clean Water Act.
Gingrich's speech, which was both a motivational lecture and a scathing critique of
the federal bureaucracy, laid out a battle plan for Republicans on the environment.
With the help of a group like CREA, he argued, the GOP could redefine what it
means to be an environmentalist.
"The Al Gore, left-wing environmental model is a centralized, bureaucratized,
litigious, adversarial, anti-technology model," he told the audience. "Let's create a
conservationist, common-sense, practical, high-tech environmental model."
In many ways, the new advocacy group highlights Republicans' determination to
counter the barrage of negative publicity and advertising they have encountered on
environmental issues -- attacks many analysts think contributed to the party losing
seats in the 1996 congressional elections. This year, the environment could be a key
issue in several states where seats could switch hands, including California, Idaho,
Iowa, New Mexico and Washington. Some coalition members already have been
targeted by the Sierra Club, including Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) and
Reps. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Bill Redmond (R-N.M.) and Linda A. Smith (R-Wash.).
Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.), who won by fewer than 3,000 votes in 1996, said the
coalition can serve as an alternative to most national environmental groups. "It can
go in with a certain amount of credibility into districts and say to the media, 'Wait a
minute, there are two cases to be made on how a member's record on the
environment has evolved,' " English said.
Sierra Club political director Daniel J. Weiss also viewed the group as a response to
the issue advocacy his and other groups have begun running in closely contested
races.
"This could be a meeting of 'Polluters Anonymous,' " Weiss argued. "Clearly this is
an effort to 'greenscam,' to run ads that try to obscure these and other members'
environmental records."
The group includes several of environmentalists' fiercest opponents, including
Endangered Species Act foe Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) and Rep. Helen
Chenoweth (R-Idaho), who once joked she wasn't concerned about salmon being
endangered because "you can buy a can in Albertson's," a local supermarket.
But CREA president Italia Federici said the host committee reflected the diversity
within the Republican Party, adding that liberals overlook government's excesses.
"The federal government is the single worst polluter of the environment," she said.
c Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company |
