Mike Crapo

Sen. Mike Crapo is probably going to oppose a climate bill this year, but he's shown signs that he could be convinced to vote yes.

Crapo would want a bill to provide substantial support for nuclear power, which he emphasized during an exchange with Energy Secretary Steven Chu at a recent hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Crapo has also expressed interest in wind development in Idaho, which ranks among the top states in terms of wind potential, and has noted that Idaho could play a role in the biofuels sector.

"There is no debate that U.S is far too dependent on foreign and carbon-based energy sources," he said at a recent hearing.

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Still, in the end, he's likely to be a "no" vote.

Do you know more about this senator's stance on climate legislation? Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

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Illustration by Tom Twigg/GristThis is an actual thing: Larry Craig, former punchline of Idaho, has opened a Washington consulting firm to work as an energy lobbyist.

New West Strategies LLC offers “strategic advice, guidance, and advocacy” from Craig, the senator was arrested in 2007 in a sting operation against men cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He’s assisted by former chief of staff Michael O. Ware, a guy who obviously knows how to hitch a ride on a rising star.

The firm touts its affiliation with National Environmental Strategies, a lobbying firm whose clients include the American Gas Association and American Petroleum Institute (API), trade groups for the natural gas and oil industries. API’s members include ExxonMobil, which continues to fund climate change denial projects, despite a public promise to do otherwise.

So which is the real rock bottom—serving as a pawn of energy interests in the U.S. Senate, or jumping over the fence to become one of the special interest lobbyists who tell the pawns which way to move?

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George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Like the thorn under the rosebud, big piles of dirty dishes symbolize the tragedy of existence: pleasure (e.g., the pleasure of eating and cooking) invites pain.

But dishes are more than just a symbol; they also (unfortunately) need to be done, day in and day out. The question becomes: how to do them as painlessly -- and harmlessly -- as possible? Thankfully, Grist's own Umbra Fisk has signed off on the automatic dishwasher as the greenest option. "Dishwashers have been proven, again and again, to be more efficient than the typical hand-washer," Umbra writes. 

The choice of detergent matters, Umbra adds, because the conventional ones contain phosphates, ammonia, fragrances, bleach, and petroleum-based surfactants. The key offender is phosphates -- which both help get dishes squeaky clean, and end up in wastewater that leaches into waterways, creating fish-killing algae blooms. As companies begin to phase out phosphates, will dishes come out just as clean?

Without phosphates, are we forked?iStockIn at least one part of the country, some people are answering that question with a thunderous "no." Compelled to buy hippie-brand detergents by a strict limit on household phosphates, a flood of Spokane County, Wash., residents are streaming over the Idaho border to snap up conventional suds, Associated Press reports. In July 2010, the Spokane phosphate limits will extend to the entire state of Washington.

According to the AP, Spokane residents compelled to go phosphate free complain of dishes "encrusted with food, smeared with grease, and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand." One observer has even raised the specter of violent reaction: a blogger for the prominent conservative site Red State wondered, "At what point do [Washington residents] get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?"

Hmm. While the good citizens of Washington mull fisticuffs to avoid greening their dishwashers, I've been testing phosphate-free dishwashing detergents for weeks here in western North Carolina, and using them for years in the high-volume kitchen of the sustainable-agriculture project I helped start, Maverick Farms. The consistent result: no food crusts, grease smears, or rewashing at all -- just clean dishes.

So why the radically different experiences?

Turns out that the high level of minerals in hard water hinders soap's ability to clean -- and phosphates act as a water softener. Spokane's water is particularly hard; the water in western N.C. is soft. What that means is that people who live in hard-water areas might have to do a little conscious pre-rinsing to make phosphate-free detergents work. The practice needn't be a major water sucker.

Rather than pummel public officials or burn fossil fuel by trekking to Idaho for illicit powder, I urge Spokane residents to consider this tip from Umbra: "Pre-rinse your dishes in one of two ways: Either keep a rubber spatula at the sink and squeegee off each dish, or keep a little bowl of water handy and sponge off each dish."

