Environmental Reversals Shake Moderate Republicans

By ROBIN TONER
April 4, 2001

These are not easy days for the greener wing of the Republican Party. A series of environmental reversals by the Bush administration has highlighted an old fault line in the party that is both geographic and ideological, and shaken many of the party's Northeastern moderates.

Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, says his college-student daughter, "a true-blue Republican," is wondering "what the heck is happening with our party when it comes to the environment."

Representative Marge Roukema, Republican of New Jersey, fired off a letter after the Bush administration reversed itself on regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants: "Mr. President, health and safety first! We urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider your decision."

And Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, when asked about the reaction back home, said, "There's a realization that some of the Western senators and more conservative elements of the party are calling some important shots" - adding that the carbon dioxide issue was "an important one."

In fact, environmental issues often pit moderates against conservatives, Northeast against South and West in the Republican Party. The moderates, many from suburban districts that voted for Vice President Al Gore last year, are careful to praise President Bush's performance over all - but are just as careful to note their disagreements on the environment. And these tensions are widely expected to increase as the administration moves on energy policy.

Democrats, scenting blood, have been scathing on the administration's recent environmental decisions to oppose the Kyoto treaty on global warming, to reverse the campaign position on carbon dioxide emissions and to reconsider Clinton administration standards on arsenic in drinking water.

And environmental groups are warning that Mr. Bush's policies could cost his party dearly in next year's elections.

Ted Roosevelt, a Republican who is chairman of the League of Conservation Voters and was a Bush delegate at last year's party convention - although his organization endorsed Mr. Gore - described himself as "obviously disappointed."

Mr. Roosevelt, whose great-grandfather President Theodore Roosevelt helped found the modern conservation movement, added of Mr. Bush: "The environment is such a key issue, and he's got such a very small margin in Congress. If the administration is consistently anti-environment, I can almost guarantee that he will lose a majority in both the House and the Senate."

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said the Bush decisions put moderate Republicans in a difficult place, with a choice of breaking with the administration or alienating their constituents.

It is not an unfamiliar place to them. Representative Sherwood Boehlert, the Republican from central New York who heads the House Committee on Science, often fought his party on environmental issues in the antiregulatory heyday of the Congress led by Newt Gingrich.

"We don't get paid for the easy ones," Mr. Boehlert said philosophically.

He is one of the highest-rated House members in the League of Conservation Voters' Republican honor roll, a list dominated by Northeasterners, who, Mr. Boehlert noted, have ample experience with the perils of pollution.

Mr. Boehlert said he was "profoundly disappointed" by Mr. Bush's position on carbon dioxide emissions, and would continue to push for legislation that would regulate those emissions as part of a "four-pollutant strategy." But he also said he remained hopeful about the Bush administration's environmental direction, noting that it was still early and that Mr. Bush had yet to assemble his science team.

"When that happens, he will get some advice he is not now getting," Mr. Boehlert said.

William K. Reilly, who was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for Mr. Bush's father, President George Bush, also noted that Mr. Bush's decision on carbon dioxide had come "awfully early."

"One really has to hope - and I really do believe - it's not the last word," Mr. Reilly said.

Indeed, many Republican moderates were delighted by the appointment, early on, of one of their own to the top job at the Environmental Protection Agency, former Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey.

"That sent a strong signal to me that this administration is committed to improving our environment," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who said she remained hopeful.

But Mrs. Whitman has been the target of fierce criticism on the right, and Mr. Bush's decision on carbon dioxide was widely seen as undercutting her at a critically early time.

Mrs. Whitman did not respond to a request for comment.

As for the White House, a spokesman said, "The president has taken any number of bold steps to safeguard our environment."

Asked about the environmental divisions in the Republican Party, Mr. Reilly said: "The antiregulatory wing of the Republican Party always gets stronger when it does not occupy the White House. Once in charge of the regulatory process, once on the line for pollution events or failures of environmental protection, Republican presidents become more environmentally sensitive, and Republicans generally become more environmentally supportive."

If nothing else, some analysts suggest, politics will push the administration greenward. And indeed, some environmentally friendly moves are expected from the White House before Earth Day on April 22. Charles Cook, who publishes an independent political newsletter, said that given the extraordinary closeness of the 2000 elections, "this whole suburban thing is key."

"They got killed in the non-Southern suburbs," Mr. Cook said of the Republicans, "and it's a collection of social, cultural and environmental things - guns, abortion and certainly the environment."

"They need to do a couple really green things really soon," he added. "House Republicans back in '95 and '96 saw what happens if you are perceived as anti-environment. That really hurt them in '96."

Senator Robert C. Smith, the New Hampshire Republican who is chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is cited by advocates on both sides as a man who recognized the power of the environment in his region. Mr. Smith, who is up for re-election in 2002, is described by Mr. Pope of the Sierra Club as "a profoundly conservative senator who knows how to listen to his constituents."

Others argue that the calculus is different now that the country is in an economic funk and worried about energy, and Mr. Bush seems a leading proponent of that view.

A New York Times/CBS News Poll in early March suggested that this argument carried the most weight with Republicans. Asked which was most important, producing energy or protecting the environment, 44 percent said energy, 47 percent said the environment. But 64 percent of the independents polled said the environment should take precedence, as did 71 percent of the Democrats.

Grover Norquist, a conservative strategist, said Republicans needed to talk about the environment in their own terms.

"Just as you can be for poor people without signing on to some left-wing redistributionist scheme," Mr. Norquist said, "you can be for the environment without being for some extreme regulatory scheme."

As this struggle plays out, Mr. Boehlert said he expected the party's moderates to play a critical role.

"The balance is so close in the House, the moderates can tip it one way or the other," he said. (Although even among themselves, moderates can disagree on policy specifics, like the wisdom of the Kyoto treaty.)

For example, the administration's proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, part of its energy policy, is dismissed out of hand by some moderates.

"The votes aren't there for drilling in A.N.W.R.," said Representative Constance A. Morella, Republican of Maryland, who was among the Republicans who successfully urged committee leaders to omit Arctic drilling from the budget resolution.

Representative James C. Greenwood, a Republican whose suburban Philadelphia district voted for Mr. Gore last year, argued: "We have to look for a position that may not be where the president is, and probably won't be where the Sierra Club is. But we moderate Republicans have to find a middle ground that's environmentally sensible."