A Green Party? Or Is the Party for Environmental Action Over?

Ali Webb

Ali Webb is Elections Director for the League of Conservation Voters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan political action committee dedicated to electing pro-environment members to the House and Senate. Ms. Webb served as press secretary to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley for seven years and was subsequently the national press secretary to Congressman Richard Gephardt's 1988 presidential campaign. She holds a Master's degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

[21 ELR 10175]

I understand that we could fill our oil needs forever if we would only put some oil wells in Alaska," said a woman when discussing the oil crisis caused by the war in the Middle East. The part of Alaska she was referring to is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).¹ Last year, environmentalists thought they had saved this priceless wilderness from oil development, and the public seemed to have joined them in their battle to save it. With the horror of the environmental damage caused by the Exxon Valdez fresh in everyone's mind and the meager estimates about the amount of oil in the Refuge anyway, the preservation of the ANWR had then seemed assured.² But today, when hearing a remark like the one above, we must ask ourselves whether we have lost the battle to save not only the Refuge, but our worldwide environment as well.

As the country confronts both war and recession, the environmental community also faces two enormous challenges. The first is to hold on to the ground already won for environmental issues, such as the 10-year ban on drilling off the coasts of California and Florida.³ The second is to battle the problems threatening the planet, such as global warming, breathable air, and drinkable water. Today, despite the media hype surrounding "the environmental decade of the 1990s," the prognosis for saving the planet appears dim.

To improve this prognosis, we must elect leaders who recognize and accept environmental challenges. To elect them, we must muster the political grassroots support that exists nationwide among those committed to healing the environment. This Dialogue opens with a discussion of the environmental movement and the problems it now seeks — but fails — to address. It then discusses the possibilities for making the 1993 Congress the Congress to solve these environmental problems.

The Environmental Movement

In 1970, we celebrated the first "Earth Day." It was a focal point for the nation's desire for environmental change, and it established a climate for the political change that resulted in the modern environmental movement. That climate led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); authorization of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act,⁴ legislation committed to toxic waste cleanup; the 1970 Clean Air Act;⁵ the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA);⁶ and a host of other legislative solutions. New organizations — such as the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and Environmental Action — sprang up. Many, like NRDC and EDF, focused on legal remedies to pollution problems, while all proposed legislative solutions and lobbied House and Senate members for their votes. The 1970s marked important legislative victories.

The 1980s, however, beat a quick retreat.

How far we have retreated is evident from a chart recently published in Newsweek.⁷ It tracks our national energy consumption: from a low point in 1970, energy consumption rose in the 1970s, dropped sharply at the end of that decade, and then spurted off the chart in the 1980s. Today, the [21 ELR 10176] United States imports 50 percent of its oil, compared with 35 percent in 1970.⁸ But oil consumption is just one harbinger of our impending environmental doom.

Consider the facts. Each year Americans throw away 16 billion disposable diapers, 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razors and blades, and 220 million tires.⁹ Destruction of forests and other habitats is driving 100 species of plants and animals to extinction every day.¹⁰ In 1988, the EPA released a report showing 2.4 billion pounds of toxic pollutants pumped into the air every year.¹¹ At least one-quarter of our rivers and lakes are unsafe for fishing and swimming.¹² Hopefully, those of our rivers and lakes will be addressed when Congress debates the FWPCA this session. But even if the FWPCA amendments are as successful as last year's Clean Air amendments, these pieces of legislation are the equivalent of putting Band-Aids on compound fractures.

Consider the threat. The environmental crisis is not national, it is global. Recent news reports that 1990 was the hottest year since people began measuring the planet's surface temperature¹³ seem to support the scientific data indicating that global warming legislation and the "Environmental President" has backed away from international accords on the issue. The hole in the ozone is getting bigger, and we cannot muster the political muscle to pass the minimum laws to address the problem. We are using more oil and fossil fuels than ever before. We cannot even recycle newspapers effectively because we have not invested in the technology to do so. Even though we have the technology to cut household heating bills, and we have developed new light bulbs that use one-fourth of the energy now required by regular bulbs,¹⁴ we do not conserve. Individually, Americans have bought millions of copies of 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth;¹⁵ nationally, we still have no national energy policy.

