As Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt has the triple responsibility of overseeing the development of federal resources such as the Outer Continental Shelf, the multiple use of other resources such as western lands, and the protection of national parks and refuges.
Babbitt made it clear last week that he is really only interested in the latter.
The secretary, who was president of the League of Conservation Voters before coming to Interior, delivered a strong defense of the environment during a National Press Club speech last week.
In fact, he argued more emotionally about preserving the environment and current environmental laws than did Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner in a similar talk a few days earlier.
Whistlestopping
Babbitt said he has completed 11 trips around the country since Earth Day on May 1, stopping in 67 cities and towns. He talked with hundreds of people and not one of them told me that our conservation laws should be weakened.
He said, The sleeping giant has awakened, and the American people have begun to speak out against efforts to revise the nations body of environmental legislation.
While in the 1994 election campaigns the environment was not an issue, I can assure you that by November 1996, in each county, state, congressional and in the presidential election, the environment will be right at the core of every single debate.
He reiterated the Clinton administrations opposition to a congressionally approved measure that would allow oil exploration on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain in Northeast Alaska.
Babbitt said drilling would affect the population of the Porcupine River caribou herd, explaining that new data show that the band of the Central Arctic herd breeding in the Prudhoe Bay field area has had a 40% decline in calving rates.
He said bills reforming the Endangered Species Act do too little to protect species. Those bills remind me of the false front towns they use in Western movies.
Babbitt was angriest about the fact Republicans in the House of Representatives have attached measures changing environmental laws to appropriations legislation.
The use of budget bills to surreptitiously attack the environmental laws of this country is despicable.
Good sound bite
That made a good sound bite, but it indicates either naivete or a disregard for the facts.
Nothing has been secreted in the spending bills, and using them to pass miscellaneous bills or to set federal policy is a common practice. Since it is hard to block such bills, riders attached to them have a better chance of passage.
In fact, for more than a decade environmental groups have used the Interior budget bill to block offshore lease sales in many regions, despite laws allowing leasing. And they did it again last summer.
But when the shoe is on the other foot, the practice suddenly becomes despicable.
Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
