Ralph Nader suggested yesterday that a victory by George W. Bush in the presidential election might actually be a boon for the environment. He said, “A bumbling Texas governor would galvanize the environmental community as never before. The Sierra Club doubled its membership under James Watt,” who served as Interior secretary under Ronald Reagan. In an interview in which he was asked to defend his accusation that there were few environmental differences between Bush and Al Gore, Nader criticized the Clinton-Gore administration for talking the talk on many progressive issues but doing little to fight for them. He also said the Kyoto treaty on climate change is “watered down.” Nader supporters and others have complained that Gore’s family has investments in Occidental Petroleum, which plans to drill for oil on rainforest land in Colombia claimed by the indigenous U’wa tribe. It turns out that Nader also is an Occidental investor through shares he owns in the Fidelity Magellan Fund — a fund that has been criticized by some enviros. Meanwhile, relations between Nader and three big enviro groups — Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Sierra Club — have grown increasingly testy. The groups are concerned that Nader may be tipping the election to Bush, while Nader accuses the groups of selling out by backing Gore.