With the soft-water caveat in mind, here is what I observed from several weeks' study of leading "green detergents." As you'll see, the results are about as exciting as lukewarm leftovers: all of the soaps worked just fine. For these test runs, I didn't rinse at all; I merely drained glasses and scraped plates. All products are both phosphate- and chlorine-free.

Ecover Dishwasher Tablets
Eco-claim: Plant-based ingredients; minimal impact on aquatic life

These little tablets worked like a dream. Even a plate that had been involved in a fish-breading project came out clear and shiny, with just one little fleck of crusted flour. Points off, though, for the plastic wrapper that swaddles each tablet.

Citrasolv Citradish Automatic Dish Detergent
Eco-claim: Contains no synthetic perfumes or dyes

This is the one I've used for years -- mainly because it's usually a little cheaper than the others on the supermarket shelf. It works great, even burnishing the bottoms of deep, fluted glasses crusted with dried red wine. Odd detail: the product contains a "spot prevention agent" called sodium polyacrylate polymer, which the company acknowledges is "not biodegradable." Environmental Working Group includes this stuff on its list of "polymer derivatives," which have these health effects: "cancer, reproduction and fertility, birth or developmental effects, organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)." Me, I'd rather have a few spots on my wine glasses than subject my family or the outside world to that stuff.

Seventh Generation Free and Clear Automatic Dishwasher Powder
Eco-claim: Safe for grey-water systems

This widely available brand works well. A small pot that had been used to reduce a tomato sauce and then left to dry overnight emerged sparkly, as did a Pyrex dish used to cook an apple crisp.

Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder
Eco-claim: Concentrated in order to leave the smallest footprint on the environment

Another stellar performer, this one transformed oily pesto residue on a half-dozen plates to a clean, glossy sheen. I wish the company revealed ingredients in individual products on its website, though.

The bottom line: Face it -- phosphates in dishwasher detergents are obsolete. If your water is soft like mine, hippie detergents get the job done. If not, learn to live with a little conscious pre-rinsing (see above), and you won't likely miss old-school suds. All of these products performed like champs. If we eliminate Ecover for its plastic wraps, Citrasolv for its polymer derivative, and Biokleen for its lack of ingredient transparency, we're left with Seventh Generation. 

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An Idaho-specific plan meant to replace President Clinton's national roadless rule in the state was agreed to Friday by the Bush administration, timber interests, and a few environmental groups. If approved by the Secretary of Agriculture after a public-comment period, the revised rule would protect just 3.3 million acres of forestlands in the state, down from 9.3 million in Clinton's original roadless rule. Over 400,000 acres of current roadless areas in the state would be open to development with no restrictions, worrying environmental groups who are opposed to the plan that those areas could be mined and subjected to other destructive practices that were restricted under the original rule. Another 5.6 million acres of "roadless" forestlands could be subject to logging (and its attendant roads) if it's determined that logging could reduce fire risk to communities. Environmental groups Trout Unlimited and the Idaho Conservation League have backed the plan while the Wilderness Society and others have criticized the compromise, arguing that national forest lands protected by the original roadless rule "should be left roadless and undeveloped."

sources:

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A federal judge has ruled that wolves should be returned to the endangered-species list for now, derailing plans for wolf hunts in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. The 2,000 or so gray wolves that inhabit the three states were removed from the endangered list in March; environmentalists sued to get them back on, saying populations were not yet stable. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, over 100 gray wolves have been killed by hunters in the days since they were delisted, a rate of almost a wolf a day. The federal judge will eventually decide if the relisting should be permanent. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may appeal.

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Saying that their concerns about trigger-happy hunters have been validated, 12 conservation and animal-rights groups have sued to get the gray wolf re-listed as an endangered species. The 1,500 wolves that roam through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho were delisted on Mar. 28 and can now be shot at will; a total of 37 have been killed in the last month. Conservation groups filed suit Monday, saying that the wolf population should be 2,000 at a minimum to protect genetic diversity. But federal biologists have a goal of maintaining a minimum population of only 300 wolves, and predict that even with willy-nilly killing, the population will stabilize well above that goal in the next few years.

