Why environmental regulations are now on the chopping block
This didn't just happen, folks
This Green Dispatch newsletter is first in a series on the current state of environmental regulation and what brought us to this point.
Sackett v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruling that opened up millions of acres of wetlands to development, didn’t just happen. The decision was decades in the making and the product of a GOP that has been taken over by its extreme right wing.
The anti-environmental stance of the modern GOP is not because conservatives hate duckies and bunnies; they don’t hate the idea of people drinking clean water. What they do hate is the administrative state that protects our air, water, and natural world. They don’t think the government should be involved in that sort of thing.
The New Deal shaped the dynamic of the Republican Party for roughly 60 years, with a large portion of the party accepting the welfare state that FDR’s legacy brought about and a hard right that wanted to repeal as much of the New Deal as possible. The hard right remained something of a sideshow in the GOP, as much of the party kept its distance from extremist elements such as the John Birch Society,
Joseph McCarthy breathed new life into the hard right in the 1950s, only to have his anti-communist crusade deflated by his bullying and lies. The hard right ascended once again when the embodiment of conservatism, Barry Goldwater, gained the GOP presidential nomination in 1964. The movement was left in tatters later that year when LBJ dealt Goldwater a landslide loss.
Environmental legislation gives us the new Republican Party
The right wing of the GOP disfavored unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and other benefits of the welfare state that were popular with the American people, guaranteeing that faction a minority status, even among Republicans.
By the mid 1960s, many believed that the right wing of the GOP to be fading into history, but prominent headlines of the time reveal a still vibrant right wing faction still fighting for power.1 Developments in the environment gave conservatives another issue, one that may not have been as popular as Medicare and Social Security, and helped them to get one of their candidates, Ronald Reagan, into the White House.
In the 1970s, what has been called the “Sagebrush Rebellion” arose in response to the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and other federal environmental legislation, all of which had been enacted in the previous five or six years. The movement was centered in western states and comprised ranchers, miners, and loggers who thought it absurd that folks in Washington would tell them what to do with their lands. These companies and individuals who were used to a hands-off approach from Washington thought the newly minted Federal Land Policy Management Act, which changed the mandate of the Bureau of Land Management from extraction to preservation, was particularly onerous.
Ronald Reagan heard their voices as he mounted another presidential bid for the 1980 election.
As governor of California, Reagan had a mixed environmental record. In 1970, he signed into law the California Environmental Quality Act, an outstanding environmental achievement. His appointments to environmental positions as governor, however, were disappointing.2 Running for president in 1980, he knew the Sagebrush Rebellion dovetailed with his conservatism. Anti-environmental rhetoric thus became part of his campaign.
Jimmy Carter, running for re-election, wanted increased environmental safeguards. He spoke of protecting barrier islands from development and endorsed “a strong defense of environmental protection legislation in the face of growing pressure to dismantle a decade of environmental progress.”3 In contrast, Reagan claimed that aides of his told him that American factories had been shut down due to environmental laws.4 In a fox-guarding-the-henhouse scenario, Reagan called for the coal and steel industries to help rewrite the Clean Air Act and promised to appoint to the EPA people “who understand the problems of the coal industry.”5
To bolster his argument, Reagan cast environmental regulators as being out of the mainstream. He said of the EPA, “I want clean air and water. But I think we’re in the hands of what I call some environmental extremists.” He used this term again when defending his choice of James Watt to be Interior Secretary. At the time, Watt was a lawyer working to open up more federal wilderness to mining and oil drilling. Reagan said, "I think he's an environmentalist himself, as I think I am. He is fighting environmental extremists."6
The election of 1980 was complex. Political scientists and pundits can judge how much high gas prices, inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the candidates’ personalities influenced the outcome. And the narrative may be changing, with new revelations that the Reagan campaign may have made a deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election.
What is important is that Ronald Reagan saw that the far right conservative mindset of the GOP was fertile ground for the Sagebrush Rebellion and he successfully incorporated an anti-environmental message into his campaign. The other important thing is that Ronald Reagan won.
In the next installment of this series I’ll discuss how the news media has influenced our thinking and helped to bring about our present crisis.
By CABELL PHILLIPSSpecial to The New,York Times. (1965, Jun 06). Conservative groups, set back in 1964, pursue their fight in shadow of the capitol. New York Times (1923-) Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/conservative-groups-set-back-1964-pursue-their/docview/116858594/se-2
Kamieniecki, Sheldon, Robert O’Brien, Michael Clarke. Controversies in Environmental Policy. New York: State University of New York Press. 1986. Print p 284
Crutsinger, Martin. “Carter, Reagan Differ Widely on Environmental Policies.” Freelance Star 25 Oct. 1980
Kamieniecki et al
Crutsinger
Warner, Edwin, Douglas Brew, Don Sider. “Reagan Sticks With Haig.” Time 29 Dec. 1980.
The recently deceased , James Watt, President Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, spoke of how there was too much conservation by environmental extremists. Many of his views were based on his extreme religious beliefs. He at one time stated,”I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”
When talking about conservatives in America religious right wingers do not care about what is good for the country, the environment, your rights or anything else. Perhaps the Spanish Inquisition is next.