THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504280005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop is the state's top environmental official.
But judging from her recent remarks to staff writer Scott Harper and her indifference to Earth Day celebrations in Virginia, she is not environmentalists' best friend.
She believes environmentalists have accomplished what they set out to accomplish and no longer are needed.
``They ought to claim victory and go home,'' she said. ``They should have a victory parade and just go home.''
Instead, she said, environmentalists are publishing misleading reports to keep the public believing more work needs to be done. She called environmental activists ``fearmongers.''
She would not oppose eliminating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and handing its scientific and regulatory duties to state governments.
``When Nixon created the EPA,'' she said, ``states didn't have environmental departments. Now look at us. States, cities and even towns have their own environmental departments. We're tanned, rested and ready to take the lead role.''
Many environmentalists would argue that she is more tanned and rested than ready.
It would seem self-evident that clean air and clean water are national issues, as well as local issues. The air that blows across Virginia, for example, did not originate in Virginia. If it arrived here from a state with lax air pollution regulations, Virginians would suffer.
It would also seem self-evident that the war to protect the environment cannot be won in the conventional sense, with one side defeated. The environment must be protected every day. If the environmentalists hold a parade and go home, as Dunlop suggested, it won't be.
Dunlop, 43, is far more anti-federal government than pro-environment. Her interest in the environment grew not from a reverence for Nature but from a distaste for government.
She is right to complain about the maddening complexity of EPA regulations. Many make IRS instructions seem lucid by comparison. And she's right, there have been government excesses in the name of saving the environment - though they came in response to decades of environmental neglect.
Dunlop worries that overzealous enforcement of needlessly restrictive environmental laws will stifle business and slow the creation of jobs.
We worry that Dunlop, having declared environmentalists the victors, has no enthusiasm for continuing the good fight. And it must be continued. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MS. DUNLOP
by CNB