Look Beyond Grand Canyon Photo Ops

It has been a month since Bill Clinton visited Yellowstone and affirmed his commitment to nature. Mark his fateful progress since then. As far as the environment is concerned, it contrasts unfavorably with Sherman’s march to the sea.

* In Yellowstone, Clinton announced that the oldest park in the nation had been saved from predations on its northern border by the Canadian mining giant, Noranda. In exchange for quitting its plan to gouge out a square-mile hole in search of gold, the company would be given $65 million worth of federal properties elsewhere. The national press faithfully depicted Clinton as the savior of Yellowstone.

* On the eve of the Democratic convention, Clinton signed into law the Food Quality Protection Act, saying, “I call this the Peace of Mind Act because parents will know that the fruits, grains and vegetables children eat are safe.” The press hailed the new act as particularly praiseworthy for its annulment of the Delaney Clause, depicted as archaic legislation from the 1950s, ridiculed by all right-thinking scientists.

* More recently, the intrepid president was at the Grand Canyon to announce that 1.7 million acres of federal lands in Utah would be designated a national monument, thus saving them from stripmining for coal. The heads of the national green organizations cheered wildly. TV newsclips and subsequent stories signaled this as significant as Teddy Roosevelt’s finest preservationist acts.

* Then it was off to Portland, Ore., where Clinton declared that he was saving the old growth by working out a deal whereby timber companies would desist from logging in ancient groves inhabited by marbled murrelets in exchange for permits to log equivalent volumes of timber on other federal lands.

* Finally came a strong White House push for a deal whereby Clinton will be able to announce before the election that he has saved the Headwaters Grove in Northern California, the last privately owned stand of ancient redwoods in America.

Let us review what Paul Harvey would call the rest of the story.

As far as the salvation of Yellowstone is concerned, it’s not a done deal. Noranda has veto power over any of the properties on federal lands offered in exchange. The offer blazed a green light to anyone holding mining claims on any national park. Line up the bulldozers and wait for the White House to phone. Noranda’s claims are but two out of more than 6,000 gold mining claims in the Yellowstone ecosystem alone.

The Food Quality Protection Act is perhaps the most outlandishly cynical of all of these preelectoral grandstandings. It does to the environment what the welfare act did to the New Deal. The 1958 Delaney Clause imposed an absolute ban on carcinogens in processed food, a law that food companies have been trying to overthrow for almost 40 years. Now the deed has been done. A regulatory interdict against carcinogens will be replaced by “risk assessment,” meaning that panels of food industry scientists will decide what is safe.

As the president, introduced by Robert Redford, preened at the Grand Canyon, some environmentalists pinched themselves in amazement. Surely their position had long been that no less than 5.7 million acres should be designated as wilderness or park. It had been the stripmine companies’ final fallback position to put up 2 million acres as the most that could be protected.

From Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that day, journalists did extract the confession that the designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was “mainly a name thing” and does not preclude grazing, off-road vehicle use, hunting and kindred activities. Babbitt admitted that the coal mining companies could still push their claims.

Every time Clinton goes to Portland, he promises to save the old growth and more ancient trees fall in his wake. The timber companies are ecstatic over the offer of old growth timber outside the better-known ancient groves. They get the timber they want without controversy over the murrelet and with White House support.

Also exultant is Maxxam’s Charles Hurwitz, owner of Headwaters. On the eve of a splendid anti-Hurwitz demonstration in Northern California on Sept. 15, the speculator met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi. One can assume that the deal will go forward after a tactful moratorium designed to deflate the rally. Emboldened by the spinelessness of the Clinton crowd, Hurwitz is now asking for even more.

To be fair, Clinton has never made a strenuous effort to offer himself as the heir to John Muir. Chalk these deals up to Al Gore, the Teflon veep and supposedly nature’s friend. So far, he’s led a charmed life. In whistle-stop politics, the press bus rarely returns to the scene of the crime.