Environmentalists critical of Bush appointments for Interior and Energy secretaries

Judging from President George W. Bush's recent cabinet appointments, experts anticipate a dramatic shift in the see-saw between protecting the environment and extracting energy from public land. \nThe movement in energy's favor, environmentalists say, has become apparent with the appointments of Spencer Abraham as Energy Secretary and Gale Norton as Interior Secretary.\nWith California in the midst of blackouts, utilities facing bankruptcy and oil and natural gas prices sky high, experts agree that with the present appointments there will be a renewed effort to suck more fuel out of public land.\n"The country faces some big issues on energy and the environment," said Paul Friesema, Northwestern University political science professor who studies resource issues. "There's going to be tremendous fights. The California energy crisis is going to be used politically to exploit more public land. This is unfortunate."\nNorton, Abraham and President George W. Bush favor more drilling for oil and natural gas on public land. Potential drilling spots go beyond the talked-about push to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- which the same trio favors but which will require Congressional approval. Other areas include forests, wilderness and other federal land near Yellowstone National Park in Montana and Wyoming, the resource-rich spine of the Rocky Mountains, stretching from Salt Lake City to the Canadian border, and off-shore waters, mainly the Gulf of Mexico.\nA report released by the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that there is 65 percent more undiscovered natural gas offshore than originally thought.\n"We need to drill for gas," Bush said in a New York Times interview. "We are going to review parcel by parcel Western lands to determine the cost-benefit ratio for America. We need energy."\nBush, Norton and Abraham "seem to want to ignore the environmental side of the equation and focus on the energy side," said Michael Scott, program director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a Bozeman, Mont., environmental group. "The agenda for the future of the Western states is going to be energy development -- perhaps at the sacrifice of the very values that Americans identify with the West, which is wildlife, great open spaces, clean air, clean water."\nFrom 1989 to 1999, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the amount of power America generated rose 9.6 percent while the amount of power America used increased 24.7 percent.\nBut the prospect of more drilling appalls some environmental groups. \n"Is nothing sacred? Is nothing off-limits?" asked Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth, a Washington-based international environmental group.\nEnvironmentalists worry most about protecting the Rocky Mountain spine and the Yellowstone region. Drilling in this area could spoil crucial habitats for grizzly bears, elks and wolves, Scott said.\nWhile New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's appointment as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency has not drawn nearly as much fire as Norton or Abraham's appointments, environmentalists see Whitman's environmental record as "spotty," Blackwelder said.\nWhile criticizing massive budget cuts while she was governor, environmental groups credit Whitman with pushing legislation to protect vast tracts of New Jersey land from development. She also backed a bill providing millions for forest preservation. \nThe Natural Resources Defense Council said it viewed Whitman's appointment as "a more positive sign" than Bush's other two environmental appointments.\nBut the group criticized her "lax approach" to enforcement of environmental laws.\nAccording to the present administration, the millions of barrels produced from the oil drilling would break America's dependence on Saddam Hussein. \nEnvironmentalists' remedy for the energy crunch is conservation. "Why is it we never consider lowering our consumption of energy? Why must we take and take and take and never give back?" Blackwelder asked.