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As feds prepare to delist gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, hunters polish their rifles

In Idaho and Montana, the impending removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf has sportsfolk salivating. The wolf, reintroduced to the region a decade ago, is blamed for killing elk and other critters that hunters want around so they can kill 'em themselves. At a rally in Idaho last week, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter pledged to allow the hunt of all but 100 of the state's roughly 650 wolves, saying he'd be first in line for a permit. The riled-up crowd of 300 hunters included one carrying a sign that read, "Wolves are illegal immigrants too." In more promising endangered-species news, the somewhat less bloodthirsty crowd at London's Zoological Society has launched the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered project. With the help of students, EDGE will aim to protect 100 of the world's most unusual at-risk species, including the bumblebee bat, the pygmy hippopotamus, the golden-rumped elephant shrew, and the Butch otter. Oh wait, sorry -- got our notes mixed up again.

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When you hear the phrase "a perfect storm," it's likely to conjure images of roiling whitecaps, perhaps a daring Coast Guard rescuer dangling from a helicopter to pull half-drowned sailors from their foundering vessels. Chances are the last thing it will bring to mind is land-use regulation.

But in four Western states, the unexpected confluence of two largely unrelated land-use issues -- a "perfect storm" of popular dissatisfaction -- is threatening to undo rules that have guided the development of Western communities for a generation or more.

On Election Day, voters in Arizona, California, Idaho, and Washington will face statewide ballot initiatives that would require taxpayers to pay landowners if a zoning rule or environmental law reduces the speculative value of their property. In some places, if a government couldn't pay, it would have to waive rules that limit what, or where, a landowner may build. These "regulatory takings" initiatives are styled after a controversial initiative, Measure 37, that Oregon voters approved in 2004 -- but this time, supporters have a new weapon in their arsenal.

Backers of the initiatives are billing them as a way to curb abuse of eminent domain -- the power of a government to seize property, with fair-market compensation, for a public purpose. They are hoping to capitalize on popular outrage over last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the city of New London, Conn., to condemn private homes for a private economic development project. But in doing so, they are falsely equating limits on development with government seizure of homes.

Sound confusing? That's exactly what the initiatives' proponents are counting on.

Eminent domain and regulatory takings are two separate issues. In fact, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in early September that an initiative in that state that addressed both issues had to be narrowed to just one (it now focuses solely on eminent domain). Still, the national anti-regulation movement sees the combination as a chance to spread the revolution ushered in by Oregon's Measure 37.

Meanwhile, environmentalists and supporters of land-use planning are fighting to squelch what they see as a radical infringement on the rights of communities to protect property values and ecosystems and to shape growth.

And voters are left trying to sort out the perplexing details.

In June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into the property-rights debate when it ruled, in Kelo v. City of New London, that the city could clear the path for a development project that included a $270 million research facility owned by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The idea of forcing working-class people out of their homes for the benefit of a private developer provoked outrage, whatever the potential boon to local tax coffers. Property-rights groups pounced on the ruling to stoke fear that governments everywhere were poised to seize homes for big developments. Demand for reform of eminent domain -- not normally high on anyone's list of sexy political issues -- suddenly became hot.

"The reaction to Kelo was a big surprise," says Dartmouth College economist William Fischel. "To those of us who follow this issue, it was just reaffirmation of a long-standing principle. But the rest of the country went, 'Say what?' We had this wonderful perfect-storm convergence."

Less than a year after the Supreme Court handed down its decision, the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, published a 64-page report entitled "Statewide Regulatory Takings Reform: Exporting Oregon's Measure 37 to Other States" [PDF]. The report specifically acknowledged the debt to the eminent-domain decision: "The national property-rights movement has been galvanized in recent years by Measure 37's passage, as well as widespread popular disenchantment with the abuse of eminent domain highlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo vs. New London decision. Public recognition of the need to protect the constitutional rights of private property owners has never been higher."

No one has done more to push this agenda than Howard Rich, a Reason Foundation contributor and chair of the group Americans for Limited Government. Rich has reportedly contributed nearly $3 million to these initiatives in the West -- more than three-quarters of all the funding the efforts have received.

Americans for Limited Government did not return several phone calls requesting comment. Its website says the bundle of initiatives, which it calls Protect Our Homes, "stops the government from taking your home simply because they want higher tax revenues. It also provides protection from regulatory takings, ensuring just compensation if the government devalues your property through regulatory actions."

