Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 TAG: 9403310271
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT SHEPARD COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
If Babbitt is anxious about the tempest and its political consequences for the presidency of his longtime friend, Bill Clinton, his manner does not betray it during an interview in February.
After a meeting with Mexico's ambassador and foreign minister to discuss cleaning up industrial pollution along the U.S.-Mexican border, Clinton's secretary of the Interior contemplates the fate of the Monarch butterfly.
``It is a perfect symbol of the interdependence of our two countries,'' Babbitt said after the meeting.
The forests on the mountain in Mexico where the Monarch hibernates are being destroyed, he explained, and it is ``not at all clear'' that the butterfly can move or adjust to another location.
``And when they're gone, so will one of the delights of American children - the sight of Monarchs on milkweeds in the summer,'' he said.
It's hard to imagine such concerns coming from James Watt, Manuel Lujan or William Clark, Babbitt's development-oriented predecessors from the George Bush and Ronald Reagan years.
As secretary of the Interior, Babbitt is the landlord of America's public domain - of more than 500 million acres of parks, range land, deserts, forests, wildlife refuges and Indian reservations.
But don't mistake Babbitt for just another tree-hugging environmentalist. His political acumen is impressive, the product of a career that has included one term as Arizona's attorney general, two terms as its governor and a brief campaign for president in 1988.
``You had to be there at a very precise moment in history to experience my campaign for president,'' Babbitt laughed, revealing an easy, self-deprecating sense of humor.
At the age of 55, Babbitt's moment in history is now.
After a year of ups and downs, he is on the verge of trying to redefine his native West by reforming the system that has allowed Westerners to grow rich off federally subsidized minerals, trees, grass and water.
``The time is at hand,'' Babbitt said. ``There is a New West out there. An awful lot of people have an interest in wildlife, in fishing, clean water, endangered species, a balanced ecosystem.''
Babbitt does not want to ``close the gate'' to economic development of the West or to grazing, mining and logging on federal land. But he believes the government must ``adjust the terms and conditions of resource use'' to protect the ecosystems.
Babbitt tried to change those terms and conditions through legislation last fall, only to be stymied by a Western-led filibuster in the Senate.
Since then, he has traveled almost nonstop through the West, meeting environmentalists and sportsmen as well as ranchers, miners and loggers to do administratively what Congress would not do legislatively.
``The dialogue historically has been between the Bureau of Land Management and the ranchers,'' he said. ``What I'm saying is we've got to go West and broaden the dialogue and get everybody at the table.''
For much of its history, particularly during the 12 years of Republican rule between 1980 and 1992, the Interior Department has been viewed widely as a captive of Western grazing, mining and timber interests, favoring business over environmental protection.
It was a view fueled by the fact that some 23,600 stockmen with grazing permits pay only $1.86 monthly for each animal that grazes on federal land; by the fact that miners, under the Mining Act of 1872, can take title to U.S. land for as little as $2.50 an acre.
During the Reagan and Bush administrations, ``the lights were out at the Interior Department,'' Babbitt said. They simply ``gave it up'' to Western interests.
Babbitt's efforts at reform, while applauded by environmentalists, have agitated Westerners who make their living off federal lands. Their allies in Congress warn that Babbitt could produce a political backlash against Clinton.
``There's a backlash, and it's going to cost the president in the next election if he doesn't settle it down,'' said Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo.
In the 1992 election, Clinton ended the longtime Republican ``lock'' on the West, carrying California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico. But according to Campbell, the West will ``swing back Republican, big time,'' if Babbitt pursues his reforms.
Among White House political strategists, such predictions are weighed as carefully as their polling data on more prominent issues like health care and welfare reform.
Babbitt is undeterred, though environmentalists see his recent firing of Jim Baca as director of the Bureau of Land Management as a bow to Western political pressure.
Baca, a forceful advocate of changing the grazing and mining practices on federal lands, claimed Babbitt offered him up as ``a sacrifice to Western governors and senators who are under the control of the lords of yesterday.''
Babbitt said Baca's ouster does not represent a retreat from grazing reforms. As to whether he has ``sold out'' to business interests, as some environmentalists suggested, Babbitt replied, ``The answer is an emphatic no.''
When he leaves this job, Babbitt said, he wants his legacy to be not only the reform of government regulations but also ``a heightened ethic of how we live on the land, how we adjust our presence to be a little less destructive and learn to live a little more thoughtfully.''
And to make the world a safer place for the Monarch butterfly.
by CNB