Don Young getting restless.

For the unlucky few who missed the Alaska congressman’s appalling bloviation, here’s what he told the Anchorage Daily News: “If you watched what happened [at past protests] in Genoa, in Italy, and even in Seattle, there’s some expertise in that field. … I’m not sure they’re that dedicated but eco-terrorists — which are really based in Seattle — there’s a strong possibility that could be one of the groups.”

We can all have a good laugh — heaven knows we need it — at this inanity. But the cold reality is that the environmental movement may take a big hit in the wake of this week’s tragedy. The conventional wisdom among some green group leaders: “ANWR is toast” (referring, of course, to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge).

If oil prices spike (and they may not) and bombs begin to rain on the Arab world (and they probably will) the thinking goes that environmentalists and aligned politicians won’t be able to resist a riptide of public sentiment in favor of jamming a diamond-sharp drill into any piece of U.S. land capable of spitting out a single drop of fuel.

Arctic Refuge river on the run.

Photo: USFWS.

Rumors flew fast on the Hill on Friday: Oil industry lobbyists were roaming the halls, making the case for immediate Arctic drilling, some said. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) was prepared to attach language to “every bill that moves” to open up the refuge, claimed others. (Murkowski’s office, oddly, was closed Friday afternoon.)

Meanwhile, in the halls and offices of leading environmental groups, the question was, What do we do? How, in a time of national tragedy, do you keep up the pressure on important issues and not get swept up in all the talk of political unity and national security at whatever expense?

“We are very respectful of the fact that the nation needs to be focused on the emergency at hand and respectful of the grief that hundreds of thousands of people are going through across this country,” said League of Conservation Voters President Deb Callahan.

“But we are facing a dilemma,” she continued, “because the question [of drilling in the Arctic Refuge] may be getting called more quickly than we ever dreamed. We will be looking to our allies and friends in the Senate leadership to give us signals as to when it would be appropriate to once again engage in the debate.”

One early signal came on Friday from the office of Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Told that Murkowski may be ready to let fly with the riders to open the refuge, Jeffords spokesperson Erik Smulson had this to say:

I think it would be very unwise to open the Pandora’s box. I think that it is going to be incredibly controversial, and we are not going to want to touch it during these trying times. We are going to take things slowly and prudently. The bipartisan cooperation has been unprecedented to this point and we need to make sure that goodwill remains intact.

Callahan, for her part, didn’t believe any kind of public sentiment in favor of Arctic drilling would materialize. “I believe what the country wants to see is leadership and focus,” she said. “To the extent that there is a sense that anybody is trying to move their special interest agenda by taking advantage of this tragic situation, they will ultimately hurt themselves. I think the public could in fact become quite angry if there is any attempt to take advantage.”

Another prominent environmentalist, who asked not to be identified, said the Arctic drilling issue depends mainly on what the administration does.

In need of refuge.

Photo: Alaska Wilderness League.

“Is this just Murkowski pushing this or is it Murkowski and the administration?” the prominent environmentalist asked. “If it’s just Murkowski, it’s just going to be more of the same. He tried to do this in the wake of the Gulf War and he did not succeed then. If the administration joins in, it’s going to be a much more serious threat.”

This environmentalist said it was too early to tell whether arguments that we need Arctic oil now more than ever would be effective.

“Those arguments are untested,” he said. “It’s too early to do polling in any meaningful way. Somebody took a poll right after John F. Kennedy was killed and 70 percent said they voted for him.”

Meanwhile, many enviornmentalists are buzzing about a memo allegedly penned by Sierra Club spokesman Allen Mattison, a Muckraker friend. We tried to reach Mattison on Friday evening but, like any sane human being, he had gone home by 7:00 p.m. EST. So we don’t know if he actually wrote it, and if he did, whether he would like to say anything more about it. (We also don’t know, at this late hour, whether there is any truth to the rumor that the Natural Resources Defense Council had also decided to go publicly mum in the wake of the tragedy. Anyone know?)

Unilateral Disarmament?

Here’s the Sierra Club memo (Editor’s note: Muckraker has since confirmed that the memo was indeed written by Mattison):

To: Sierra Club staff
From: Allen Mattison
Date: Sept. 12, 2001
Re: Club message change in response to national crisis

In response to the attacks on America, we are shifting our communications strategy for the immediate future. We have taken all of our ads off the air; halted our phone banks; removed any material from the web that people could perceive as anti-Bush, and are taking other steps to prevent the Sierra Club from being perceived as controversial during this crisis. We will re-evaluate as the national climate shifts.

For now, we are going to stop aggressively pushing our agenda and will cease bashing President Bush. We strongly need to avoid any perceptions that we are being disrespectful to President Bush. Now is a time for rallying together as a nation; the public will judge very harshly any groups whom they view as violating this need for unity.

If you are asked about what this terrorism does to the Sierra Club’s agenda, please respond simply by saying that right now the public needs to focus on comforting each other and strengthening our national security to deal with the crisis at hand. When debate on other issues resumes, we will rejoin those debates.

Download a readable version of the ad.

The ad contains the bold statement that 97 percent of Staples copy paper comes from clearcut forests. In his column, ombudsman Jack Thomas quoted Globe advertising division sales manager Dennis Lloyd as saying he had told an unidentified Forest Ethics representative (presumably Paglia) that the claims in the ad required substantiation. Thomas then reported (presumably based on Lloyd’s version of events) that someone from Forest Ethics had called back just once to confirm the policy. After that, Thomas reported, the group was “not heard from again.”

Not so, according to Paglia, who recollects numerous conversations with Globe advertising department employees, including Lloyd. Paglia told Muckraker that Lloyd never mentioned any problem with the claims presented in the ad. Instead, Paglia said, Lloyd contended that the tone of the ad was the problem. Paglia said he repeatedly offered to make changes in order to get the ad in the paper. Nothing worked.

“They never gave me a specific or straight answer,” Paglia said of his multiple “circular” conversations with Lloyd and other Globe ad department officials.

Lloyd did not return Muckraker’s call, but he told columnists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, that “in a general sense” the fact that the ad named Staples was a “concern.”