While many in the opposing camp agree that eminent-domain reform should be addressed, it's the mish-mashing of the two issues that causes concern. "They're trying to slip these takings initiatives through the back door, riding Kelo in the front door," says Jason Jordan, a former government-relations consultant for the American Planning Association who heads a firm called Advocacy Associates. "That is clearly the strategy the property-rights community has embraced around these initiatives."

Even without the added layer of eminent domain, the takings question is a messy one. Zoning decisions are always a sensitive balance between the rights of property owners and the responsibility of government to protect the public welfare. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, in part, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Currently, under guidance established by the U.S. Supreme Court, land is usually only considered "taken" when the landowner has been denied "all economically viable use" of the property -- not in the event of a partial loss like a perceived devaluation from zoning. But property-rights advocates want to extend the definition.

Say a landowner with 100 acres wants to subdivide, and the zoning board says he has to allocate an acre for every house. The property-rights camp's argument now goes that if the developer wants to put up, say, 10 houses per acre, he should be compensated for the difference in income denied by the zoning decision. The zoning board argues that it is protecting the neighborhood's quality of life, and enforcing desires of the existing residents for slower, smarter growth.

Property-rights activists kick up a fuss about government preventing individuals from doing whatever they want on their land, but environmentalists point out that land-use regulations protect individuals and their property -- by, say, keeping a person's neighbor from building a hazardous-waste incinerator next door, or preventing an agri-biz conglomerate from putting up a factory farm at the edge of a subdivision.

While such decisions might reduce the perceived value of one landowner's property, they may actually increase the value of nearby property by keeping a neighborhood more clean and desirable, or by restricting the amount of land available for new housing, thus making existing housing more sought after. In fact, this complexity suggests that the fundamental premise of the initiatives may be flawed. "Some people have asked, If there is such a thing as a regulatory taking, aren't there just as many regulatory 'givings'?" says David Goldberg, communications director of Smart Growth America.

The only systematic research on the question of increased values through zoning appears to be work by University of Washington extension student John Abbotts. He looked at changes to land values in rural King County, Wash., from 1993 to 2004, and found that regulated land appeared to gain more value than land not covered by regulations.

"These takings initiatives say that when you change a regulation and it reduces the speculative value of my property, you have to pay that," Goldberg says. "The absurdity of it becomes clear when you look at the inverse: if you change a regulation that increases the value of my property, I owe [the government] the total amount of the profit."

Of course, no one's filing a claim in Oregon under the latter principle.

Since Measure 37 passed there, nearly 3,000 claims have been filed for compensation, totaling more than $5 billion, according to Portland State University's Measure 37 database. The most notorious of these claims, which was profiled in The New York Times, is for $203 million for a parcel of private property that's surrounded by the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. The owner of the property wants to be compensated for a pumice mine and power plant that he can't build.

Many observers think the passage of Measure 37 was in part a reaction to Oregon's aggressive land-use regulations. "Oregon's land-use regulations are awfully extreme, more extreme than any other place, especially their restrictions on out-of-city development," says Fischel. "This extremity creates polarized factions, gets good sympathetic stories, and creates a backlash."

According to Eric Stachon of 1,000 Friends of Oregon, a group that supports the state's land-use controls, "People didn't understand what they were voting on in 2004." The poster case during the campaign for Measure 37 was a nonagenarian who was prohibited from building a long-coveted home on land she owned, and residents "thought they were just voting on allowing a little old lady to build her dream home," he says. "When we conducted focus groups about the measure, people felt that the potential impacts we're now seeing were not believable.

"I think voters support individuals being able to do certain things, within limits, on their land," Stachon says, "but they also support the land-use planning that we have in this state. If you had a statewide vote on this in November, given what folks know now, it would be a very different outcome."

Anti-regulation advocates haven't limited their efforts to the states considering ballot initiatives this fall, but they've run into trouble in other areas. A Measure 37 clone in Georgia didn't get out of the state legislature. A statewide ballot initiative effort in Colorado was suspended in June after negotiations between the proponents and lawmakers. Missouri and Montana struck down takings measures for technical reasons. A proposal for an Oklahoma initiative didn't make the ballot because the court ruled that it addressed more than one issue, much like the Nevada decision. The South Carolina legislature considered, but couldn't agree on, takings language for a ballot initiative. And in June, voters in Napa County, Calif., rejected a takings initiative by 64 percent to 36 percent.

