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Bill Clinton -- whose vetoes of key budget bills let the air out of
Congress' War on the Environment -- has won the Sierra Clubs
endorsement for a second term as president.
The Board of Directors' decision came Sept. 20, just two days after
Clinton -- with Club activists, including President Adam Werbach,
looking on -- announced the creation of the 1.7 million-acre
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah
Although not unanimous, the 11-2 vote reflected a widespread
sentiment among Club leaders that while Clinton's record has not been
perfect -- disappointments include his support for the North American
Free Trade Agreement and his signing of the clearcut logging bill -- he
has performed impressively during the past four years. It also reflects
a hard political reality: Given the prospect of a Dole-Gingrich reign
of environmental terror, we need a friend in the White House.
Since the "logging without laws" debacle in the summer of 1995, Clinton
has returned to the type of bold, pro-environment policies he stood for
during the early days of his term, when he signed the Colorado
wilderness and California Desert Protection acts into law. And he won
new respect as 1995 came to a close by standing up to the
Republican-controlled 104th Congress, whose budget and appropriations
bills were loaded with deadly provisions from its War on the
Environment. Clinton's vetoes -- which forced a pair of government
shutdowns in late 1995 and early 1996 -- killed efforts to allow: oil
drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and clearcutting
in Tongass National Forest; weaken protection for California's Mojave
National Preserve; slash the Environmental Protection Agency's
enforcement budget; cut funding for international family planning; and
block enforcement of wetlands protection standards. The president's
steadfastness was pivotal in turning back the GOP leaders' pro-polluter
agenda.
In August, Clinton helped avert severe ecological dangers to
Yellowstone National Park by forging an agreement to prevent the New
World Gold Mine from opening nearby. One month later, Clinton
established America's newest national monument, blocking a massive coal
mining operation from threatening one portion of Utah's wilderness.
"Bill Clinton has redeemed our faith in his administration," said
Werbach. "It's clear that Bob Dole would spell disaster for the
nation's environment. But the president has earned our support in his
own right."
Dole, the GOP presidential nominee, averaged a 20 percent League of
Conservation Voters rating during his quarter-century in the U.S.
Senate, and plummeted to zero in 1995. As Senate majority leader in the
104th Congress, he was at the forefront of efforts to block
public-health and environmental protections via "regulatory reform" and
"takings" legislation.
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