“The reason we declined the ad was we did not feel comfortable not necessarily with the issue but the way it was expressed,” Lloyd said, according to Mokhiber and Weissman.

That, of course, directly contradicts the explanation in Thomas’s column.

Globe spokesman Rick Gulla said Staples’s position as a big-time advertiser played absolutely no role in the decision to spike the ad and called the difference in Paglia and Lloyd’s versions of events an “impasse.”

“It is our belief here at the Globe that we have a responsibility in our ad space, as we do in the news columns, to attempt to verify these kinds of [claims]. … We never saw any substantiation.”

Gulla called the ad “very accusatory,” noting that it included the phone number of Staples CEO Tom Stemberg.

But Paglia said he specifically offered to take Stemberg’s phone number out in order to get the ad in the paper. And he said he would have happily provided substantiation if only he’d been asked. As it stands, Paglia said he felt like a victim of “corporate-controlled media.”

“We were willing to pay the going rate for our ad. But Staples is willing to pay the going rate for who knows how many ads. … It’s just a matter of dollars.”

As for Thomas, who also failed to return a call from Muckraker, he not only presented just the Globe’s version of events, but also saw fit to rip into Paglia and the manner in which environmental activists reacted to the controversy. While correctly noting that the many letters to Globe editor Matt Storin about the issue missed their mark (Storin has no control over what ads get printed), Thomas failed to resolve the much larger underlying question: Did the Globe kill an ad for fear it might offend another (bigger and more lucrative) advertiser?

We may never know for sure. And the truth, as ever, may lie somewhere in the middle. But the Globe advertising department’s shifting explanations and reliance on public-relations officials for comment certainly tilts the balance in this dispute towards Paglia and Forest Ethics.

Reliable Source?

Among the bigger environmental decisions the Bush administration will make is whether to press forward with so-called “New Source Review” lawsuits against power plants and refineries that were grandfathered out of Clean Air Act emissions regulations but have since upgraded output capabilities. Towards the end of the Clinton administration, the Justice Department began to sue companies that had made “significant modifications” to their facilities (as opposed to “routine maintenance”), in an attempt to force the companies into compliance with current air-quality standards.

But the Bush White House has been vague about whether it will proceed with the lawsuits. The president’s energy plan, in fact, calls for an EPA study of the issue and directs the Justice Department to review all pending litigation to ensure that it hasn’t hampered innovation and energy production.

Now environmentalists are buzzing about just who will be conducting this “review.”

Most of the questions surround Philip Perry, who recently left D.C. power law firm Latham & Watkins (which has represented Cinergy and American Electric Power, both the subject of pending lawsuits) to join the Justice Department in the deputy attorney general’s office. Early reports out of Justice had Perry teaming up with Clinton holdover John Cruden to review the lawsuits and decide whether to continue with them.

And while Perry’s recent affiliation with Latham & Watkins has raised hackles, it’s not the only thing that has enviros hot under the collar. Perry also happens to be the son-in-law of energy task force head and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. Yep, the veep himself.

The Justice Department now says Perry will have no role in the deliberations, which are being conducted in the office of legal policy under Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh — but some sources still fear Perry’s “hidden” influence.

Frank O’Donnell of Clear Air Trust, meanwhile, notes that several companies that had cut tentative deals with the EPA, including Cinergy and Dominion Resources, have since backed off, preferring to wait until the reviews are done.

Strange Justice

Here’s a puzzle for you: What do Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and David Brock have to do with the administration’s clean air policies? Not much, actually. But Clean Air Trust’s O’Donnell has dug up one connection.

If you read closely (which Muckraker did) the reports about David Brock’s many-years-too-late admission that he intimidated Clarence Thomas acquaintance Kaye Savage into retracting damaging statements about Thomas, you’ll recall that Brock says the source for the information he used to intimidate Savage was Mark Paoletta, a friend of Thomas’s who worked in the first Bush White House.

Still don’t see the connection? Well, working right alongside Paoletta in the George H.W. Bush White House counsel’s office was none other than Jeffrey Holmstead, another Latham & Watkins vet who is slated to become head of the EPA’s clean air office.

O’Donnell passed along this 1990 memo from Allan B. Hubbard, executive director of the then-White House Council on Competitiveness, to then-White House counsel C. Boyden Gray: “Thank you for all your support for the Council’s work. I greatly appreciate the terri
fic effort by your staff, especially Jeff Holmstead and Mark Paoletta …”

Not that this association necessarily casts a bad light on Holmstead. But it does point out what a small incestuous world Washington can be.

Muckraker, however, has caught wind of a key memo that wasn’t supposed to be leaked, one that lays out how the administration intends to pitch the plan to the American public without getting burned.

All signs point to the memo’s author being none other than the famed Mary Matalin, a top advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. The veep, of course, heads the secretive White House energy task force.

Before we proceed, a disclaimer: We don’t have a copy of this memo and we can’t be 100 percent certain of its authenticity. But we trust the two sources who described its contents. If it turns out this is a bogus memo, or does not in fact emanate from the highest level, well, you’ve been warned.

Now, to the goods.

The memo strikes a note of caution: “I fear we are in the classic Democratic-Republican dynamic.” That is, the author of the memo believes the White House must not get caught in a mud fight of conservation vs. drilling; environmental protection vs. greater production; clean vs. dirty; consumer vs. corporate. Our sources say the memo makes clear that the White House believes that Republicans lose that fight more often than they win it.

So the Bushies will try to change the terms of the debate and, in the words of the memo, attempt to “Carterize the Democrats.” They will let you know that detractors in the Democratic Party and the environmental movement would like nothing more than to plop you back in the middle of the 1970s energy crisis when lines for gas snaked through neighborhoods and a besweatered Jimmy Carter pursed his lips and told you to flip off the lights, turn down the air conditioner, and eat your peas.

“Whoever captures the quality-of-life argument wins,” the memo says. Republicans must be seen as the party of the 21st century while Democrats must be viewed as the party of the 70s; Republicans must be seen as the party of abundance and boundless optimism while Democrats remain promoters of rationing and self-denial.

