Last week, Al Gore came to Portland State University and
used the words "ancient forest," giving environmental activists
hope that he may finally be ready to let his green side
show. Two days later, Dan Glickman, secretary of agriculture,
called for an independent review of the controversial Eagle
Creek timber sales on Mount Hood. Ralph Nader's backers,
who view their man as the great green candidate, dismissed
the words of Gore and Glickman as political pandering. Nader
wrote an open letter to environmentalists, laying out the
flaws in Gore's environmental record. It included many of
the points made by Nation columnist Jeffrey St. Clair in
an interview with WW two weeks ago ("Gore's No Green," WW,
Oct. 18, 2000).
Democrats, in turn, say environmentalists who vote for
Nader will have the sap of fallen trees on their hands if
George W. Bush becomes president.
Carl Pope, executive director of the National Sierra Club,
replied to the Naderites' Gore-bashing online (www.sierraclub.org.)
and, earlier, in an interview with WW reporter Patty Wentz,
conducted while he was in Oregon stumping for Gore. He met
Wentz with a copy of St. Clairšs interview in hand.
Willamette Week: A couple of weeks ago we published
this interview with Jeffrey St. Clair. Do you know him?
Carl Pope: I don't know Jeffrey well. Personally, I think
Jeffrey has picked up from Alex Cockburn two things: a British
style of polemic, which is probably a useful leavening in
American journalism, and a certain cavalier attitude towards
the facts, which I think is less useful in American journalism.
I take it you disagree with his critique of Gore.
The first point I want to make is what's happening with
the national forest and what is the difference between having
Al Gore in the White House and having a Bush in the White
House. The fact is we had a Bush in the White House before.
When we had a Bush in the White House before, the level
of logging in the Pacific Northwest of the National Forest
was 6.4 billion board feet a year. The level of logging
in the National Forest in 1998, which is the last year we
have complete data for, was 0.6 billion board feet a year.
But isn't the argument that it was Clinton and Gore
who undermined the injunction that was protecting the spotted
owl?
That is the argument, but that argument is premised on
the concept that the injunction was a permanent injunction.
Under Clinton and Gore, we see a 90 percent reduction in
logging in the Pacific Northwest and an 80 percent reduction
nationally, where the injunction was not relevant. Under
George W. Bush you're gonna get another timber guy.
But his father was considered fairly moderate when it
came to the environment.
George W. Bush is not like his father. This guy does not
have any of his father's environmental moderation. He is
like Reagan on the environment, and when Ronald Reagan was
elected in 1980, he doubled the cut on National Forest land.
This is not the second coming of the environmental president,
this is the second coming of "you've seen one tree you've
seen em all."
Where's the proof of that?
W. Bush can't bring himself to say the word environmentalist,
as it applies to him. He says, "I like to call myself a
conservationist." It isn't accidental that for the first
time in American history, the timber industry has become
a major presidential contributor, financially, this year.
They gave Bush a million dollars in a single day here in
this city. They have never given any presidential candidate
anything approaching that amount, and they're doing it for
a reason.
What about Sinclair's idea that a W. Bush presidency
would galvanize the environmentalists to fight back?
The fact is the last time we had a really bad administration,
which was the Reagan administration, the environmental movement
did fight back. And during that administration, logging
on the National Forest doubled. We had a complete rollback
of a whole set of federal regulatory programs to protect
clean air and clean water. The fact is, yes, you can fight
back. But once you get someone in office who is determined
to weaken environmental protection, there are lots of ways
they can do it, and that's what George W. Bush will do.
OK, let's look at Gore's record. As a U.S. senator,
he had only a 64 percent rating from the League of Conservation
Voters.
He did have a 64 percent rating. But from Tennessee, that
was very good. That was one of the best environmental ratings
in the South, and members of Congress represent their constituencies.
As vice president, he was there when Clinton signed
the executive order that overturned the ban on the export
of Alaskan oil.
That's a true fact. I don't think that had a particular
environmental consequence, although I don't happen to think
it was a very good idea.
How do you explain East Liverpool, Ohio? When Clinton
and Gore ran for office, Gore promised the citizens of that
town he would personally stop the hazardous waste incinerator
in that town. Gore went so far as to call for a GAO inquiry
into the plant, saying there were serious concerns. Yet
once in office, the plant received a burn permit and was
allowed to operate.
I think that's a fair charge, I think he should have stopped
that from going online.
Isnšt that a pretty blatant example of where he'll say
one green thing and then roll over?
Well, I think that is an example of where he made a commitment
he did not keep and that he shouldšve. I think you need
to look at an entire record. People who bring up Liverpool
don't usually point to the fact that the vice president
was significantly responsible for a whole series of attacks
on air pollution.
Such as?
The new soot and smog rules, which will reduce by more
than 50 percent the levels of soot and smog allowed in American
cities. Water standards which will reduce by 80 percent
the amount of pollution that's allowed to be in the country's
waters over the next five years. A series of lawsuits against
Midwestern power plants for violating the Clean Air Act,
which will reduce their emissions and heavy metals by more
than three-fourths. New ozone transport rules for the Pacific
Northeast and the biggest enforcement action ever against
the trucking industry over pollution control systems.
