Environmental Groups Elaborate Defensive Posture
By Ken St. Onge
WASHINGTON – Expecting significant challenges by an increased Republican congressional majority, environmental groups are likely to find themselves locked in a defensive battle over spending and legislation with both Congress and the Bush administration during the next two years, their leaders said at a briefing Wednesday.
Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, dismissed a recent statement by Mike Leavitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, that the Nov. 2 election victory was a mandate for President Bush’s environmental agenda. Her group’s “state partners are preparing for a devolution on environmental policy from the Bush administration,” she said.
Added Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust: “The environment is likely to be one of the top targets in the next Congress.… The strategy will be to help corporate allies,” who will argue that “we don’t know when we will have the majorities that we have again. Now we want environmental laws weakened.”
Technical maneuvering in the packaging of bills by the party leadership poses one of the biggest threats to environmental legislation, Marchant Wentworth, legislative representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. Existing environmental law could be restructured by adding riders to unrelated bills such as military appropriations for Iraq or by referring legislation to committees more inclined toward deregulation.
Although in a defensive posture, the groups outlined a series of strategies they could follow in the next two years to counteract environmental deregulation. They will try to put pressure on the administration to work toward a global climate change accord like the Kyoto Protocol, Clapp said, which could help the President, who rejected it, as he tries to bridge gaps with allies who were signatories to that agreement.
The environmental groups may also lobby moderate Republicans, such as incoming Budget Committee chairman Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who in the past have shown support for environmental legislation. Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate but are still vulnerable to dissent by moderates. That could lend those members added political weight, Clapp said.
“The Judd Greggs of the world are concerned with their drinking water,” Wentworth said.
Gregg, at a press conference Wednesday announcing his promotion to chairman, declined to speculate on the implications his new position would have on issues such as drilling for oil in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
Another strategy the environmental advocates identified was working with state-level groups to promote local initiatives. Callahan, noting the success that state ballot referenda had on bringing pro-environment voters to the polls on Nov. 2, said her group supported 147 ballot initiatives on land conservation in 25 states, 111 of which passed. Those efforts would continue to be a part of its broader strategy on encouraging environmental reform.
In Massachusetts, for example, 10 towns (including Groveland and Middleton) adoptedthe Community Preservation Act on Nov. 2. Already in effect in a number of areas statewide, (including North Andover, Boxford and Georgetown) the initiative authorizes ? a local property tax surcharge to generate money for open space, affordable housing, historic preservation and recreation. The state provides matching grants for the funds raised through the surcharge.
During the final period before the election, Clapp said, Bush attempted “to green up” his record, visiting swing states such as Florida and Michigan, where he announced significant new funding to clean up the Everglades and the Great Lakes .
Those efforts, Callahan said, suggest that a lack of support for environmentalism can be a political vulnerability.
“It’s dangerous for politicians to have to defend rolling back clean air and environmental enforcement,” she said.
But now that the elections have passed, Clapp said, it’s less clear how that dynamic will play out.
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