The American Way

Given all this, it should be no surprise that White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the following at a press briefing last week when asked whether Americans need to “correct their lifestyles” to solve a potential energy crisis:

That’s a big no. The president believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country. What we need to do is make certain that we’re able to get those resources in an efficient way, in a way that also emphasizes protecting the environment and conservation, into the hands of consumers so they can make the choices that they want to make as they live their lives day to day. … The president also believes that the American people’s use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.

Look for a lot more of that kind of talk, not just from the White House, but from members of Congress, and, of course, the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, the giant coalition formed by energy companies to explain why the Bush plan is the only way to keep the lights burning and the DVD players humming in this great 21st-century land of boundless opportunity.

You can already see the rhetoric filtering out to the troops. One sharp Democratic operative pointed to this recent comment from Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), who argued that “rich, yuppie environmentalists are slowly but surely shutting this country down economically” with their talk of conservation and opposition to regulation-free exploration and production.

Will the environmental movement be able to counter this assault? They are certainly gearing up to do so.

The Spending of the Green

National Environmental Trust President Phil Clapp says green groups will spend more to counter the Bush plan than they have on anything in the past. Protests have been organized for the administration’s roll-out events on Thursday. Email campaigns will commence. A 12-city TV ad campaign to ream the Bush energy plan begins on Friday.

The groups should have eager allies on Capitol Hill as Democrats gear up to try to recapture both chambers of Congress in 2002.

It’s hard to exaggerate the stakes. Polls consistently show that voters care about the environment and have been taken aback by the administration’s early environmental policies. It is perhaps Bush’s weakest issue, though he has attempted to make a comeback in recent weeks. If green groups and Democrats can effectively paint the energy policy as a big fat gift to power producers that could put the environment in danger for decades to come, they will have a giant cannon in their 2002 arsenal. But if they stumble out of the gate looking like retreads from the ’70s bent on turning off the spigot of the American economy, then two more years in the minority almost certainly await the Dems.

Christie Todd Whitman.

When it comes to listing body blows inflicted on the environmental movement by the Bush administration in recent days, it’s hard to know where to start. Pick up the paper any day of the week and you’ll likely find a fresh slap in the face of U.S. EPA “Administrator” Christie Todd Whitman. A backtrack on arsenic standards here, a promise to drill in Alaska there. An Energy secretary quoting the industry-funded Greening Earth Society. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and then others in the White House sticking a fork in Kyoto because it’s “dead.” And who’s that in the number two slot at EPA? As we predicted in this space some weeks ago, it’s Monsanto veteran Linda J. Fisher.

So environmentalists in Washington have stuffed the green garb back in the closet. Everyone’s draped in black these days and there is no end to the pain in sight. As finely documented in the Washington Post, the sunny talk of compassionate conservatism and a kinder, gentler GOP has swirled down the drain. This administration has out-Reaganed Reagan. From top to bottom, in every appointment, in every place that matters, including an OMB with new regulations czar John D. Graham, Dubya has installed conservative ideologues and friends of industry who appear to relish nothing more than laying the righteous smackdown on anyone rumored to harbor liberal leanings.

To be sure, there are a galaxy of conservatives pressing for these appointments and regulation rejections, and the true power players in the White House — Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, political guru Karl Rove, and a cadre of true-blue right-wing lawyers — are all on board. Big-time. But among the many stars in the galaxy, there are major forces working from the outside as well, ferreting out the merest hint of an impending wishy-washy appointment and blasting it into oblivion, often filtering their distaste to the troops through the conservative press (Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, et al.).

Myron is watching.

Green group leaders say one of the biggest outside players and mightiest squashers of squishy moderates is Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who has lobbied heavily against several appointments (John Turner at Interior, to name one). He most recently directed his fire at Anne Petsonk, floated as a possible adviser to Bush on climate change.

Petsonk, a lawyer with Environmental Defense, believes global warming is real. She supports Kyoto. And it appears that she will, over Ebell’s protests, actually land a White House job, half with the Council on Environmental Quality and half with the National Security Council. And probably more than half worthless.

Who out there believes Petsonk will get a lot of West Wing face time or be a regular table hopper in the White House mess? Even before Whitman read her script on Monday that the administration had “no interest in implementing [Kyoto],” it was clear that Bush and his brain trust care not about warming atmospheres or any of the rest of that strange nonsense. So why on earth would Petsonk subject herself to the daily torture her job would certainly entail?

We don’t know, because she didn’t call us back. Which was smart, because talking yourself up before getting the official nod from this administration is tantamount to setting the White House on fire.

Paul O’Neill.

But Ebell did call back, and he, too, was puzzled about what Petsonk would do all day. But, worry-wart that he is, Ebell fears that Petsonk could “create mischief” and get together with all the other “moles and burrowers” in the administration (including Communist sympathizers like Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill) and undermine all that is good and true and just.

“The proponents of Kyoto have not totally lost yet,” says Ebell. “They are on the defensive but they still have powerful connections. Several environmentalists still continue to meet with White House staffers.”

No! An outrage. A national emergency. Who are the Infidels?

“We are intent on finding out when, why, and where,” Ebell said of the meetings, identifying by name only Pew Center on Global Climate Change President Eileen Claussen as a known infiltrator.

As for the rest of you who still have White House staffers on your speed dial, beware. Myron is watching.

He is watching Turner, as well, who didn’t get the number two slot at Interior but may well resurface as assistant secretary of state for oceans and international agreements, which would land him smack back in the middle of treaty negotiations — right where Ebell would least like him to be.

Hot Wheels

Remember back when we wrote about University of Virginia professor (and global warming skeptic) Pat Michaels cruising for ladies in his eco-friendly Honda Insight? Well, turns out he’s not the only right-winger passing on the SUV in favor of a more green-friendly ride.

A peppy Prius.

Seems frosh Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, a car-alarm magnate from the San Diego area, is zipping around D.C. in a sweet green Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid capable of logging 52 miles to the gallon.

Issa recently gave our Post friend and colleague Lloyd Grove a spin in the mean machine and declared he could rip across country on just two tanks of gas.

Others on the Hill reportedly interested in the Prius are Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R) and Connie Morella (R) of Maryland, Rep. Brian Baird (D) of Washington state and California Senator Barbara Boxer (D).

