It is no accident of fate that financial problems be-an for U.S. environmental groups just before voters turned control of Congress over to Republicans. But what, exactly should oil and gas companies make of the coincidence?
Groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are in budget slumps and high howl. Republicans will turn back the clock on environmental progress, they warn. Let the elections be a wake-up call to a suddenly complacent public, they assert. Send money now, they plead. The sky is falling.
VALUABLE SERVICE
Well, no. Republicans will not reverse environmental progress. Nobody wants them to do that. What Republicans might do is correct some of the past decade's policy excesses.
Environmental groups performed valuable service in years past by calling attention to and demanding action on-very real problems. Manufacturers did hide rather than properly dispose of dangerous wastes. Air and water had become polluted. Absent government mandates, competitive pressures certainly would have kept companies from fully acknowledging problems, repairing damage, and taking sufficient care in the future.
But activist groups also raised fears where none were warranted - or where simple concern would have sufficed. Alar didn't really endanger young apple munchers. Simple caution about asbestos and dioxin would have been more constructive than the panics that arose over them. Not all regions that violate Clean Air Act pollution standards have the chronic air quality problems of the Los Angeles basin, although policy prescriptions imply otherwise.
Shrinking budgets at the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and midterm election victories by Republicans probably mean that the electorate is ready to take a less fearful approach to environmental problem solving. But complacency? That voters want government to play a Diminishing role in their lives seems obvious. That they want less protection for the environment seems much less so.
There is no contradiction here, as the environmental groups will suggest. Voters' desires for both environmental protection and less intense governance can and should be viewed as signs of environmental progress. Once individuals and companies integrate environmental values into their thinking and behavior, they no longer need prodding from activists or mandates from government.
This interpretation of recent events won't help the pressure groups raise funds. But maybe those groups have had their day. Maybe now the U.S. can address environmental issues more scientifically and economically than it has before-and less anxiously. People and the environment will benefit ii this is so.
REFUTE ALARMISM
Oil and gas companies should refute the alarmism of the moment and herald the step forward that environmental discourse seems ready to take. But they must not think that Republican control of Congress compromises environmental values or that the public has turned complacent about them.
Environmentalism is stronger than ever. It is stronger because it is maturing. What began as-and to a large extent remains-a bludgeon of complex often exaggerated, and sometimes conflicting policies is crystallizing into a core of values to be acted on as a matter of personal and corporate responsibility. The process strengthens the imperative to work safely and carefully. As long as everyone understands that, the sky will never fall.
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
