FIVE QUESTIONS

with Dale Curtis

Dale Curtis is editor and publisher of National Journal's Greenwire and Daily Energy Briefing. You can contact him by writing to dcurtis@njdc.com.

 

 

Q: You went to Kyoto last December. Now that the ink has dried on the Protocol, what do you think it's going to take to win Senate ratification?

A: Democratic control of the Senate and/or several years in which the debate matures and achieves some bipartisan consensus. For the next year or two, the real action will be on the diplomatic side, where the Clinton administration is committed to undertake significant negotiations with key developing nations. The goal of those talks -- with countries like China, India, Poland and Argentina -- will be to gain their "meaningful participation" in the climate convention, something that both the Clinton admin. and the Senate have insisted upon having before ratification is even considered.

 

Q: What do you see as some other looming legislative issues for this and next year? Do the Republicans dare to revive their environmental agenda of 1995?

A: No, the Republicans changed course in early 1996 when Speaker Gingrich appointed a House GOP task force to develop a more appealing environmental agenda than the one that mostly failed in 1995. What's tragic is that the Republicans still haven't figured out how to make the "new wave" of cost-conscious, pro-business environmentalism their own cause. It still seems that for the most part, "they just don't get it." For now, Al Gore and Carol Browner get to claim the mantle of pro-active innovation -- although some would dispute that!

The best bets for environmental legislation this year are:

-- Reauthorization of the nation's transportation law, currently known as ISTEA. Both of the competing versions pending in the House and Senate would provide much more money for asphalt, but in a burst of green pork, they also would boost funds for mass transit and environment-related programs such as "congestion mitigation," bike trails and beautification.

-- Reform of the Superfund law. This is one issue that members of Congress would love to get off of their plates, and the two parties are not that far apart. All sides agree that the toxic-waste cleanup program must be streamlined to speed cleanups, cut costs, reduce litigation and improve accountability. The insurance and real estate industries and local leaders are begging for a resolution. The only question is whether some dynamic leaders will persist in cutting through the crap and seizing the chance for an upbeat election-year compromise -- and whether environmentalists will go along with certain reforms.

Other issues rumbling in the background include bipartisan Endangered Species Act legislation; GOP-backed proposals on property rights and regulatory reform; and the perennial battles over Western resources, especially the Clinton admin.'s plan for a moratorium on new road building in roadless areas of the national forests.

 

Q: Any surprises in environmental politics of late? Unanticipated developments, odd bedfellows?

A:I was pleasantly shocked when the automakers recently decided to go forward with offering much cleaner gasoline-powered cars and trucks than the Clean Air Act requires. Many companies and industries have learned the logic of being more pro-active on environmental affairs, but the automobile industry was slow to join the trend.

The latest developments -- combined with the serious money now being invested by all the major companies in ultra-low- and even zero-emissions vehicle designs -- truly marks the beginning of the next generation of automotive technology. A radical improvement of the fuel-efficiency of the nation's vehicle fleet -- which now seems possible with technologies like gasoline-electric hybrid engines and fuel cells -- could radically change the future debate about air pollution (which could fall further, despite population and economic growth), and traffic and urban sprawl (which could continue to grow unabated).

 

Q: Can you generalize about the differences between the environmentalism of the baby boomers and the environmentalism of today's young adults?

A: Well, I was born in 1962, so I like to think I'm both a late boomer and still a young adult! But there is a generational change occurring, and that is the shift toward a "New Environmentalism" that emphasizes cooperative, market-oriented, grassroots solutions, as opposed to "command and control," litigation and regulation by distant experts. The political fringes will persist, and you will still find major disagreements between figures who espouse New Environmentalist philosophy, such as Carol Browner and Gregg Easterbrook. But over the last generation, we have learned that if we wait for governments to solve environmental problems, the results will be too little, too late and too expensive. There is a new way that has been tested and has begun to show results, and building on those successes must be the challenge of our own and future generations.

 

Q: And what's on the horizon for Greenwire? Got any institutional ambitions you want to share?

We launched an an energy daily in November and have some additional initiatives planned ... But I'm quite proud of the convenient, powerful environmental information tool we have already developed. Greenwire is still the only place to get a comprehensive daily briefing on the ennvironment-related news developments that matter most in Washington, the states and around the world.

 

Thanks, Dale.

 

Recent "Five Questions":

Archived 1/1/98 -- Gene Ulm, Vice President of Public Opinion Strategies, an Alexandria, VA-based political polling and consulting firm.

Archived 11/04/97 -- Deb Callahan, Executive Director of the League of Conservation Voters, the electoral arm of the American environmental movement.

Archived 8/05/97 -- Doug Bailey, Chairman and co-founder of the American Political Network, producer of addictive daily electronic news briefings on politics (The Hotline), the environment (Greenwire), and other pressing issues.