Euro Trashing

As if Beltway environmental types don’t have it hard enough these days, now they are getting the beatdown from their European counterparts.

Buried deep in the current issue of Time magazine is this acid quote from Stephan Singer, a World Wildlife Fund official in Brussels: “Rather than hanging out in D.C., waiting for a dinner invitation from someone from the White House, they should go to into the country and work with people” to build support for Kyoto. He continued, “They should go explain to farmers who are opposed to Kyoto and to unions opposed to Kyoto that there cannot be coal mining forever.”

As Austin Powers would say, “Ouch, baby. Very ouch.”

The Singer slam is not going down smoothly here, particularly among environmentalists who do not get invitations to the White House. Most enviros, of course, will never get closer to 1600 Pennsylvania than the roller-blading plaza outside, and they are hardly twid
dling their thumbs waiting for the phone to ring …

The source described the Fisher appointment as close to a done deal, a fact that did not sit altogether well with enviros working on the genetically engineered foods issue. After leaving government, Fisher served a stint as vice president for government and public affairs at Monsanto, a company that Greenpeace’s Rick Hind said has “probably led the world in making disastrous decisions on genetically modified products.”

“Instead of just business as usual,” Hind said of a possible Fisher appointment, “this would be more business than usual.”

But other greenies urged caution in jumping to conclusions about Fisher, saying she is actually more moderate than some suggest.

Whatever the case, Whitman met with transition team members and agency senior staff on Tuesday to discuss potential political appointments to the top jobs, which include the deputy administrator position as well as the assistant administrators for air, water, toxics, and several other key areas.

Where’s Herb?

Herb Tate, an EPA veteran who currently runs the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, is also rumored to be in line for one of the top jobs. But sources say Tate, a rising African-American political star, may not come to Washington for anything less than the deputy administrator job — which would be tough to score if Fisher already has a lock on it. Tate’s office did not return a call for comment.

Washington lawyer Donald Carr, author of a forthcoming biography on Richard Nixon-defier Elliot Richardson, is also said to be in line for a top job. Carr, a partner in the D.C. office of Pillsbury Winthrop, currently advises chemical and pharmaceutical companies on air toxics and Superfund matters. He worked at the Justice Department under presidents Reagan and Bush, rising as high as acting head of the lands and natural resources division. Carr also did not return a call for comment.

Back at the White House, buzz continues to center on John Howard, President Bush’s environmental policy director in Texas, as the likely candidate to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The New York Times reported in Nov. 1999 that Howard wrote a memo to Bush in 1997 indicating that industries in Texas were concerned that the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission was moving too quickly on legislation that would require industrial plants to reduce their toxic emissions.

Howard then held meetings, according to the Times, with industry leaders and state regulators to discuss the issue of air pollution. The bill eventually signed by Bush in 1999 did not include strict compliance requirements and was castigated by Texas enviros as riddled with loopholes.

News You Can Use

Good news and bad on the environmental journalism front. The bad news you probably know: CNN has cut back on its green coverage as a result of layoffs in the wake of the AOL Time Warner merger. The good news you may also know if you scrutinize newspaper bylines as closely as Muckraker does: The Washington Post has finally put a full-time reporter back on the green beat. And quite a reporter he is.

Long-time congressional budget scribe Eric Pianin hasn’t formally stepped into the slot yet, but he has already begun to write on green topics, notably the flap over Gale Norton’s nomination as Interior secretary. Look for Pianin to crank up his enviro-themed copy over the next few months while also lending a hand in coverage of President Bush’s first budget submission and its fate on Capitol Hill.

All you flacks tired of pitching five different Post reporters on every story may now breathe a collective sigh of relief. 1-2-3 . . . ahh. Isn’t that better?

As for the bad news, Peter Dykstra, executive producer for science, technology, and environment at CNN, says that while the cable channel’s weekend show “Earth Matters” is in fact history and the Nature section of the CNN.com website and its one full-time employee defunct, the environmental unit remains intact and pieces that would have aired on “Earth Matters” will now show up on “Science and Technology Week,” which airs Saturday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. EST.

Two CNN reporters who do nothing but environmental news, Natalie Pawelski on domestic stories and Gary Strieker on international topics, also remain very much on the beat, contributing pieces to a variety of weekend shows, as well to regular CNN news programs during the week.

Nor will all the green content disappear from CNN.com; some of it will simply migrate to the Science and Technology section of the site.

In a telephone interview, Dykstra acknowledged that it’s not exactly the ideal situation but said things aren’t nearly as bleak as the chatter on some enviro listservs would have one believe.

The Boss.

Meet the Boss

Major change is already afoot at Greenpeace USA under new executive director (and New Jersey native) John Passacantando. We speak, of course, of the new on-hold music: none other than Garden State favorite son Bruce Springsteen.

Forget the sounds of the rainforest. Or the plaintive cries of seals. For the newly muscular Greenpeace, only the Boss will do.

We like Mike.

In fact, according to our sources, the president-for-the-next-few-days and his senior staff hit the roof when news of Dombeck’s order accompanied with remarks by the chief rocketed to the top of New York Times earlier this month. The paper of record described the new policy as a direct slap at the incoming George W. Bush administration and as potentially more important than Clinton’s recent ban on road-building on 58.5 million acres of forestland.

“The boss does not like to be upstaged,” said one observer familiar with White House reaction to the Times story. “By Tuesday afternoon,” according to this source, some people in the White House were so angry “they had trouble sitting down.”

This source and several others said it wasn’t so much what Dombeck said at Duke University (read the speech here) as the way the Times played it that got the White House dander up.

Dombeck aide Chris Wood said the speech had been “overreported on” and that in reality it amounted to little more than a restatement of principles Dombeck has long advocated: getting an accurate map of old-growth timber and doing everything possible to limit old-growth logging.

This, of course, could be cover-your-backside spin in the wake of a tongue-lashing from the White House, but Wood said that Dombeck was simply “telegraphing” his belief that in the coming months the Forest Service should in fact develop “manual directions” to send to national forest managers instructing them not to allow sales of old-growth timber.

