Fishing For Leadership

By Dick Thompson

"I am an environmentalist," proclaimed President Bush during his campaign for the White House. Citing his love of the great outdoors and the pleasure he takes in hunting and fishing, the candidate made it clear that protecting the environment and wildlife from the ravages of pollution would be one of his top priorities. That stance raised great expectations among environmentalists, who had been suffering for eight years while President Reagan's neglect of conservation issues allowed many problems, from acid rain to toxic waste, to fester dangerously. But just four months into the Bush Administration, impatient nature lovers have begun to doubt the strength of the President's commitment to cleaning up the environment. Several signals, including Bush's slow response to the Alaska oil spill and his refusal even to consider an increase in the gasoline tax, have raised concern that he is not the kind of forceful, decisive leader the country needs to deal with the growing environmental crisis.

That fear intensified last week as the Administration appeared to be in a muddle over one of the most pressing ecological issues: global warming. James Hansen, a top scientist in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was all set to brief a congressional committee on how the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere could create a greenhouse effect and produce severe climate changes. Hansen believes this greenhouse warming may have already started.

Before Hansen could deliver his testimony, however, his text was amended by officials at the Office of Management and Budget, who routinely review statements made to Congress by members of the Administration. OMB staffers inserted a disclaimer stating that scientific projections of the impact of global warming were merely "estimates" and "not reliable predictions." To Hansen, the effect of the change was to water down his testimony. When he appeared before a Senate subcommittee, he handed out the OMB-revised written testimony, but then gave his own uncensored views of the dangers of global warming.

The OMB's action raised concern that the White House is not serious about dealing with the greenhouse threat. And the pressure on Bush increased when Britain called for rapid drafting of an international treaty to address global warming. Finally on Thursday, even as the President was busy reacting to the crisis in Panama, the White House sent a special cable to the U.S. delegation attending a U.N.-sponsored environment meeting in Geneva. The cable, signed by chief of staff John Sununu, directed the American representatives to invite the other participating nations to a global-warming workshop in Washington this fall. Said Sununu in the message: "The scope and importance of this issue are so great that it is essential for the U.S. to exercise a leadership role."

But the U.S. appeared to be playing catch-up, just as it did on ozone depletion. It was the European Community that first proposed a total ban on production of CFCs, the chemicals that are believed to be destroying the life- preserving layer of ozone in the atmosphere. The U.S., which had been preparing a similar proposal, agreed to join the ban. But the timing of the announcement made Bush look like a follower, rather than a leader, on the ozone question.

By the same token, the President's response to the Alaska oil spill tarnished his leadership credentials. Bush failed to grasp the symbolic importance of dealing personally with a major environmental disaster. When an Exxon tanker dumped 11 million gal. of oil into Prince William Sound, Bush remained in Washington instead of touring the scene of the accident. Even his old friend John Chafee, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says, "That was unfortunate, a missed opportunity." Despite the lack of personal involvement, however, Bush has sent ships and personnel from the Navy, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard to help in the cleanup operation.

For all their qualms, environmentalists concede that Bush has taken several commendable steps. Among them: proposing new regulations on medical-waste disposal, requesting stiffer penalties for ocean dumpers, calling for a moratorium on offshore oil drilling in Florida and California, and helping persuade Japan not to finance construction of a Brazilian road that would encourage continued deforestation of the Amazon region.

But all these actions were relatively noncontroversial and had no significant impact on the economy. To deal effectively with tougher issues like global warming, Bush will need to push for measures that require sacrifice and stir protest. Almost everyone agrees, for example, that the easiest way to cut carbon-dioxide emissions would be to reduce wasteful consumption of gasoline in the U.S. The Administration is expected to announce soon that by 1991 automakers will be required to raise the average fuel efficiency of their fleets to 27.5 m.p.g., up from 26.5 m.p.g. this year. That is a step in the right direction, but an extremely timid one. The Government should be setting much higher goals. An even quicker way to curb fuel consumption would be to boost the gasoline tax, but Bush seems to be locked $ into his "Read my lips" campaign pledge to avoid new taxes.

The next important test will be the Administration's position on proposed revisions of the Clean Air Act, which the White House has promised to announce by the end of this month. Environmentalists want Bush to back, among other things, tough new limits on smokestack emissions of sulfur dioxide, a major cause of acid rain. But that could cause a political backlash in states that produce high-sulfur coal, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania. "It's decision- making time for George Bush," says John Adams, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Unless he acts credibly, his environmental image is in danger of unraveling."

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: DISAPPOINTING CATCH