-Caveat Lector- conservativeinfo - Subscribe to the Conservative Information email list at http://conservativeinfo.listbot.com Free-Market Environmentalists Gaining Stature Group No Longer on Fringes as Bush Incorporates Proposals in Land Policies By Eric Pianin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, June 4, 2001; Page A04 In 1983, Terry L. Anderson, an economist with a strong libertarian bent, was invited to Washington to lecture the Reagan administration's Interior Department on the virtues of free-market environmentalism. The session should have been friendly, because Anderson and the new Reagan team agreed on the need to cut red tape to encourage development in the West. But Anderson went much further, arguing that government subsidies and other traditional environmental policies were far less effective in managing natural resources and the environment than market forces and the self-interest of private land owners. When Anderson criticized subsidies for Western water projects as wasteful and inefficient, Robert N. Broadbent, director of the Bureau of Reclamation, exploded: "I've had enough of you kiddie car economists telling us how to run this place." For years, Anderson and his acolytes operated on the fringes of the environmental policy debate, advancing proposals that were rejected out of hand by Republicans, Democrats and mainstream environmental groups. But two decades after the first Reagan administration, they are in the vanguard of a land management movement that is gaining acceptance in the West and is being used as a model by Bush administration officials looking for ways to shift power and regulatory responsibilities back to the states. Just last week, President Bush said in California that he will pursue "a new environmentalism for the 21st century" that will show more deference to states, localities and private property owners. Anderson contends the most effective way to improve environmental quality is to rely on "positive market incentives" instead of punitive government regulations. At the heart of his theory is an unwavering belief that private ownership of natural and environmental resources is better than government ownership, and that competition between private business interests and environmentalists for control of those resources will produce trade-offs beneficial to both sides. Although rejected by most mainstream environmental groups, Anderson's free-market approach to environmentalism is gaining credence among some. Defenders of Wildlife, a prominent environmental group, helped ease the way for reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s by agreeing to compensate ranchers for any livestock they lost to the predators. In Oregon, environmentalists pay farmers who promise not to divert millions of gallons of river water for irrigation purposes to preserve a healthy stock of coho and chinook salmon. Seeking to build on local initiatives such as these, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton has asked Congress for $60 million to finance two new "private stewardship" programs to assist landowners in protecting the natural habitat of endangered species and support groups and individuals engaged in voluntary land and wildlife conservation. During a speech to an environmental policy conference in March, Norton declared: "Unfortunately . . . some in Washington believe the free market cannot be the environment's friend. Some in Washington believe the only way to protect the environment is through Washington-based command and control. But it's local people who see problems with their very own eyes who often know the best solutions." Norton's views closely parallel those of Anderson, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and executive director of the Political Economy Research Center, a Bozeman, Mont., think tank that until recently was heavily financed by conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife. "For many conservatives, environmentalism has always been an Achilles' heel, because people wrongly assume you want to destroy the environment for economic reasons," Anderson said. "But in reality, the tradition of conservationism is actually a conservative one. We need to get the incentives right by using property rights and markets to achieve what we want." PERC, founded in 1980, describes itself as the oldest institute dedicated to researching market principles to resolve environmental problems. But the center is more notable as an incubator for ideas that challenge the core of environmental protection -- from repealing the Endangered Species Act and the Superfund toxic waste cleanup legislation to selling off national parks and other public lands. It also has disputed that global warming is a serious problem. Anderson helped arrange a meeting between a dozen western scholars and lawyers and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in Austin in May 1999 to brief the presidential aspirant on such issues as vehicle emission standards, urban sprawl, wildlife protection and grazing regulation. Among those in attendance at the three-hour meeting were two close associates of Anderson -- Norton and Lynn Scarlett, head of the libertarian Reason Center in Los Angeles. After Bush's victory, Anderson served on the president-elect's Interior Department transition team and pushed Norton for a high-ranking post in the new administration. Norton subsequently chose Scarlett as her assistant secretary for budget and policy at Interior, assuring Anderson a pipeline into the department. Anderson, 54, an affable, soft-spoken Montana native and avid outdoorsman, received a doctorate in economics from the University of Washington in 1972. Many of the school's faculty had studied at the University of Chicago and were part of its strong tradition of conservative, free-market economic thinkers. Although Anderson and other free-market environmentalists are sometimes associated with former Interior secretary James Watt and the sagebrush rebellion of the 1980s, philosophically, they are distant cousins. The sagebrush manifesto was broad and revolutionary: Transfer federal lands to state control. Sell parts of national parks and block the creation of new ones. Defend the large subsidies given to ranchers, miners and lumberjacks. And leave property owners alone. Anderson would keep national parks that are financially self-sustaining but would sell off those lands that do not generate enough revenue, or turn them over to private, nonprofit groups to run. He would do away with most government subsidies, arguing that they promote inefficiency and result in the waste of natural resources and the destruction of fish and wildlife. Federal dam projects in the West have "exacted a heavy toll on the environment," Anderson said. As for the Endangered Species Act, designed to preserve rare wildlife, Anderson says it has had the perverse effect of encouraging property owners to take steps such as leveling old-growth trees to keep the species off their land. Anderson says that many property owners are good stewards of the land and that, if left alone, they would take steps to preserve rare species and protect the value of their property. Critics warn that many of Anderson's proposals, if taken seriously, could lead to the dismantling of major environmental protection laws and the breakup of the nation's most treasured national parks and forests. "His rhetoric is calm, but his policy is very extreme," Carl Pope of the Sierra Club said. "While I don't doubt there are a great many situations in which mechanisms which make use of price and other market tools can be effective ways to protect the environment, at the end of the day, these organizations consistently put the market ahead of the environment." Hank Fischer of Defenders of Wildlife, who worked with Anderson on the wolves project in Yellowstone and efforts to restore the grizzly bear to central Idaho and western Montana, says he is less troubled by Anderson's ideas. "There are a lot of free-market people who scare me to death with their ideas, but I always thought that Terry was more practical," Fischer said. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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