“What Dombeck said was that in the coming year one priority will be to revisit and strengthen the existing 1989 old-growth statement,” Wood said. “He didn’t go out and ban old-growth timber cutting. Folks would do well to read the entire speech and take it for what it says.”

The Bush transition team will undoubtedly do so. By law Dombeck is entitled to stay in his post for the first 120 days of the new administration (theoretically enough time to get an old-growth harvesting ban into the Forest Service manual) and he has said he would like to continue to stay on after that. Don’t count on it. In fact, one source said that after the New York Times story, Dombeck might not even last till the end of the current administration.

Hen in the Fox House?

Speaking of the incoming Bush forces, conservative groups are less than thrilled with John F. Turner’s presence on the Interior Department transition team. Seems that Turner, who ran the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under former President George Bush, is far too sympathetic to environmental causes to suit the likes of the American Land Rights Association, which contends that because Turner is a “lifetime close personal friend” of Vice President-elect Dick Cheney, he will be able to “cut [ Interior Secretary-designate] Gale Norton off at the knees.”

Not only that but Turner, president of the Conservation Fund, might even be able to “reverse some of her directives.” That’s a lot of power for a man who hasn’t been named to anything yet.

Perhaps the private property lobby has reason for concern. Call around town these days and ask enviros whom they expect to see in the new Interior Department and Turner’s name often comes up as someone who might temper what many green groups fear will be the new Bush administration’s zeal to drill, log, build on, and otherwise make extractive use of America’s public lands.

“He would be relatively good in a relatively indifferent administration,” said Sierra Club Political Director Dan Weiss in an endorsement not likely to further endear Turner to conservatives.

Brave New World

So how exactly are environmental groups expecting to operate in the new Washington environment, where they won’t have many allies installed in the executive branch?

Norton faces a gale of opposition.

During the campaign, Ralph Nader spoke of the galvanizing effect a Bush administration might have on progressive groups. That’s certainly been the case so far, particularly with the rapid and well-organized opposition to Gale Norton’s nomination for Interior.

In fact, in several conversations with green group flacks and leaders, Muckraker found that opposing Norton (and to a lesser extent John Ashcroft as attorney general) was the first order of business. Research on Norton’s record and statements (such as her speech praising the states’ rights cause of the Confederacy) has kept plenty of industrious staffers busy and many reporters’ email inboxes full.

“The first battle is really over Norton’s nomination,” said the Sierra Club’s Weiss. “How well we do is going to affect what we do afterward. The second battle will be over campaign finance reform.”

Weiss and many other enviros see a ban on soft money contributions as a potentially devastating blow to the outsized influence powerful (and often polluting) corporations have on the political process. But with the majority leader of the Senate (not to mention a certain Sen. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky) along with the President-elect strongly opposed to any reform that does not also limit union political spending, the future of the McCain-Feingold bill remains very uncertain.

Also on the incoming administration front, Laura Chapin at the Environmental Working Group is spending a good deal of time publicizing the backgrounds of Bush transition team members. Her group just updated its website with annotated pages featuring names and corporate-lobbying and interest-group affiliations of the transition teams at Agriculture, Energy, Interior, and EPA.

What the EWG site doesn’t mention, but what many other enviros waste little time pointing out, is that no less a player than incoming White House Chief of Staff Andy Card (far more powerful than any Cabinet secretary) was until recently a $600,000 per-year lobbyist for the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, helping the auto industry fight off pesky new fuel-efficiency standards, among other things.

Tankers away!

The site also doesn’t mention that incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice once sat on the board of Chevron and was so favored by the company that she had an oil tanker named after her.

But we digress. Returning to the future plans of D.C. green groups, Dave King and Brandon MacGillis of the National Environmental Trust say their group, in addition to working to distribute material on Norton and other Cabinet nominees, will adjust its focus outside the Beltway over the next couple years, working directly with (and presumably in some cases against) corporations on environmental issues such as biotech food production.

The main complaint: Bad clock management.

Pretty boy Loy.

Photo: Courtesy of IISD.

Without getting too mired in bad sports metaphors, the knock on Loy, the undersecretary of state for global affairs, is that he failed to get back to his European counterparts in time with the U.S’s final offer to close loopholes in an agreement calling on industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels.

According to highly placed environmentalists who were at The Hague, Loy had more ground to give to European ministers, including possible caps on emission credits trading and on the use of “carbon sinks,” forests and farmland that absorb carbon-dioxide, to count in lieu of emissions reductions.

One top environmental group leader said of Loy, who was formerly chair of the board at the League of Conservation Voters and vice chair of Environmental Defense (before it dropped the Fund): “He seems like a decent man, really. What it looks like is [U.S. negotiators] held their ground on loopholes, particularly on sinks, until it was too late. … They offered all of this great stuff and still had more to give, but by the time they were ready to give it some of the other delegates had gone home. They ran out of time.”

Another environmental group official present at The Hague also praised Loy as person but added, “As a negotiator? I don’t know. The bottom line is they thought they had more time than they actually did.”

Woke Up on the Right Side of the Bed

Criticism of Loy’s clock management aside, few environmentalists were despondent about the overall future of the Kyoto climate change treaty (particularly after getting a couple nights sleep upon returning from the Netherlands).

Even the hostility of a President George W. Bush to ratifying Kyoto didn’t seem to weigh too heavily on many enviros’ minds.

Bush, of course, could basically ignore the global warming talks being prepared for Bonn, Germany, next year in the wake of The Hague collapse. Or he could submit the current language of the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate, knowing it would fail to achieve the two-thirds majority required for ratification.

But one green group leader said it was unlikely Bush would take such a political risk when most surveys indicate Americans are concerned about global warming and environmental degradation in general. “Could Bush really submit Kyoto to the Senate? If he wants to starts earning real enemies real fast that would be a good plan,” the leader said. “And then he would be as unhappy a one-term president as his father was.”

Other environmentalists took solace in the new Senate, a body that under Bush would be split 50-50 and now includes global warming believers like Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Speaking of the New Senate …

The presidential election may never officially end. But at least we know what the 107th Congress will look like and can safely assess how environmental groups fared in their bi-annual efforts to elect green-friendly candidates while tossing out enviro foes.