Consider the situation in the Middle East. View it as yet another warning of the urgent need for us to develop a national energy program that focuses on energy conservation, not on more oil and fossil fuel development.¹⁶ But no one has sounded a flag-waving, clarion call to stop oil gluttony at home to help the men and women fighting the war. President Bush and the congressional leadership of both parties have offered only unworkable programs and unthinkable compromises, like drilling in ANWR, as poor substitutes for a conservation-based national energy plan.

These problems overwhelm the environmental community's capacity to correct them using traditional channels of legislation, lobbying, and legal remedies. The generation of the first Earth Day ran very hard, but still lost ground. It is not a cleaner, brighter world, but a planet tottering on the edge of environmental self-destruction. The hope for dramatic, visionary leadership is between slim and none.

Greenbacks for Green Politicians

The special interests of big oil, chemical, agri-business, and timber to name a few, that fund campaigns and crowd congressional meeting schedules, have convinced too many lawmakers that members of the environmental community are "chicken littles" crying, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling."

The sky is falling. And it will continue to fall as long as our elected leaders do not have the political spine to stand up for the environment. If our elected leaders will not demand a 45-mile-per-gallon car over the objections of Detroit, we need to elect officials who will. If certain congresspersons will not get behind the strongest possible Clean Water legislation, we must elect those who will. This is the democratic process — a process the LCV has been involved in for the past 20 years.¹⁷

Last year, the LCV, as an independent political organization, endorsed 128 candidates and spent $ 250,000, doubling both the number of candidates it endorsed and the resources it spent in 1988. The Sierra Club Political Committee endorsed 211 candidates and spent $ 350,000. But the most ever spent by the environmental community is just a drop in the ocean of greenbacks that fuel our electoral system.

One statistic putting the "green"¹⁸ political action committees' spending in perspective appeared in a recent Associated Press story.¹⁹ It reported that the timber industry spent $ 8.4 million in the last eight years on candidates, while the entire environmental community spent only $ 2 million. But the timber industry is only one of the special interests running against pro-environment candidates; chemical, oil, and agri-business interests are likely to spend as much, if not more.

Despite these tremendous financial disadvantages, environmental candidates continue to win. In 1990, for example, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was elected to the U.S. Senate. [21 ELR 10177] In the House, of the 15 incumbents defeated, five were consistent enemies of environmental protection. The environmental community also rose to the challenge of protecting some incumbents who are proven champions of its issues, like Reps. Jim Jontz (D-Ind.) and Jolene Unsoeld (D-Wash.).

The environmental community is becoming more politically sophisticated. For example, the LCV developed television ads in 1989 for the first time, and green candidates nationwide bought expensive airtime to get an environmental message out to voters for the 1990 election. Countless newspaper stories measured the environmental promises of candidates. Groups of volunteers went door to door in some races to carry the word of who was the pro-environment choice.

But for every successful election, we have lost a dozen; or worse, we have been unable to even enter the race because we were flat broke. In the last cycle, the host of environmental initiatives — from California's Big Green to the New York Environmental Quality Bond Act to Forests Forever — all failed. Big Green, for example, was outspent four to one by the same special interests out to defeat pro-environment candidates. And even while the initiatives were failing to get enough votes, 94 percent of Americans were telling pollsters that environmental protection was a very important issue.²⁰ Something is wrong when most voters agree with your position, but vote against your candidate. The issue confronting the environmental community then is how to translate the broad public support into tangible successes in Congress.

Turnover in Congress

The 1992 cycle may witness the turnover of over 25 percent of the members of the House. Several factors will contribute to the turnover, including the new law that allows members of Congress to convert their campaign war chests into personal funds if they retire this year.²¹ At least 50 will "take the money and not run" in 1992.

The redistricting of the House resulting from the recent census will create additional turnover. In 1992, the minimum turnover from redistricting will be 27, since 27 seats will shift from one state to another. Adding those seats to the approximately 20 to 30 seats otherwise available, because of competing incumbents or because an incumbent's district is considerably altered, totals another 50 new members.

Finally, 1992 may be the year the "throw the rascals out" movement grows up, with multi-million dollar campaigns in many states urging voters to choose "none of the above." Even if this effort shaves only a few thousand votes from the total of most incumbents, it could cause 25 additional losses for them.

With the possibility that the 100 to 150 new members sworn in when Congress convenes in 1993 could create sweeping changes, how can the underfunded environmental community defeat the heavily funded special interests in this election of unparalleled opportunity? Some have suggested running a "green" presidential candidate to focus national attention on environmental issues, forcing the eventual winner to reckon with the environmental community's candidate. Others think that the movement should start with a "Green Party," following the lead of other countries, such as Germany. This Green Party push comes from activists who realize that their environmental platforms are not being addressed seriously and substantively by either political party. But others believe that we simply must raise the stakes of the game.