Meanwhile, California's version of the takings initiative, Proposition 90, has spurred the creation of a broad coalition of opponents. "We agree that we need to do something to address eminent-domain abuses, but Prop 90 is not what we need," says Kathy Fairbanks, a spokesperson for the "No on 90" campaign. "The regulatory takings provisions are too extreme. They will result in costing billions of dollars."

"It would be so expensive, it would diminish our ability to keep up with population growth in both metro and rural areas," echoes Nick Bollman, the founder and senior adviser of the California Center for Regional Leadership. And Tom Steinbach, executive director of California's Greenbelt Alliance, says, "Prop 90 would create a huge financial burden for government and for taxpayers. It [would] put a dramatic chilling effect on new protections for the environment, public health, and safety."

Will this emphasis on economics and smart growth hit home with voters, or will the specter of government seizures loom larger? We'll find out on Nov. 7. Planner Jordan says the public polling he's seen from the various states is "all over the place." But one thing, he says, has become clear: "The more people learn about the initiatives, the less support they express."

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Wolf population thriving in Rocky Mountain states

The wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountains has grown by more than 20 percent since last winter. Officials estimate that 158 wolf packs, totaling at least 1,229 members, are living it up in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. The midyear estimate is the highest population estimate since wolves were reintroduced to the region in 1995 and 1996; however, "t is important to note this estimate is very rough and a lot can change because of wolf mortality during the fall," says Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Guess we'll put away the pom-poms. Importantly to the area's ranchers, the rise in wolf population has not corresponded with a rise in the number of livestock killed or injured.

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Judge sides with caribou, bans snowmobiles from some Idaho national forests

Mountain caribou celebrated last week as a judge banned snowmobiles from a nearly 470-square-mile caribou recovery zone in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. The ban will hold unless the U.S. Forest Service can develop a winter recreation strategy that would enable noisy, polluting vehicles and the last mountain caribou herd in the Lower 48 states to coexist harmoniously, ruled U.S. District Judge Robert H. Whaley. There are about three dozen of the caribou left in the area, with what Whaley called a "precarious finger-hold" on survival (although hoof-hold, we think, would have been more apt). Snowmobile interests blamed logging, backcountry skiing, and climate change for the shrinking herd; conservationists presented evidence that snowmobile noise frightens caribou from feeding and calving grounds, and argued that vehicle trails compact snow, leaving the caribou without deep-snow protection from predators. "The court chooses to be overprotective rather than under-protective," Whaley wrote in his ruling.

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Idaho governor says no to coal, yes to whoopin' it up

Exhibiting the flair and confidence only a short-timer can afford, Idaho Gov. Jim Risch (R) has announced that the state don't need no stinkin' coal. Risch, who took office when Dirk Kempthorne resigned in May to head the Interior Department, will step down when the term ends in January. So why not have some fun? The guv will opt out of a federal mercury-trading program Kempthorne committed to, and told a cheering crowd on Wednesday that the state can meet its energy needs without mercury-spewing, coal-fired power plants -- in particular, one proposed by Sempra Energy. "Had that plant been constructed, it would have been the largest polluter of mercury in the state," Risch said. "That is simply not going to happen on my watch." Which ends, as we might have mentioned, real dang soon. But activists in Idaho -- one of only three states without a single coal-fired plant -- have high hopes. Risch's decision "shows what people can do if they care," said a member of the state's Board of Environmental Quality. Aww.

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House approves new wilderness areas in California, Oregon, and Idaho

The U.S. House yesterday unanimously approved bills that would create over 1,000 square miles of new wilderness areas and protect 47 miles of rivers in California, Oregon, and Idaho. A bill to ban drilling in New Mexico's Valle Vidal also passed. All of the bills are compromises hammered out over several years, involving the disparate interests of business owners, ranchers, local governments, recreationists, conservationists, and Indian tribes. The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Act would protect more than 277,000 acres as wilderness, and designate about 79,000 acres as a recreation area for off-road vehicles and mountain bikes. The Oregon bill would establish 77,200 acres of wilderness in the Mount Hood National Forest, and the Idaho legislation would create three new wilderness areas in the mountainous portions of the Sawtooth and Challis national forests, protecting a total of 315,215 acres. The bills now go to the Senate.