At the top of many lists is Cantwell, who knocked off Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), a persistent opponent of breaching dams on the Snake River who wielded powerful influence over environmental policy as chair of the Senate subcommittee that oversees Interior appropriations.

“Having him gone is certainly a big win for the environmental movement because of his general hostility and his position on the Senate Interior committee, as well as all the riders he proposed and pushed,” said Lisa Wade Raasch, communications director for the League of Conservation Voters.

But Gorton ranked only number two on Raasch’s list of the big green wins of the year. Coming out on top was Democratic Rep. Debbie Stabenow‘s narrow victory over Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham in Michigan.

“We came in and spent $750,000, mainly on television, when Stabenow was really slipping,” Raasch said. “And the environment really popped as in issue in Michigan and helped Debbie turn it around.”

Overall, LCV spent $4.1 million on television, mailers, and grassroots organizing efforts this election cycle on its usual “Dirty Dozen” negative campaign, as well as on positive efforts on behalf of five incumbents.

Seven of the Dirty Dozen lost, including Gorton; Abraham; Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.); Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) ( who was didn’t get elected to the Senate); Rep. James Rogan (R-Calif.); Rep. Steve Kuykendall (R-Calif.); and state Sen. Linda Runbeck, a Minnesota Republican who came up short in her bid to replace the late Rep. Bruce Vento (D-Minn.)

The five who escaped were Sen-elect George Allen (R-Va.); Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.); Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) ; Rep. Anne Northup (R-Ky.), and state Sen. Mike Rogers (R), who appears likely to hang on to victory in the race for Stabenow’s former seat.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of that group was Burns, who appeared seriously vulnerable to a challenge from maverick rancher Brian Schweitzer (D) but narrowly held on for a win. Few serious politicos every held out much hope for Sen. Chuck Robb (D-Va.) to defeat Allen; Traficant was never in trouble (but the greenies always need to list one Dem or two on its anti-enviro list); and Northup has developed a knack for winning tight races.

LCV batted five for five (back to the bad sports metaphors) among incumbents, helping reelect Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), Reps. Joe Hoeffel (D-Pa.), Jim Saxton (R-N.J.), Jim Maloney (D-Conn.), Chris Shays (R-Conn.), and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).

Of that group, Saxton may have benefited the most from LCV’s help and ironically moved Democrats a seat further away from a House majority.

Sierra Club, the other major group that gets heavily involved in political campaigns, also had a pretty good Election Day, winning in 41 of the 54 races it targeted, a better than 75 percent success rate.

That percentage included beating four Senate incumbents: Gorton, Stabenow, Grams, and John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who lost to a dead man.

Transition Watch

Enviros are understandably thrilled to have Gorton out of the Senate. But if W comes to Washington, they may get an even heavier dose of Slade as the new Interior secretary. Gorton is among several Western Republicans floated for that post. Also on the short list is outgoing Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (R).

But Racicot, who emerged as Bush’s top spinmeister in the Florida, may have his sights set on higher hanging Cabinet fruit, namely the attorney general slot. There are other names on the AG list, however, including Bush buddy and Oklahoma governor Frank Keating (R).

Insiders view Keating as the top choice to head the Justice Department based on his impressive resume as an aggressive FBI agent and federal prosecutor. Racicot would bring a more laid-back, scholarly bent to the office.

At
the Energy Department, some suggest that Bush might dust off some of that vaunted bipartisanship and install Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), an industry-friendly choice. Breaux has publicly downplayed the speculation (without actually ruling it out), saying it might be more fun to stay in the 50-50 Senate.

Should Breaux decamp, Louisiana governor Mike Foster, a Republican, would appoint his successor until a special election occurred.

Should Gore pull off a miracle in Florida, the smart money is on Katie McGinty as EPA administrator and current EPA Administrator Carol Browner moving to just about any slot she’d like, including perhaps White House chief of staff, though that post is more likely to go to Gore confidant Roy Neel or current Labor Secretary Alexis Herman. Both McGinty and Browner worked for Gore in Congress.

But the truth is that neither man won. The real winner last week couldn’t even get inside the hall, though he had a ticket. We speak, of course, of Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, once left for dead in the wake of Gore’s post-convention surge, but now poking his head out of the electoral grave and threatening to make some sort of splash on Election Day, at least in a couple of states.

In the tracking survey conducted by respected (and often dead-on accurate) pollster John Zogby, Nader surged back to 7 percent on the heels of his major league dissing by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Said Zogby of Nader’s reemergence: “He is up to 17 percent among Independents and 18 percent among Progressives. If he continues the same trend, he will have an impact on several of the battleground states.”

Nader continues to pose the biggest threat to Gore in Oregon and Washington, two states with a combined 18 electoral votes that remain on Bush’s radar screen. Nader also clocked in at 11 percent in Connecticut in a recent Qunnipiac College poll and could hurt Gore in the pivotal state of Wisconsin, home to 11 electoral votes and a sizeable green community.

And while a recent Los Angeles Times story declared the green movement firmly behind the vice president, splinter groups such as Environmentalists Against Gore continue to make noise while nagging issues in key states still dog the Democratic nominee.

In New Jersey, for instance, Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action has been pounding the Clinton-Gore administration for months to stop the dredging and dumping of toxic material off the state’s coast. The U.S. EPA late last month decreased the allowable level of PCBs in dumping material, a small victory but not enough to quiet Zipf’s concerns.

And with Nader continuing to pack halls with thousands of vocal supporters, it’s hard to imagine he won’t be a factor on Election Day — that is, if his youthful backers bother to vote, something that even Nader himself acknowledges is far from a certainty.

Of course, all this speculation could be moot if the Green Party standard-bearer comes out at the last minute and urges his supporters to vote for Gore in close states to stave off a Bush victory. That’s the latest rumor floating around the Internet, a tale similar to an email yarn that claimed Dick Cheney was planning to resign the GOP ticket at the last minute by trumping up a bogus health problem to make room for Colin Powell or John McCain.

Nader spokesperson Laura Jones laughed at the idea that Nader would be calling on supporters to back Gore. “That’s not our message,” she said.

