Logging and mining magnates everywhere must have bowed their heads when People for the USA, one of the country's leading "wise-use" groups, bit the dust. Formed in 1988 to combat spotted-owl supporters in the Pacific Northwest, PFUSA (formerly People for the West) shut its doors in January, citing a decline in funding and membership. "The short answer is that we ran out of money," Executive Director Jeff Harris explained in a final column in the group's newsletter, "but behind that reality is the undeniable fact that we were also losing our relevance."
Once the darlings of anti-environmental politicians and big business, the wise-users have fallen out of fashion. (The term "wise use" implies a conservationist ethic, but actually unites promoters of logging, mining, motorized recreation, development, and other damaging uses of public lands.) Early wise-use conferences were supported by Chevron, DuPont, and Boise Cascade, but corporations are now more likely to fund think tanks and public-relations efforts. "At one time, the corporate groups thought they could pump money into 'grassroots' wise-use campaigns and get them to do the dirty work," says Emily Headen, director of the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR). But business interests quickly soured on the wise-use groups' overheated rhetoric (and sometimes aggressive tactics) and pulled their funding.
Still, it's too soon to rejoice. Many of PFUSA's 30,000 members have already aligned themselves with other like-minded organizations, including the BlueRibbon Coalition and Frontiers of Freedom. Moreover, the dissolution of a single group--even an influential one-may not mean much for a "movement" that has never relied on membership numbers for its strength.
"Many of the wise-use groups are centered around one charismatic figure who writes for the local newspaper, sets up a Web site, and comes to all the meetings--yet they promote themselves as citizen-led counterefforts," says Susan Levitz, a Nevada County, California, resident who has tangled with wise-users in her efforts to protect the South Yuba River. "They don't have real members who pay real money; they're not accountable to anyone."
Like his father before him, George W. Bush has provided wise-use advocates a safe harbor within his administration. Interior Secretary Gale Norton's previous employer, the Mountain States Legal Foundation, has given free legal defense to wise-use groups. Another key cabinet member, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, represented the Sierra Nevada Access and Multiple Use Stewardship Coalition in her private law practice. "With Gale Norton in office, the wise-use groups are probably feeling pretty optimistic," says CLEAR's Headen.
But the Bush administration and its supporters in Congress will need more than a few vocal malcontents to roll back conservation achievements like the wild-forest initiative--a policy that prohibits logging and road-building in 58 million acres of national forest. To repeal the policy, Bush would essentially have to repeat the lengthy process the Clinton administration went through to pass it. "That was the largest rule-making process in history: three years, 600 meetings, and 1.6 million comments, 85 percent of which favored full protection of roadless areas," says Sean Cosgrove, the Sierra Club's forest-policy specialist. The public support shown throughout that process will also make Congress wary of challenging the plan. "Most members of Congress know that protection of wilderness areas is supported all across America," Cosgrove says. "They don't want to vote against that." As our elected officials have realized, environmentalists have the numbers to beat back any challenge from the wise-users. We just can't let them outshout us.
"WISE" ADVISORS
Of the 58 people appointed by President Bush to help shape the Interior Department, more than half are industry lobbyists, executives, and consultants, and 12 are active in the anti-environmental "wise-use" movement. The members of this "transition team" make policy recommendations and assist in filling positions at the agency; some may be hired for staff jobs themselves. Prominent wise-users on the team include:
Terry Anderson, executive director, Political Economy Research Center, a free-market think tank that opposes penalties for altering endangered-species habitat.
Demar Dahl, rancher and president of the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade, which received national attention last July for illegally opening up a closed Forest Service road.
W. Henson Moore, president, American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group that calls Clinton's protection of 58 million roadless acres of national forests "a policy that confounds both science and common sense."
Harold P. "Hal" Quinn Jr., senior vice president, National Mining Association; like the groups led by Anderson and Moore, the NMA has been affiliated with the Alliance for America network, a wise-use umbrella organization.
Diemer True, vice chair, Independent Petroleum Association of America; also a board member of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents loggers, miners, ranchers, and developers fighting environmental safeguards.
Research provided by the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advocacy and Research.
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