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Idaho legislature passes two-year moratorium on coal-fired power plants

In a two-for-one snub of President Bush and Idaho Gov. (and likely future Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne (R), Idaho's Republican-controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill last week that would put a two-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the state. The bill -- which says the plants "may have a significant negative impact upon the health, safety, and welfare" of state residents, natural resources, and agriculture -- now goes to Kempthorne for his signature or veto. The Kempster's now squished between the will of Idahoans, who overwhelmingly support the bill, and his future masters in the Bush administration, who overwhelmingly support the coal industry. Hours before the bill passed, California-based Sempra Energy, which had proposed a controversial coal-fired plant for Idaho's rural Jerome County, withdrew its plans and said it would sell the development rights.

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Enviros decry Bush's nomination of Kempthorne to lead Interior

He's a mountain-bike enthusiast, two-term governor, and object of fear and loathing among conservationists. And he just picked another one. Mere days after the resignation of Gale Norton as secretary of the interior, President Bush nominated as her replacement Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R), saying he would help "develop the energy potential of federal lands and waters in environmentally sensitive ways." While some headline writers celebrated the ascension of a man named "Dirk" to high office, many environmentalists were dismayed. The Dirkster's gubernatorial record includes suing to overturn Clinton's roadless rule and pushing for changes to weaken the Endangered Species Act. And as an Idaho senator in the 1990s, Dirkheimer earned a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 1 percent (that's no typo!). Some Bushie environmental policies could put Tricky Dirk in a tough spot -- think selling off Western lands beloved by his home-state hook-and-bullet crowd -- but for the most part, Bush and his Dirk are peas in a dirty-energy pod.

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The rumor mill is churning fast as Interior Secretary Gale Norton prepares to bid adieu to the Bush administration, and two names on the short list of possible replacements are leading the pack: for an outside-the-Beltway pick, Dirk Kempthorne, Republican governor of Idaho; for an inside-the-agency pick, Lynn Scarlett, currently Norton's No. 2, who will likely run the department anyway until a permanent replacement is secured.

"This administration has done things two ways when it comes to nominations," observes Frank Maisano, a lobbyist for the energy industry. "They find a high-profile person outside Washington who can be easily confirmed, carry his own water, and lift the profile of the agency" -- think Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who served as Bush's first EPA administrator -- "or the under-the-radar administrative person who can make the trains run on time, is an effective manager, and has the respect of agency staffers" -- think current EPA administrator Stephen Johnson.

Whichever course the Bush administration chooses in this case, it's a safe bet that the outcome will be business as usual.

The White House likely has no intention of changing its drill-and-dig agenda at Interior -- on the contrary. Last Friday, after Norton tendered her resignation, President Bush hailed her as "a strong advocate for the wise use and protection of our nation's natural resources."

It was a surprisingly unabashed reference to the Wise Use movement launched in the 1980s, whose anti-environmental architects (including Norton, a Colorado native) hailed from the West and pushed an industry-backed agenda calling for privatizing national parks, drilling in wilderness spots including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and logging in roadless areas including Alaska's Tongass National Forest -- pretty damn close to Interior's agenda during Norton's tenure.

Lynn Scarlett: moving up in Interior?

Photo: DOI.

"We will be looking West" to find a replacement for Norton, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card told The Denver Post. "She came to the job with a real appreciation of Western lands. ... We will be looking for people who have the same appreciation."

So appreciative was Norton as to oversee a 22 percent boost in coal production on (largely Western) U.S. public lands during her tenure, and a 17 percent increase in natural-gas production.

What other Westerners would be faithful to this trend? The names circulating include Marc Racicot, former Republican governor of Montana, head of the Republican National Committee, chair of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, and lobbyist for energy, mining, and timber interests (need we say more?).