Hell on Wheels

University of Virginia professor Pat Michaels is not a favorite among enviros working on global warming. The noted skeptic revels in whacking the science behind climate change theories and arguing that humans aren’t altering the globe’s temperature.

An insightful purchase.

So some green group members were surprised to learn of the professor’s latest major purchase: a brand-spanking-new Honda Insight, an eco-friendly coupe with high gas mileage and low carbon-dioxide emissions. What gives?

“I did not buy the car to save the planet,” Michaels assured us. “I bought it because it’s fun,” he said, calling it “the neatest piece of technology the common man can own.”

Contrary to recent reports that the Insight’s mileage figures are inflated, Michaels, who often commutes from Charlottesville, Va., to Washington, D.C., where he is a scholar at the Cato Institute, said he regularly milks 70 miles per gallon out of his vehicle.

“It turns out that it is a charming car to drive,” he said. “It also mutes an argument that my green friends always make that somehow our government is preventing us from buying efficient technologies. When I went to the dealer in Stanton, Va., there was no roadblock to go through. No one held a gun to my head and said I couldn’t buy it.” And Michaels said the Insight is the only car that does not aggravate his degenerative neck condition.

But that’s not all. Michaels’s new wheels might also help him pick up chicks.

“It doesn’t hurt that in a college town it draws a few stares and that there are more females than males in college these days,” he said.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Speaking of global warming skeptics, the 2000 Republican Party platform has this to say about the Kyoto Protocol: “Its deliberations were not based on the best science; its proposed agreements would be ineffective and unfair inasmuch as they do not apply to the developing world; and the current administration is still trying to implement it, without authority of law. More research is needed to understand both the cause and the impact of global warming.”

Pretty standard fare from the GOP. But the next sentence drew some raised eyebrows: “That is why the Kyoto treaty was repudiated in a lopsided, bipartisan Senate vote.”

That contention has only one small problem. It’s not true. The Senate has never voted on the Kyoto Protocol.

It is true that the august chamber voted 95-0 in favor of a nonbinding resolution that warned the administration against backing a climate change treaty that would exempt developing countries from emission-reduction targets. But that was in July of 1997, five months before the Kyoto treaty had even been written. And the Clinton administration has never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

Perhaps that’s why Theodore Roosevelt IV said in a Muckraker interview at the GOP convention in Philadelphia that he could not defend the Republican platform.

Current and former staffers ranted about Engberg’s leadership style, which they described as based on intimidation. Engberg loyalists within the organization disputed that characterization.

Passacantando-ing the torch.

But now Engberg is history and there is a new sheriff coming to town: 38-year-old John Passacantando, who is hoping to bring his whole shoot-from-the-hip, guerrilla-organizing Ozone Action team with him.

The specifics of the merger between Ozone Action and Greenpeace USA are still being worked out, but rumor has it that Passacantando, generally regarded as a pretty nice guy, has offered solid buyout offers to entice all his troops to make the trek into the larger (and possibly more bureaucratic) Greenpeace world.

One natural question: Is this guy nuts? Why would Passacantando leave a small, but thriving, enviro shop that gets good media play, raises money easily, and runs effective grassroots campaigns to take over a once great, but more recently staggering, behemoth?

“My sense is that many of the problems are gone,” Passacantando explains. “The financial problems are certainly gone. They have lost a lot of people, but I think things have stabilized.”

The buzz in enviro circles is that Passacantando is just what Greenpeace needs: a creative, energetic guy who can smooth away the fear and loathing that have run rampant in the organization of late.

“It’s sort of like my two best friends getting married,” says Kalee Kreider, a Greenpeace alum who worked for Passacantando at Ozone Action before jumping over to run the global warming campaign at National Environmental Trust. She also warned that Passacantando is in for a big culture shock when he digs into his new job on Sept. 18.

“[Greenpeace] has a governmental structure, some very important external players, and an international organization that’s funded by Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, and the U.S. There really are a lot more players that have to be managed, so he won’t just be able to focus on campaigns in the U.S.”

None of that appears to worry Passacantando, who says he will not tamper much with the campaigns Greenpeace is currently running, particularly the high-profile efforts on toxics, climate change, forests, oceans, and disarmament.

“All in all, I can tell you, [Greenpeace] is ready to fly,” he says. “That’s the whole reason I think it’s worth risking everything we’ve done at Ozone Action. … These guys have historically been the greatest environmental organization of all time. They still have a lot of talent and they still have a lot of potential.”

So what does he plan to do differently?

“It’s the whole tool kit you’ve always seen me work with: direct action, nontraditional partners, talking truth straight to power. … I am going to be part of that place when it flies again and people are going to think, ‘Wow, isn’t that great?’”

That kind of giddy enthusiasm actually has some green group head honchos worried, not because they think Passacantando won’t be able to right the Greenpeace ship, but because they fear he might steal their deckhands to do it.

Not a Major League [Expletive Deleted]

We don’t know whether Adam Clymer, the New York Times political reporter singled out for an (accidentally) public tongue-lashing from GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush, really is a “major league [gross anatomical reference].” But we are pretty sure that retiring Times science reporter Bill Stevens (known to readers as William K.) is not.

News of Stevens’s departure from the Times was met with some sadness in green circles because of the dogged reporter’s pivotal articles over the last decade that established, as only the Old Gray Lady can, that the scientific community by and large believes global warming is for real and not kooky, cooked-up hokum. Some enviros pointed in particular to a series that ran just before the Kyoto climate change conference in December 1997 as a blow to naysayers.

Stevens didn’t ignore the global warming skeptics, but neither did he elevate them to the status of those who assert that human activities are pushing up temperatures worldwide.

Stevens steered clear of activists for the most part, preferring to stand on the firmer ground of science and out of the mucky world of politics, something his replacement, Andrew Revkin, seems less inclined to do.

“Bill always was persnickety,” one leading enviro flak said. “He didn’t like to quote environmental groups. … But you have to give him his due on [Kyoto].”

Revkin, who formerly covered enviro issues in the New York region for the Times and is the author of a book entitled simply Global Warming, joins Douglas Jehl, who has been out covering wildfires of late, and Matthew Wald on the Times’s national environment/energy/science beat, a triple threat that allows green flaks three swings at getting a story into the paper of record.

