Strong winds from D C :
Ferkiss, Victor
REPORT ON THE ENVIRONMENT STRONG WINDS FROM D.C. THE END OF PROTECTION? The American environmental movement is in disarray and on the defensive. The 1994 Republican victory has led to an...
...Corporations have felt obliged to present themselves and their activities as environmentally benign...
...In mid-May, the House passed legislation gutting the Clean Water Act...
...Federal employees have been shot at and are often in physical danger as they carry out their duties...
...Constitution-long considered a dead letter-is being given renewed attention in an attempt to reassert the rights of the states against the federal government and to roll back higher federal standards for the environment...
...In face of this attack on environmental safeguards, the Clinton administration, rather than asserting its authority, has sought to compromise with congressional opponents...
...Takings" legislation that would compensate owners for loss of value when land is set aside for environmental purposes is on the fast track in Congress...
...A moment on the earth," may turn out to have been a matter of mere seconds...
...Their hopes seemed fulfilled when Bruce Babbitt, former head of the League of Conservation Voters, was named secretary of the Interior Department...
...To the old charge of elitism has been added the charge that environmental organizations have simply become another group of well-paid Washington bureaucrats who have lost touch with the people whose views they purport to represent...
...Since Earth Day, 1970, landmark legislation has been enacted to protect our air, water, and endangered species...
...Billions of dollars have been spent to undo the ravages created in building a nuclear arsenal...
...Farmers and developers object to measures protecting wetlands, measures that they claim interfere with their private-property rights...
...The Tenth Amendment to the U.S...
...But Babbitt's push to regain control of public lands from ranching interests has been stalled by local opposition and the administration's unwillingness to go all out on his behalf...
...the battle over NAFTA split them badly...
...Among the factors he notes is that most of those business interests who have proclaimed, and advertised, their devotion to being Green In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...
...They do little to coordinate their lobbying efforts...
...Hunters and others object to protection given endangered species and their habitats...
...Much depends on future political dynamics...
...Even Gregg Easterbrook, author of A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism (Viking)-a book criticized by many environmentalists as grossly overstating the case that the environment is improving-has written that the current Congress may well undo most of the progress he sees as having been made...
...What does the future hold...
...The 1994 Republican victory has led to an across-the-board attack on the progress the country has made over the last twenty-five years to protect the environment...
...Environmentalists expected the 1992 Democratic victory to reinvigorate their cause...
...VICTOR FERKISS Victor Ferkiss is professor emeritus of government at Georgetown University, and the author of Nature, Technology, and Society: Cultural Roots of the Current Environmental Crisis (New York University Press...
...The "Wise Use" movement- successor to the "Sagebrush Rebellion" of the early eighties, especially strong in the West-wants to allow ranchers and timber companies to do more or less as they wish with federal lands...
...Individual counties in the Western United States now claim that they and not the federal government own public lands...
...Has the light of history turned Red for the Greens...
...Fred's an anti-environmentalist...
...Whether Clinton will use his veto power on these issues-and successfully-remains to be seen...
...The Senate may yet revise much of the antigovernment efforts of the House, and the courts conceivably could thwart or modify many efforts to cut back on environmental protection...
...The next issue will be dated July 14...
...Mainstream organizations, such as the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the Natural Resources Defense Council often disagree on national politics...
...These problems are exacerbated by failures within the environmental movement itself...
...As Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton was not a strong environmentalist, and he won the movement's votes because of Al Gore's record and interest in the environment...
...the 240 to 185 vote was a triumphant footnote to Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America...
...Being "green" has been held up as an ideal, especially to the young...
...Vice-President Gore reacted, saying, "The Republican leadership in the House and Senate is evidently trying to insure that this Congress will go down in history as the most anti-environmental Congress ever...
...Federal laws aimed at protecting the environment and controlling guns are both offered as examples of federal tyranny...
...And, of course, the effectiveness of the mainstream environmental organizations in resisting this onslaught on twenty-five years of environmental protection laws remains highly problematic...
...Thirty-four moderate Republicans, mostly from Eastern states, voted no, but more than forty-five conservative Democrats, mostly Southerners, voted yes...
...All of this is now under attack...
...General distrust of government, in the name of still-revered American values such as individualism and the sanctity of private property, has created an ideological overlap between the militia movement and the proponents of "Wise Use...
...have wholeheartedly supported the roll-back of federal regulations...
Vol. 122 • June 1995 • No. 12