Also, Scott McInnis, who represented Colorado's rural 3rd district in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2005. McInnis is characterized by David Hayes, deputy secretary of Interior under Clinton and now an attorney with the D.C. firm Latham and Watkins, as "a very, very aggressive promoter of a pro-development and anti-federal agenda ... on par with [Richard] Pombo," the notorious chair of the House Resources Committee and environmental foe.

Then there's James Hansen, the former Republican member of Congress from Utah, whose lifetime voting score from the League of Conservation Voters is a grand 8 out of a possible 100, and who once, as an alternative to the Endangered Species Act, proposed the Human Protection Act, which would prioritize the demands of commerce over the survival of endangered creatures.

Also on the shortlist are Colorado Gov. Bill Owens (R) and Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas (R), both a few shades more moderate than the other possibilities, but nevertheless opposed by enviros in their home states and known for their longtime support of the Wise Use agenda.

Last but not least is former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who was first elected as a Democrat in 1992 but switched parties after Republicans won control of Congress in 1994. A Native American, he is now a lobbyist for Native American affairs at the D.C.-based law firm Holland & Knight. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chair of the Energy Committee, which is responsible for initial approval of the Interior nominee, said at a press conference yesterday that Nighthorse Campbell would be easy to get confirmed. "We can't just get somebody who will take a year to get through," he said.

Still, topping the list is Kempthorne, who is ripe for the picking: Nearing the end of his second term as Idaho's governor, he's a former senator who has been passed over for administration posts (including EPA chief) in the past, as well as an ambassadorship, gives the appearance of being moderate, and has a long history of developing policy on land management. "He has more stature than any of the other picks on the shortlist," says Hayes. "He's a force to be reckoned with -- he has a very strong voice on Interior matters, has been a big influence on Norton, and would be a very interesting pick."

Could Dirk Kempthorne fill Gale Norton's shoes?

Photo: State of Idaho.

In 1997, Kempthorne worked with Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.) and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to propose modifications to the Endangered Species Act that even some enviros characterized as reasonable and forward-thinking. "A number of organizations including Environmental Defense recognized this 1997 effort as a moderate and commendable compromise on ESA," says Hayes, adding that Kempthorne "would probably be the easiest of the lot to get a Senate confirmation."

That said, Kempthorne has also been a longtime proponent of exploiting natural resources on federal lands -- drilling in the Arctic Refuge and on the outer continental shelf, and logging in roadless areas of national forests. And as a governor, Kempthorne appears to have been moving rightward in his environmental policies, adapting to the current polarized political scene after the moderate '90s.

Justin Hayes, program director of the Idaho Conservation League, says Kempthorne has been an "outspoken critic of the ESA, pushing Gale Norton to let states implement their own species-management programs and shift that authority away from Washington."

Rob Vandermark, director of the Heritage Forests Campaign, adds that Kempthorne has become a "poster child for anti-roadless rule efforts." The highly protective rule put in place by the Clinton administration has, under Bush, been replaced with one that effectively lets governors decide whether to keep roads out of pristine national-forest areas in their states.

"Kempthorne has allowed the logging industry to wield a very heavy hand in the public comment process on roadless implementation in Idaho," says Vandermark, "and seems inclined to turn the fate of ... wilderness areas over to industry interests." That's particularly concerning, he says, given that Idaho contains the most roadless forests in the Lower 48, and the last U.S. ecosystem outside of Alaska that still contains all of its component species.

Dave Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society says there's little doubt that Kempthorne would come down on the same side as Norton on the major issues now on the table at Interior: changes to National Park Service policy that could allow increased use of snowmobiles, jet skis, and off-road vehicles; the push to substantially expand drilling on the outer continental shelf; and the plan to sell off 125,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and as much as 200,000 acres of Forest Service land in order to plug holes in federal funding for rural schools and roads.

Then again, "Kempthorne is not a yes-man," says David Hayes, "so it's possible that he could surprise us -- acting, say, as a counterweight to the aggressive moves by Pombo to completely undercut ESA."

This is more than enviros could expect from Lynn Scarlett, a staunch libertarian who has been one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's environmental agenda, and has argued that the invisible hand of the marketplace "has a green thumb."

"Any way you slice it," says Alberswerth, "the outlook is not good."

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