Gore took a lead on these actions?
Gore was the person in the White House who, along with
Carol Browner, was on the front line. But Carol Browner
was also on the front line with East Liverpool, so if you're
gonna criticize Al Gore and Carol Browner for that I think
you need to give them credit for the things they did on
air pollution, which were enormously larger than what didn't
happen in East Liverpool.
How long have you known Gore?
Išve been with him half a dozen times, mostly in groups,
a couple times alone. I don't know him well, but I've watched
him closely.
Some of the environmental movement here thinks you sold
out in endorsing him. And even your endorsement letter addresses
thatthat you know he hasn't been great but we have to go
with the reality. There are also parts on your site where
you say Gore's made commitments to us and we intend to hold
him to them. What were those commitments again?
We got a questionnaire back from Gore with a number of
very specific commitments on air pollution and water pollution,
and my observation of Gore is he has kept his commitments,
by and large. Bill Clinton is somebody who bounces all over
the place. Al Gore is sometimes boring, sometimes stolid;
people can criticize him for not being a fancy enough dancer.
But I've found him to be extremely reliable.
Give me an example that he's kept his commitments in
the face of criticism, even going so far as to make enemies.
What he did on the soot and smog standard...there was some
intense pressure. All of the Midwestern governors, the Midwestern
mayors, the national League of Cities, the auto industry
and the oil industry were all absolutely opposed. That was
intense pressure. I was at an event that the president was
at a week before the decision was made and I urged the president
to hang in there on this. And although he did the right
thing, the president was furious about the amount of pressure
that he was under. So what does that say about Gore? I think
that some of the people who criticize Gore are naive about
just how powerful and vicious the opposition to basic environmental
protections is in the business community, in Congress and
in the leadership of the Republican Party. These people
really want to go back in the years, and they have got a
lot of money invested in doing so. And they wonšt succeed
completely. I mean, if George Bush is elected, there will
be a lot of bloody battles and he will lose probably more
than half of those battles on the environment. But he will
win 20 percent of them. And real people will die.
That's a pretty strong statement.
That is a strong statement. People will die as a result
of the environmental policies that George Bush will put
into place; people with asthma will die.
What about Nader?
Ralph Nader is pursuing the right issues, but with the
wrong strategy. If Ralph Nader had run as a Democrat, I
think the Sierra Club would probably have endorsed him.
There are a lot of states where Nader could've put himself
on the ballot. He didn't choose that route, and he's been
very candid that he would be quite pleased if he throws
the election to George Bush. Now at that point I think Nader
has to take responsibility not for what he wants, but for
what George Bush does.
In what way?
If youšre a political leader and you follow a strategy
which you have calculated is likely to produce George Bush
in the White House, you have to take responsibility for
what George Bush does. And George Bush is going to put into
place policies that are going to cause people to die.
And how do you hold Gore to the promises that hešs made
to you?
Well, when Clinton did the worst thing that he did in his
administrationand he did it over Gore's objectionand signed
the Salvage Rider, the first thing we did was to fire up
a 21-chainsaw salute outside the White House. We sued them,
we fought them at every level, and we turned the Forest
Service around. I mean we were able to put enough pressure
on the Clinton-Gore administration that in the aftermath
of the Salvage Rider, they began a very rapid reform of
the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service is a very different
institution than it was in 1992. It is not a perfect institution,
it is an institution that does commercial logging, and we
donšt think it should. But the fact is it is an institution
that does 80 percent less commercial logging then it did
when Bill Clinton came into office, and we gotta finish
the job. But wešre much more likely to do the last 20 percent
of the job if we have Al Gore in the White House than with
George W. Bush in the White House.
Do you have any hope that Al Gore will support ending
commercial cutting in the National Forest?
Yeah.
Why?
Because Išve watched him evolve, because he understands
and believes that the National Forests are actually there
for public purposes, because he has no particular affection
for or connection to the timber industry.
What do you mean you've watched him evolve? This is
the man who wrote Earth in the Balance. What evolving did
he need to do? Shouldnšt he have already understood that
about the national forests?
Well, in the beginning of the Clinton administration a
lot of people thought the timber sales program could be
reformed, that you could get the Forest Service to do it
right. I think Al Gore had a very big education while he
was vice president in the fundamental impossibility of reforming
a commercial timber sale program in the U.S. Forest Service.
And hešs not all the way there yet, but I think that Al
Gore is gonna find when he becomes president that even with
good leadership you can't reform the timber sales program
and then he'll decide that we should eliminate the timber
sale program, whereas George W. Bush is deeply in hock with
the timber industry, politically completely dependent on
the commodity wing of the Republican Party, and ideologically
opposed to having the National Forest managed as a national
resource.
Is Katie McGinty the best person to be advising Gore
on environmental issues?