The LCV has an ambitious plan to raise one million dollars in 1991 by finding new financial supporters in 50 cities in 50 weeks. The new LCV president, former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, will take the pro-green message on the road to find those pockets.

The plan is simple. With big money to spend, the impact of the environmental community will increase geometrically. With active, political grassroots support, the community's traditional strength will be amplified. The aim is straightforward: that 94 percent of the American population will take their pro-environment attitude into the polling place and replace the bad environmental incumbents with fresh new green voices.

1. "The Reagan administration's final ANWR study in 1987 called for opening up the entire 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to immediate development. But after more than 25 hearings in four committees, drilling bills died on their way to both floors in the 100th Congress. Last year, action quickly stalled again after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound." 48 CONG. Q. 161 (Jan. 20, 1990).

The fate of ANWR is still being debated. On February 5, 1991, Sens. Johnston (D-La.) and Wallop (R-Wyo.) introduced a bill (S. 341) that would open the coastal plain of the refuge to oil and gas leasing. The month before, Sen. Murkowski (R-Ark.) had introduced S.109, which would open the coastal plain to oil and gas exploration and production. However, two bills — H.R. 39 and S.39 — were also introduced in January that would designate the coastal plain as wilderness.

2. During the Reagan Administration, the Department of the Interior gave a 1 in 20 chance that there is any oil at all in the Refuge's coastal plain, and further, that if there is indeed oil there, it would meet only 2 percent of our oil needs. Wilderness Society Press Release, "George Bush at Two Years," Jan. 23, 1991, at 2.

3. PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A QUARTERLY SUMMARY OF INITIATION AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS, NOV. 1990, at 14.

4. 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-9675, ELR STAT. CERCLA 001-075.

5. 42 U.S.C. §§ 7401-7626.

6. 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1387, ELR STAT. FWPCA 001-068.

7. Waldman, Will Bush Be Bold?, NEWSWEEK, Jan. 7, 1991, at 28-29 [chart data source: U.S. Department of Energy].

8. MacKenzie, Breathing Easier: Taking Action on Climate Change, Air Pollution, and Energy Insecurity, June 1989, at 14 [World Resources Institute].

9. The Endangered Planet, TIME, Jan. 2, 1989, at 22.

10. Id. at 30.

11. See Caution: The Air You Breathe May Be Hazardous to Your Health, THE NAT'L VOTER, June/July 1990, at 4-5.

12. BLUE PRINT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT (K. Maize ed. 1988).

13. Stevens, Separate Studies Rank '90s as World's Hottest Year, N.Y. Times, Jan. 10, 1991, at A1.

14. EARTHWORKS GROUP, 50 SIMPLE THINGS KIDS CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH 108 (1990).

15. EARTHWORKS GROUP, 50 SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH (1989).

16. During the last three presidential administrations, the country has had no national energy policy. As a Washington Post editorial pointed out in December, "It's important to back up the military operations in the Persian Gulf by holding down oil consumption here in the United States." Wash. Post, Dec. 17, 1990, at A10, col. 1.

17. Unlike LCV, many environmental groups have a nonprofit tax status that prohibits them from political activity. Those that do get involved in political activity are, in general, recent entrants. For example, the Sierra Club, which will be 100 years old in 1992, became involved in politics 10 years ago when it formalized the Sierra Club Political Committee. Electoral political action has been outside the mainstream of environmental action even for groups like Greenpeace, which adheres strictly to a nonelectoral stance.

18. "Green" refers to the environmental movement and denotes environmental issues. In the United States, the use of "green" in the environmental context is informal, while in other countries it represents a specific political movement spearheaded by the Green Party, which places environmental protection as a first order value for political action. In the late 1980s, Green Parties in Europe substantially increased their representation in France, Britain, and other countries.

19. Sonner, Tall Stacks of Cold Cash Behind Emotional Forest Fight (Feb. 21, 1991).

20. Data from Time magazine poll by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Is The Planet on the Back Burner?, TIME, Dec. 24, 1990, at 48.

21. Ethics Reform Act of 1989, Pub. L. No. 101-194, 103 Stat. 1716.