Hot Off the Greenwire

For activists, reporters, and political types (well, at least their interns), Greenwire is essential daily reading, a thorough update on all news environmental. The staff culls green stories from a staggering array of media sources and boils them down into chunks (some more digestible than others) — all for a hefty subscription fee.

Now its future isn’t fully clear.

National Journal, Greenwire’s parent company, is preparing to sell the nine-year-old online publication to E&E Publishing, a small D.C. outfit that provides original reporting on environmental legislation and regulation. An E&E source would not comment on the purchase, saying details have not been finalized and paperwork has not been signed.

But some current and former Greenwire staffers, not to mention regular readers, wonder how many of the current staff members will make the move to E&E and whether E&E will even continue to publish the newsletter at all or will simply use the Greenwire marketing list to sell people on existing E&E publications. [Editor's note: Grist was founded and is run by two former Greenwire editors who managed to escape D.C.]

If E&E does continue to publish, but does not take many key staff, will it “get” what Greenwire does and how it does it?

Those towering challenges were plainly evident in Gore’s acceptance speech before a boisterous crowd inside the Staples Center.

Gore touched on the environment, though it certainly wasn’t a cornerstone of his address. In his first mention of an issue he had tackled in Congress, he cited his fight against “big polluters,” which he said began because he was concerned over the dumping of toxic waste in his home state of Tennessee. “Our children should not have to draw the breath of life in cities awash in pollution,” he said, perhaps alluding to certain Texan metropolises.

“On the issue of the environment, I’ve never given up, I’ve never backed down, and I never will,” he continued. “And I say it again tonight: We must reverse the silent, rising tide of global warming, and we can.”

There was a muted reaction from the audience. “Not much of an applause line,” one reporter quipped. And he was right. But it was hard to tell whether it was the topic or simply the delivery, which was often a bit muddled.

Al Gore, giving them more.

© Panoramic Visions.

Gore got more hearty cheers when he pledged that free trade must be “fair,” ending child labor, protecting workers, and preventing “the poisoning of the environment.”

Before digging into the issues, Gore attempted to verbally chase President Clinton into the shadows for good.

“I stand here tonight as my own man,” the vice president declared, even as the cloud of the seemingly immortal Lewinsky scandal threatened to cast a shadow over Gore’s moment in the sun. “I want you to know me for who I truly am,” he said, in a line that sounded a bit desperate coming from a man who has been in public life for 25 years.

Gore then pivoted from the personal to the political, reaching into the arsenal of issues he must wield skillfully if he is to fend off a candidate whom voters clearly view as a more charismatic and appealing leader.

“I believe people deserve to know specifically what a candidate promises to do,” Gore said, mentioning a couple of traditionally Democratic issues, health care and child care, before tossing in two hugely popular items generally associated with Republicans: ending the marriage tax penalty and reforming the estate tax.

Finally, the veep brought out the sharp knives to slice and dice Bush’s tax cut proposal.

While Gore stepped on some applause lines, the buzz inside and outside the convention hall was that he had done a solid job that should help voters, those who tuned in anyway, get some idea of the distinct choice they face November 7.

Despite his good performance, the electoral map is looking fairly grim for Gore with several states that should be firmly in the Democratic column appearing to hang in the balance while the GOP base seems solid. And looming over it all this week was the specter of a man who was 3,000 miles away attacking MasterCard for filing a copyright lawsuit against his campaign.

Nader’s Raiders

Ralph Nader didn’t make any surprise visits here, as he did at the GOP convention in Philadelphia earlier this month, nor did he pop up at the Shadow Convention being held seven blocks away from the Staples Center in a sweaty, old auditorium. But his presence was felt, particularly as the Gore campaign hauled out its newest gun in the block-Nader effort — Katie McGinty, former chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

McGinty held forth at length on Wednesday about the danger Nader poses, saying a vote for the Green Party nominee amounts to a vote for Bush. Flanking McGinty was Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who for the first time gave some indication of the electoral damage the Gore camp fears Nader could inflict. Kennedy reeled off five states with 72 electoral votes that Democrats fear could swing to Bush if Nader racks up any serious numbers.

“His candidacy poses a serious threat to the environment in this country,” Kennedy said. “It is going to be a close election. Those electoral votes could turn the tide. [Nader's] rationale has been that there really is no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and if you examine the record that simply isn’t true. There is a gulf of difference”

Muckraker was sitting in the audience at the sparsely attended McGinty/Kennedy news conference (which attracted perhaps eight of the 15,000 reporters who were allegedly creeping around Tinseltown this week) next to Democratic National Committee spokesperson Jenny Backus, who explained that McGinty will be paid by the Democratic National Committee to work as a consultant to the Gore campaign.

All the Gore-y Details

McGinty was not the only surrogate making the rounds and trumpeting Gore’s environmental record. EPA Administrator Carol Browner dropped in for a chat on Washingtonpost.com and dismissed any critique of Gore’s record.

“Vice President Gore has been at the forefront of every major environmental and public health fight in this country for more than a decade — in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and as vice president,” Browner said. She continued:

Under his leadership, the administration has cleaned up more — three times more — of the largest toxic waste dumps than the Reagan and Bush administrations together. He has led the way in fighting the Republicans in Congress who sought not once, but twice, to literally shut down the EPA, denied funds for enforcement of environmental standards for air and water pollution, toxic waste cleanups, and even went so far as to adopt environmental riders that would have specifically prohibited EPA from enforcing environmental requirements on the largest polluters. Make no doubt about it, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are true environmental leaders, have been and will be.

She said a mouthful.

The Shadow Nos

Overall, the environment got a lot of play both inside and outside the convention hall, especially in comparison to the near shut-out at the GOP convention, with prominent mentions in many speeches and a handful of demonstrations. Oddly, however, the environment was almost completely absent from the otherwise colorful Shadow Convention, which was dominated mainly by discussion of campaign finance reform, the failed war on drugs, and other topics. There was one woman who complained of being poisoned by the pesticide methyl bromide, but for the most part green issues were overlooked, something noted by several delegates in attendance.