The New York Times
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Environmental Groups Join in Opposing Choice for Interior Secretary

By DOUGLAS JEHL

January 12, 2001

Major environmental groups joined today in registering strong opposition to the selection of Gale A. Norton as interior secretary, calling her views "fundamentally incompatible" with the task of being steward of the nation's public lands.

A letter sent to members of the Senate committee who must consider her nomination said that Ms. Norton had championed "extreme" views on property rights and that confirming would mean "a momentous shift backwards" from the path toward conservation.

One of the groups opposing Ms. Norton is Republicans for Environmental Protection. Its president, Martha Marks, called her selection "a divisive choice at a time when unity is sorely needed."

"With so many pro-conservation Republicans qualified for this position," Ms. Marks said in a statement to be read at a news conference in Washington on Friday, "we cannot understand why President- elect Bush chose someone who holds views shared by only a minority in our party and the nation at large."

The groups that will announce their opposition to Ms. Norton at the news conference include the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters, which endorsed Vice President Al Gore in the presidential election; Republicans for Environmental Protection, which endorsed Senator John McCain in the Republican primaries; and the Wilderness Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which took no formal stand.

That environmental groups were unhappy with the selection of Ms. Norton became evident almost from the moment she was named by Mr. Bush. But the first declaration of opposition was made today.

And Ms. Norton, 46, a former attorney general of Colorado, faced a separate round of criticism today after an article in The Washington Post called attention to a 1996 speech in which she said the importance of states' rights were diminised by the loss of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But she noted in that speech that the central issue of slavery in the Civil War undercut a defense of states' rights.

The transition team, already stung by the withdrawal of Linda Chavez as the labor secretary designee has mounted a vigorous defense of Ms. Norton, with President-elect Bush leading the way.

Responding to a question at a news conference today, Mr. Bush called the article, and subsequent criticism by civil rights groups, "just a ridiculous interpretation of what's in her heart."

"I'm confident when she gets a fair hearing, when people hear her and listen to what she has to say and look at her record as a elected official in a state like Colorado, she's going to be confirmed," Mr. Bush said.

Through spokesmen, Ms. Norton has declined to address criticism directly, saying that she will heed the convention in which nominees respond to substantive questions only during their confirmation hearings in the Senate.

The hearings are scheduled to open next Thursday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and today's announcement by environmental groups set the stage for what promises to be an angry battle.

The letter to the senators said Ms. Norton's career reflected "a long-term commitment to undermining the policies of land and wildlife protection for which the Interior Department bears responsibility."

A protégée of James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first interior secretary, Ms. Norton has for many years criticized the role of the federal government in enforcing environmental standards. As a lawyer, as an Interior Department official and as Colorado's attorney general, she has publicly taken stands challenging federal environmental regulations, including some she would be obliged to enforce if she becomes interior secretary.

Even now, Ms. Norton is affiliated with groups that have filed a total of three lawsuits against Interior Department policy, including one taking issue with some provisions of a rule protecting endangered bald eagles.

In that case, Ms. Norton's played only a peripheral role, as a member of the board of the Defenders of Property Rights, the main litigant, said the group's founder, Roger Marzulla.

In an interview, Mr. Marzulla said Ms. Norton would be fiercely loyal to the new administration, and he insisted that her past views should not be seen as indicative of the positions she would adopt as interior secretary.

"If you tell me George Bush's position, I'll tell you what Gale Norton's position is," Mr. Marzulla said. "I firmly believe that Gale Norton is not coming to the administration with her own position that come hell or high water she's going to push through."