Guttman? :
> I think this removes all doubt in my mind; Bill Clinton does not
> care about the environment.

Michael Patrick:

>I'm disappointed with myself for whole-heartedly agreeing. I've even come to
>question Gore's commitment to the environment. Where the heck is he??? After
>reading his Earth In The Balance book, I was convinced he was on our side.
>Now I've become cynical and will even accuse him of yanking environmentalists
>around, without ever having had the intent to implement the ideas he declared
>in his book (just trying to get our votes) :-(

Ahh, during their visit in Portland earlier this week, at our rally
we were chanting "Free Gore! Free Gore!".

VPs never have real power, you know.

I don't think any serious conservationists had much faith in Clinton's
having a personal stake in conservation issues. What he has done,
though, is to work to give conservationists a larger voice.

We've had that. He earned a little grudging respect for his Forest
Plan, even though the adopted "Option 9" fell short. Many of us
realized, however, that the plan was lightyears better than any
plan we'd dreamed would actually get adopted say five years earlier.

Have to keep that perspective, folks.

And you've seen the backlash. If Clinton had pushed for the option
with the best scientific credibility, it would've been DOA. As it
turns out, the plan as it has developed will probably be tossed out
as well, a result of last November's election, but no one predicted
such a turnabout that early in his administration.

I'm disappointed he caved in, but Gorton and Hatfield had made it
clear that there would be no USFS 1996 budget without it, that
it was non-negotiable. And, in the Senate, they hold all the
cards.

I suspect he would've vetoed a standalone Salvage Logging Bill and the
gawdawful grazing provisions in the current bill as well. But
politically he had to allow some form of a recissions bill to
go through, and eventually he was going to lose on both of these
issues because the Republicans have the power and the intent to
keep them bundled up with other, politically popular bills.

This, I think, is the worst part of our political process, the
fact that totally unrelated things can be bundled in a way that
really gives folks in Congress or the White House many options to
dissent on bits and pieces.

Having said that, Clinton's a wimp and if he had balls he'd've
vetoed it. I'm totally pissed that the administration has done
nothing to publicize the grazing provisions which in some respects
are worse than the salvage logging bill - salmon is last in line
after timber and grazing, unless some big changes have been made.

He could turn this whole conservation thing into a big win for
himself if he wanted. I think he's banking, though, on broader
Democratic Party issues and depending on a backlash against
the Republican majority to get him re-elected. Since much of
te Democratic Party has a dismal record on forest conservation
(can we forget Les AuCoin? How about your own Norman Dicks or
whatever the hell his name is?) I think he's going to concentrate
on things his party can agree on, while doing his best to appear
to be on friendly terms with some of the concepts of the Republican
majority such as cutting the budget.



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>