Environmentalists and Democrats in America gear up to tackle the Republican "onslaught" on landmark protection laws
Greens scream blue murder
AMERICAN greens are seeing red. April 22
this year, the 25th anniversary of Earth
Day, saw them bludgeoning the
Republicans with slogans and protests.
America's environmentalists, so far one
of the most influential pressure groups
in the country, have never felt so
betrayed before. Congress'
attempts to "remodel" the major
environmental laws not only
rattled their agenda, but showed
them that the mass base they had
taken for granted could
vapourise - with a little help
ftom Republican rabblerousing.
The proposal to "overhaul"
the 1972 Clean Water Act has
especially agitated environmentalists. On April 7, the House
Committee on Transportation
and Public Works put its stamp
of approval on a bill proposing
sweeping revisions to this landmark law, which was enacted to
protect the "chemical, physical
and biological integrity of the
nation's waters".
The bill, an adroit pro-corporate turnaround from its original unbending environmental
purpose, will bar federal regulators from imposing new restrictions on waste discharges from
industrial plants into lakes or
streams if the costs outweigh the
benefits. What environmentalists find most disturbing is the clause
which seeks to drastically narrow down
the definition of which wetlands need
federal protection.
The new definition is expected to
end federal jurisdiction over at least half
the regulated wetlands by "devolving"
regulatory responsibilities from the federal to the state and local governments.
"The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and Washington will not be able
to dictate to the states and localities as
they have been doing in the past,- exuded Bud Shuster, chairperson of the
House Committee.
Shuster is hankering for "commonsense" to be brought into the state's
approach to environmental protection.
"Overzealous wetlands regulations turn
every mud puddle into a wetland. For
example, the Morris Town (New Jersey)
airport was not allowed to cut down a
tree blocking the runway view of the
control tower because the tree was supposedly in a wetland," raged Shuster's
spitfire open letter in the New York
Times.
The farm and land promoters lobbies applauded him. They have a history
of griping about the "complex technical" standards used to determine.
whether property may be developed,
and about these standards being applied
to wetlands that serve "little ecological
purpose".
The conservationists are screaming
blue murder. They retort that the
House Committee's definition is a
"political contrivance" that leaves
the lands vulnerable to attacks
from Ivoracious land sharks.
Shuster, they have alleged, has
"sold" inillions of acres of valuable wttlands to real estate devel-
opers atid oil companies. As evidence, they point to the fact that
to draft this crucial bill, he roped
in industry's lawyers.
In a stinging retort to the
Congfessman's open letter, David
Ortman, director of the frontrunning environmental NGo, Friends
of the Earth, said, "The Clean
Water Act does not regulate the
cutting of trees, whether in a wetland or not ... and Mr Shuster's
'mud puddle' is actually a significant wetland of 75 acres (about
30 hectares)."
"Basically, the science is very complex and the legislation is very simplistic," said Joy B Zedler, a wetlands biologist at San Diego State University and a
member on the NAS panel. The proposed
law seeks to classify the wetlands under
different categories on the basis of their
water levels and the kinds of plant and
animal species they house, with the
entire exercise aimed at pruning federal
protection to the maximum extent possible. Scientists contend that it is almost
impossible to rank wetlands in order of
relative ecological value as their conditions vary seasonally and regionally.
The loudest protests have come
from the EPA authorities, seething with
resentment at this brazen attempt to
shove them into the backseat. "It is a
programme of counterfeit wetlands
protection," raged Robert Perciasepe,
top-rung water quality EPA official. "The
bill proposes scientifically unsound
methods of identifying wetlands that the
Association of State Wetlands Managers
estimates would eliminate some 60 to 80
per cent of the nation's wetlands from
regulatory protection, including large
parts of the Everglades and the Great
Dismal Swamp."
As if this were not enough, another
Republican'Scud is heading dead-on at
the bastion of environmental ideology,
the Endangered Species Act. The act
allows federal authorities to prevent loggers and private property owners from
foraying into forest areas that are known
as habitats for rare animal and bird
species.
Further, any species to be declared
endangered will have to run the gauntlet
of a new bill requiring a vote of the legislature, initiated by Republican Senator
Slade Gorton. The bill will also force the
government to compensate landowners
whose property values decline due the
enforcement of the act. In other words,
federal officials will have to lobby and
clear their way through bureaucratic
brushwood to put a species on the
endangered list.
At least on this issue,
the Republicans appear to
be carrying the public
with them. The Endangered Species Act was
passed in 1973 primarily
to protect animals threatened with extinction. But
over the years, it has
degenerated into a captive
tool for the federal regulation of private land use. It
has been branded as the
main catalyst of a nationwide property rights
movement, apparently fed
by the peoples' growing
aversion to the "excesses
of environmentalism't.
"To suggest that
progress ought to be held up because of various
exotic creatures, violates common sense," says Lew Uhler, chairperson of the
kight-wing national coalition named - truculently - Get
Government Off Our Backs. "Intelligent
people cannot believe that a salamander
or a kangaroo rat is as important as their
families or their livelihoods," he says.
The Republicans have reason to
chortle. Congress has cashed in on the
growing public disillusionment of
all things environmental. This is the
flip side of what is seen as shrill, autocratic environmental overkill, even by
pro-environment politicians like Democrat Congressman Tom Hayden.
"it (the environmental movement)
needs immediate and dramatic
renewal," he says.
Greenwatchers are convinced that it
is time that the electorate is introduced
to effective and affordable conservation
programmes, which should not be
allowed to be scuttled at the whims of
politicians driven by corporate interests.
The frightening possibility is of the antienvironmentalist lobby getting away
with proposals to clobber those environmental programmes that voters
believe - often mistakenly - do not
work anyway.
Green activists have also got the
message loud and clear. Mark Murray,
head of the pro-recycling group,
California Against Waste, is trying out a
new strategy to hardsell the pro-green
bills he is pushing this year. Instead of
emphasising litter reduction and the
Bill
other ecological benefits
of recycling, he is talking
about creating jobs and
increasing efficiency. "For
too long, it was easy to
persuade our audience
that environmental protection was simply the
right thing to do. We're
paying for that now," he
rues.
But now environmentalists seem to be all set to
make up for lost time. On
Earth Day, various groups
launched a "Save the
Planet" campaign by circulating a petition demanding that Congress
maintain the standards set
by the landmark environmental statutes."The environmental community is galvanised like never
before," enthused Fred
Krupp, executive director
of the NGO, the Environmental Defense
Fu@d. "We are prepared to go all out to
preserve the strong environmental legacy we've worked hard to build."
I Behind such seemingly anachronistic, optimism is the fact that the
Clinton Administration is unequivocally in their camp, even though Congress
is hellbent on sidelining them. For a
while earlier, environmental groups
were left guessing about whether the
go0ernment - beleaguered by allegations of political wimpishness - would
take the easy way out and dump them.
While vice-president Al Gore had been
spewing venom at the "marauding"
Republicans right from the outset,
President Clinton himself had preferred
to waffle.
Fortunately, Earth Day saw him
barge out explicitly, threatening to
launch offensives against Congress if
it carried on with its efforts to "erase
2 decades of environmental gains".
Clinton orated in the third person,
"The President will vote ... and the
President will vote no. Americans have
stood as one to say no to toxic food, poisoned water and dirty air ... It would be
crazy to forget the lessons of the last
25 years." For the 300-odd crowd that
gathered at a Chesapeake Bay water-
front park in Maryland, Washington,
this was a declaration ofwar, belated but
welcome.
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