Environment Activists Hit Bush Choice for U.S. Post

President Bush’s nomination of Delos Cy Jamison, an aide to former Interior Secretary James G. Watt and an adviser to a ferociously anti-environmental member of Congress, as new chief of the Bureau of Land Management has dismayed environmentalists.

They fear that Jamison, if approved by the Senate, will follow the line pursued the last eight years by current Director Robert F. Burford, a Colorado cattleman who is accused of starving the bureau’s major environmental programs.

Ranchers, meanwhile, praised the selection of the 39-year-old Montana native as a sign that the Bush Administration will advance Reagan-era policies that opened public lands to widespread private development.

“Cy Jamison is a square shooter,” said a friend in Billings, Mont., where Jamison once sat on the City Council. “I think it is wrong for anybody to say that he will be a puppet of the western grazing interests.”

“Cy Jamison is a very ardent proponent of (an) agenda that is antithetical to conservation,” said Debbie Sease of the Sierra Club. “He will continue to see BLM as an agency of and for the livestock and mining industries.”

Jamison declined to return telephone calls seeking an interview for this story.

Burford came to Washington with a similar reputation, because as a Colorado legislator he promoted the Sagebrush Rebellion, a 1980 movement that sought to give public lands to the states and private developers.

Fined, Cited

Burford, who as a rancher has been fined and repeatedly cited for illegally trespassing on BLM land, pursues deregulation with such zeal that he is trying to void land-use plans and open 180 million acres to miners and ranchers.

The National Wildlife Federation has sued him, alleging that he broke the law by failing to notify Congress, hold public hearings or do an environmental study. The NWF is appealing a judge’s decision to dismiss the suit on a technicality.

Jamison’s agenda is less clear because as a congressional aide, he promoted only the philosophy of his congressional boss, Rep. Ron Marlenee (R-Mont.). In that capacity, Jamison earned conservationists’ enmity for opposing wilderness issues while championing oil companies. Supporters praise him for representing the interests of Marlenee’s conservative constituents.

Qualifications Questioned

Critics not only question Jamison’s politics, but his qualifications to run an agency with 7,600 full-time employees and a $700-million budget.

“It’s one thing to say the President should have his guy, which the Senate usually does,” said Michael Scott of the Wilderness Society’s Montana office. “But the Senate also has the responsibility to see he has the basic skills to manage a major federal agency. There’s no indication he has had the experience to do that.”

“Candidly, I guess he is untested as an administrator of that magnitude,” said Will Brooke, a fellow Marlenee staff member who works with Jamison on the House Interior Committee. “I guess he’ll have to prove himself.”

Critics suggest that Jamison was chosen not for his skill, but for his political support of Bush.

Political Activities

Jamison, who was born in rural Ryegate and earned a degree in education and Earth sciences from Eastern Montana College, led Montana’s Republican National Convention delegation. He also volunteered five years as a regional strategist for Bush’s presidential campaign.

“The Bush campaign consulted him a fair amount whenever they wanted advice on the West or wanted to stage campaign events there,” said Brooke, stressing that he believes that Jamison’s familiarity with the West, not his politics, earned him the nomination.

Others, however, note that applicants for the BLM were asked five questions in a White House letter: Four dealt with whom they backed in the election; the fifth sought their professional qualifications.