I don't think I want to get into commenting on Katie McGinty.
Why? The Gore people sent her out here as the best example
of an environmentalist to convince us that hešs a green
candidate. You're not going to comment on her?
No, I'm not gonna comment on her.
There are people that don't have any respect for her
as an environmentalist. She was a chemical company and utilities
lobbyist. The fact that she was sent out here to talk about
Gore's environmental record is the perfect example for the
local greens as to why he can't be trusted. She's too corporate.
And if that's Gorešs idea of an environmentalist, therešs
a disconnect.
If this was an election in which you had two candidates
on the ballot, one is Ralph Nader and one is Al Gore, then
the question of whether Katie McGinty is too corporate might
be relevant. That's not the choice. Fundamentally, if you
think that voting is not about choosing who governs you
but that it's like responding to a poll, a means of sending
a message, then a lot of environmentalists are probably
gonna vote for Ralph Nader.
How do you view voting?
I view voting as a way of determining who's gonna govern
in this country, and in that context, in this state in this
year, a vote for Ralph Nader is a vote whose consequence
is to increase the chance that George Bush is the next president.
Just as I think Al Gore has to take responsibility for not
doing what he promised in East Liverpool, people who vote
for Nader in this state this year will have to take responsibility
for George Bush if he's elected.
Do you see Al Gore taking a strong environmental stand
on trade issues?
Well, it is difficult for me to know, because he clearly
had a lead role in the environmental portfolio, and he did
not have a lead role in the trade portfolio, so it is not
easy for me to sort out what is Clinton and what is Gore.
I was in Seattle, we were there with labor. We'd been very
unhappy with the trade policies of this administration.
I think that this is one of the places that Al Gore still
has some learning to do. I think he's much more open to
doing that learning than George Bush is.
This is what's baffling to me: the man who wrote Earth
in the Balance, why does he have "more learning to do"?
Why doesn't he understand this?
I have never had a long conversation with Gore about trade,
but I have had a long conversation with the president about
trade, so I am only presuming that they see this issue in
somewhat the same way. The president clearly believes that
by getting more of a system of rules around global trade,
the U.S. and its values will have more leverage over that
system. I don't believe that. I believe that's only true
if you get the right rules at the front end, I don't think
you set up the system and then fix the rules, I believe
you get the right rules and then you set up a system to
implement those rules. If you look at NAFTA, the moment
to get a decent set of rules was at the moment NAFTA was
adopted, not afterwards. And I think that Gore has a different
point of view, and I think he's wrong.
So why are you optimistic about him changing?
I think the experience with NAFTA has made him wonder.
I think his mind is a good deal more open than it was when
he went out and debated Ross Perot on NAFTA, because I think
he's been very disappointed in what's happened since NAFTA.
But I'm not gonna tell you that I've brought him around
to my point of view. I haven't. But I think he's more receptive
to these issues than George Bush and I think this is an
issue for which we will be doing a lot of holding the Gore
administration accountable.
Has he made any commitments to you on any aspects of
this?
The commitment hešs made to both us and to the labor movement
is that he will insist on even-handed treatment of both
labor standards and environmental standards in any future
trade commitments. That doesnšt make up for the trade commitments
we already have which didn't get even-handed treatment,
so I'm not satisfied with that. But that's the commitment
hešs made .
And George Bush?
George Bush actually said we should not even allow environmental
and labor standards to be considered in trade agreements.
So there is really a very strong contrast between them,
albeit an even starker contrast with Nader.
What if he reneges?
Well, I think the recourse on trade and the place where
we've always had the strongest leverage on trade is in the
House of Representatives. It's much more responsive on trade
than either the Senate or the White House.
What progress would you envision with a Democratic White
House and a Democratic House?
We'll be able, within two years, to end all logging on
old growth. I think within four years we've got a 50/50
shot at ending all logging of the National Forests. I think
that under a Gore administration, with a decent Congress,
we'll be able to clean up half of the remaining polluted
water waste. I think we will actually be able to bring our
emissions and greenhouse pollutants down. And I think there
is a very good shot that we'll be able to put in place both
taxes and regulations that will achieve one of the commitments
that the vice president made in his book, which is that
we'll be on our way to getting rid of the internal combustion
engine.
Why don't we trust Gore?
Well, I do. I don't trust him to be a revolutionary. I
trust him when he makes a commitment. He tries very hard
to please, maybe people don't like that, I don't know.
Isn't that dangerous, to have someone who tries to please,
because arenšt they just gonna turn to whoever is shining
the light on them and makes them feel the warmest?
Well, as Bill Clinton shows us, there are some people who
do that. Al Gore actually doesnšt do that. Al Gore has stuck
with his positions.
Give me another example of where he turned away from
the people it would have benefited him to please.
I think the fact that he reissued Earth in the Balance
when he did. That wasn't gonna please anybody. I mean, that
was a case where he just said, "OK, this is who I really
am, and I'm gonna put it out there."
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