Seeking Common Ground on Environment

Cattle ranchers, conservationists, government regulators and others met for hours over two days, talking about how environmental issues could be resolved faster, cheaper and with less rancor.

Some of the more than 250 people participating in the summit convened by the Western Governors’ Assn. found common ground. Others didn’t.

“I saw skeptics come in. I see skeptics leaving,” New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson said Saturday during a post-summit news conference.

But he and others pronounced the summit a success, saying there was incremental progress and that the foundation was being laid for a still-evolving doctrine intended to make it easier for the region to solve its diverse environmental problems.

“It’s going to require a lot of us to abandon some very strong beliefs. But all that really matters is what happens on the back 40,” said Joe Fitzsimmons of the Texas Wildlife Assn.

Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, a leading proponent of the new “enlibra” doctrine that was the summit’s focus, likened it to business’ total quality management approach.

“People began to buy into it. It became a shared doctrine of management,” Leavitt told a small group of summit participants during a brainstorming session. “We’re trying to come up with a shared doctrine of environmental management.”

Enlibra is a word pulled from the Latin words en and libra, meaning to move toward balance.

Enlibra’s principles include using national standards but trying to find local solutions, rewarding results, replacing mandates with incentives, increasing environmental understanding and crossing political boundaries when problems transcend them.

Leavitt and others said the concepts in enlibra aren’t new but that it can be a symbol to focus public attention on the idea that there are better ways than costly court fights and bruising public-relations wars to find solutions to complex issues.

Those issues, Leavitt said, often seemingly pit jobs against preservation, open space against housing and one generation’s needs against those of another. “There’s got to be a balance here because these are needs that people have,” he said.

Kathy Roediger, a Phoenix banker who is the Sierra Club’s Arizona chairwoman, said she remained skeptical but was “willing to go along.”

“At least it will show each other we’re not completely at opposite ends,” she said. “I’m skeptical because there really is no enforcement of any decisions that may come out of here.”

Representatives of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups participated in the summit but held a news conference before it started to challenge the governors to make it more than rhetoric.

The governors defended their project, with Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer saying there was a hunger for civility in environmental debates.

“Our purpose isn’t to pick a fight. It’s to solve problems,” Leavitt said. “Let’s really clean up the environment. Let’s not just fight.”

Environmentalists weren’t the only ones still voicing skepticism by the end of the summit.

Jake Flake, an Arizona legislator and cattle rancher, said he was excited that so many people were interested in enlibra. But, he said, radical environmental groups may not be willing to sign on.

“Their goal is to stop any harvesting of natural resources. Through the courts, they’re gaining that pretty darn fast, so why should they change their tactics and come to another process that they might have to compromise with?” Flake said.

Roediger said her skepticism stemmed from experience in which one side or another involved in a task force or committee later backed out of a decision and tried to get a state law passed favoring its position.