newsroom

Capitol Hill Spy

THE WILD WEST

by Hibernicus

The current United States Senate is a conservative, anti-environmental body. The Kyoto Treaty has already been pronounced dead, and the Adminstration won't even submit it until 1999. What has changed from a generation ago when the Senate championed a number of prominent environmental laws and regulations?

The Senate has always had a strong conservative bloc from the South. And today Dixie sends more anti-green Senators than ever: Al Gore's former seat in Tennessee is now held by Fred Thompson, David Pryor's former seat in Arkansas belongs to Tim Hutchinson. Net loss to nature.

But the biggest shift in the political compositions of the Senate has come from the Mountain West. The Rocky Mountain and Alaska delegation is now represented by 13 conservative and anti-environment Republicans and 4 moderate Democrats. Subtract Nevada and you're down to two light-green Senators. This lopsided bias is recent. There have been some pretty good environmentalist Western Senators in the recent past. Twenty five years ago, Mike Gravel was in Alaska, Frank Moss was in Utah, Mike Mansfield in Montana and Frank Church in Idaho. Colorado had Gary Hart followed by Tim Wirth. There were governors like Bruce Babitt and Cecil Andrue. Now we have extremists like Larry Craig in Idaho and Conrad Burns in Montana. As for Alaska, fuhgettaboutit. And these guys matter; since most public lands lie in their states, they wield undue influence on national decisions regarding their use. Expanding wilderness does not rank highly on their list of priorities. Nor does any federal regulation. Nor do global warming treaties.

The political texture changed out west due to increased suburbanization and the relentless efforts of the commercial "wise use" movement and allies like the Farm Bureau. The Mormon Church and the rise of the religious right are also a factor. Colorado Springs, for instance, has become a center of religious-political zeal. Environmental organizations in the west can't match the deep pockets of industry and its associated lobbies.

Despite efforts of statewide citizen organizations in the West to build alliances among other "progressive" organizations, the electoral forces on the right swamp everyone remotely left of center. You can only hope that in several of these Western states ongoing public education campaigns and the in-migration of boomers looking for a better quality of life will begin to turn the tide. Perhaps some day responsible Senators might be elected again. No facts or arguments about the environment are going to convince the current batch. They will have to be defeated at the polls.

As long as we're on the subject of defeating recalcitrant Senators, the global warming treaty provides an interesting opportunity. Rather than spending resources in a vain attempt to convince the obdurate, the environmental movement might be better advised to knock off a couple of treaty opponents in this fall's elections. Public opinion supports the treaty (more or less), so let's make this fight against special interests. For argument's sake, Colorado (Ben Nighthorse Campbell) and New York (Alphonse D'Amato) could be targeted for an intensive education. Only by turning global warming into an electoral issue and defeating a Senator or two will the environmental movement inspire any fear among the troglydites in the Senate. It's a longshot for the treaty, but there's no shot at all for a successful ratification fight in the neat term.

 

Hibernicus is a career traffic cop at the intersection of Environment Street and Politics Boulevard. His need for quick money makes him a frequent contributor to these pages.

 

Recent Capitol Hill Spy Articles:

Archived 2/03/98 -- Hibernicus, "Half a Loaf, Half a Loaf, Half a Loaf Onward"
Archived 11/19/97 -- Hibernicus, "Chicken Doo and Turf Builder"